By Mike Haynes
Eight days from now, Kathy and I wanted to be in New York
City. It’ll be 50 years since Feb. 9, 1964 – the date when the Ed Sullivan Show
introduced the Beatles to America.
At age 13,
I don’t think I saw that first show, when the Fab Four played five songs for
728 people live and 73 million on TV. I believe I caught up two weeks later,
when John, Paul, George and Ringo continued electrifying teenagers with their
third Ed Sullivan Sunday night appearance.
The 2014 media
certainly is aware that the lads from Liverpool turned out to be more than John
 |
| The Beatles perform on the Ed Sullivan Show on Feb. 9, 1964. (AP Photo) |
There’s
even a Beatles convention – the Fest for Beatles Fans – that’s been going on
for 40 years, and next weekend it’ll take place in New York. On the chance that
Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, the two surviving mop tops, would show up at
the Fest, I reserved a hotel room for my wife and me.
Alas, the
biggest names on the Fest schedule are Donovan and Peter and Gordon, and along
with other obligations, that forced me to cancel the hotel reservation. We will
be mighty mad if Paul or Ringo drop by unannounced.
I suppose
the main reason Kathy and I like this rock group is Beatlemania – the
combination of fun, lively music, likable personalities, Liverpool accents,
distinctive haircuts and the screaming, hyperventilating fans who chased these
boys everywhere in the early ’60s. People magazine quoted Catherine Andrews, a
14-year-old in 1964: “They were almost like a religion – we were out of our
minds over them.”
Yes, there
are some elements of religion tied to the Beatles. Kathy and I once toured
Liverpool and London on a “Beatles Pilgrimage.” (See “Magical Mystery Tour,”
amarillo.com, Aug. 25, 2002 - http://amarillo.com/stories/2002/08/25/ent_beatles1.shtml).
We were big fans, but others in our group were almost spiritual about it. In
front of the Liverpool house where Paul grew up, one woman clipped grass and
put it in a plastic bag. Several American fans touched an olive drab jacket
John Lennon had worn like it was Christ’s robe.
Steve
Turner’s 2006 book, “The Gospel According to the Beatles” looks at the obvious
spiritual aspects of this band that certainly did influence popular culture, if
not people’s beliefs. John told a journalist in 1966 the Beatles were more
popular than Jesus, and as blasphemous as that sounds, there was some truth to
it. The four famously flirted with Eastern mysticism, and George Harrison stuck
with it, sitar and all.
None of the
Beatles has been known to embrace Christianity, although Turner writes about a
“born-again” period in John’s later life when he wrote evangelist Oral Roberts,
asking, “Explain to me what Christianity can do for me. Is it phoney? Can He
love me? I want out of hell.”
Maybe more relevant
to us today is the cultural change the Beatles helped propel, for good and for
bad. Edna Gunderson of USA Today wrote, “The band hijacked the entertainment media and
transcended music to become a chapter in world history. Its members had
political clout, spiritual authority, cultural sway and the ears of the planet.”
By the time
they broke up officially in 1970, the Beatles were more than a band. They had
created complicated music with mystery and messages. They had used drugs and
bickered among themselves. But on Feb. 9, 1964, all that America cared about
was those heads of hair shaking, the guitars and drums, the cute grins and the
harmonized “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
They aren’t a religion to me, but they sure
are fun.
* * *
Mike Haynes teaches journalism at Amarillo
College. He can be reached at AC, the Amarillo Globe-News or haynescolumn@hotmail.com. Go to www.haynescolumn.blogspot.com for other recent columns.
