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| From | "mtn-high" <mtn-high@comcast.net> |
| Subject | Re: 40 Years Ago Today (well, yesterday) |
| Date | Mon, 9 Feb 2004 14:46:19 -0700 |
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This is without a doubt the finest post I've seen hit the Audities mailing
list in my time here.
You nailed it, John. Completely. It's the difference between standing on the
rim of the Grand Canyon and taking it all in via every sense in your being
and looking at a photo of the canyon in a book.
In the end, it was about more than the music. It was all-encompassing.
Thanks for putting my thoughts into words better than I ever could have
done.
Pat
----- Original Message -----
From: "John L. Micek" <jlmicek@mindspring.com>
To: <audities@smoe.org>
Sent: Monday, February 09, 2004 7:30 AM
Subject: 40 Years Ago Today (well, yesterday)
But this was in Slate this morning. Fairly interesting read:
Teen Spirit
What was so important about the Beatles' appearances on The Ed Sullivan
Show?
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Friday, Feb. 6, 2004, at 1:09 PM PT
It may be impossible for anyone who wasn't living at the time to grasp how
much the country changed 40 years ago this Sunday. On Feb. 9, 1964, at 8
p.m. ET, the Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show.
Everyone knows the rough outlines: the Fab Four mop-heads from Liverpool,
their journey to America, thousands of teenagers screaming in the streets,
the subsequent "British invasion," and the transformation of rock 'n' roll.
But Americans under, say, 40 have had to take the historic importance of
these events on faith. Listening many years after the fact to those early
Beatles songs ("I Wanna Hold Your Hand," "She Loves You," "Please Please
Me," and so forth), they must have wondered-must still wonder-what the fuss
was about. These are fairly sappy tunes, compared with what followed, from
not only the Beatles but other bands.
A new DVD clears up the generational mystery. The two-disc set is called The
Four Complete Historic Ed Sullivan Shows Featuring the Beatles, an inelegant
but meticulous title. It contains all four Sullivan shows on which the
Beatles made live appearances-the three Sundays in a row in February '64
(Feb. 9, 16, and 23) and their return on Sept. 12, 1965-not just the parts
with the Beatles but each hourlong program in its entirety, commercials
included.
Not only is it a fascinating time capsule (and a teary piece of nostalgia
for those of us who well remember the broadcasts from our youth), it also
provides an unvarnished picture of the popular culture of the era-and, thus,
the impact that the Beatles had on it.
To a degree that young Americans couldn't comprehend today, The Ed Sullivan
Show was American popular culture. More than 50 million Americans-over half
of the TV-viewing audience at the time-tuned in to it on CBS every Sunday
night. (More than 70 million watched on the night of the Beatles' debut.) It
was a variety show like no other, with animals, acrobats, puppets,
plate-twirlers, stand-up comics, nightclub singers, scenes from the latest
hit musicals and ballets-all the acts personally selected by this
odd-looking, odd-talking, otherwise untalented ex-gossip columnist.
As John Leonard put it in his wonderful essay, "Ed Sullivan Died for Our
Sins," "Never before and never again in the history of our republic would so
many gather so loyally, for so long, in the thrall of one man's taste." In
an age when televisions had only three channels, Leonard noted,
Ed Sullivan was a one-man cable television system with wrestling, BRAVO
and comedy channels, Broadway, Hollywood and C-SPAN, sports and music video.
We turned to him once a week in our living rooms for everything we now
expect from an entire industry every minute of our semi-conscious lives.
Watching these shows now on DVD, we reach one conclusion very quickly: Most
of the stuff on "Sullivan" was crap. And the stuff that wasn't bad (and some
of it wasn't) was, for the most part, very old-not old in the sense of
having been aired 40 years ago, but old hat, even at the time, relics of the
Borscht Belt: hack impressionists, dreary puppets, lame parlor magicians,
and mediocre starlet-singers. (Who remembers that Mitzi Gaynor-or
"Hollywood's delightful Mitzi Gaynor," as Ed introduced her-had such a lousy
voice?)
Everybody liked this stuff back then. I remember liking it, too. That's all
there was. There was no concept of an alternative.
That's why the Beatles were such a big deal. From the moment they strummed
those electric chords, wagged their mops of hair, and smiled those beaming,
ironic, isn't-this-cool-but-also-a-bit-absurd smiles, we all knew it was
something from a different galaxy. (And, given how rarefied foreign travel
was then, England might as well have been in a different galaxy.)
A slew of clueless scholars and columnists have mused, over the decades,
that the Beatles caused such a sensation because they snapped us out of the
gloom brought on by the Kennedy assassination, which had taken place the
previous November. This is silly sociology. Look at these DVDs or at any
footage of a Beatles concert or a Beatles mob. It's extremely doubtful that
any of these teenage girls were cheering, screaming, palpitating, even
crying with joy as some sort of catharsis to their anguish over Lee Harvey
Oswald's deed in Dallas. Meanwhile, their parents, who were the ones more
likely traumatized by the death of the president, remained tellingly immune
to Beatlemania.
The Beatles took hold of our country and shook it to a different place
because they were young, because their music had a young, fresh feel, and
because-this is the crucial thing-our parents didn't get it.
Ed Sullivan didn't entirely get it, either-and why should he have? He was
even older than our parents. Legend has it that, on a trip to England a few
months earlier, Ed saw the commotion the Beatles were causing and thought
he'd book the lads on his show as a novelty act-until their manager, Brian
Epstein, insisted on top billing. You can imagine Ed thinking: Top billing
for these kids? Above Frank Gorshin, Myron Cohen, Gordon and Sheila McRae?
Above Hollywood's delightful Mitzi Gaynor?!
The day after that Sullivan show, every boy came to school with his hair
combed down as far as he could manage (which, in most cases, wasn't very
far). Some went out and bought Beatle wigs. Or saved up to buy a guitar and
then got together with friends to form a band. And this was OK, as long as
you didn't play too loud. The Beatles' rebelliousness was playful, not
menacing. (Ed frequently praised them, in his introductions, as "fine
youngsters.") Their sexuality had an androgynous element-that long hair and
such pretty faces (except Ringo, the funny mascot of the group). They were a
palatable transition to the truly menacing figures to come-the Rolling
Stones (who weren't booked by Sullivan till 1967 and, even then, were forced
to change the lyrics of "Let's Spend the Night Together" to "Let's spend
some time together"), later punk rock, and beyond.
The timing of the Beatles was perfect. 1964 marked the emergence of the Baby
Boomers as a social force-and the Beatles were the vehicle for their
ascendance as a cultural force. What records were the No. 1 hits on the pop
charts before the Beatles took over the slot and stayed there for years to
come? Bobby Vinton's "There! I've Said It Again," the Singing Nun's
"Dominique," and Dale & Grace's "I'm Leaving It Up to You." The Beatles
changed the charts forever. You can draw a line in the historical sands of
popular culture at 1964. A lot of pop music that came after that point still
sounds modern today. Almost all the pop music that came before that point
sounds ancient.
On Feb. 9, 1964, The Ed Sullivan Show was the stage on which this change was
dramatized. The Beatles were the young and the new; almost all the other
acts were the old and the stale. That night, at least to every kid I knew,
the future looked clear, happy, and ours.
___________________________
John L. Micek
State Government Reporter
The Morning Call
Harrisburg, Pa.
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