On February 9, 1964 when John, Paul, George and Ringo first appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, I was 11 years, 11 months and 7 days old. I didn't think of it in these terms then but now, I think it was the second time in my life I witnessed the world around me changing. The first, of course, had occurred just eighty days earlier: The assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
The Coming of The Beatles was, of course, not such a tragic jolt and no one at the time — but no one — imagined how important those four lads and their kind of music would become to the world. It wasn't just surly adults like that columnist I quoted who didn't then see the significance of it all. It was everyone.
I remember feeling indifferent to the whole matter. I watched Ed's show that Sunday night and thought, first of all, that those teen girls in the audience screaming looked ridiculous. I also thought the way the show had cut to them was intended to make them look even more ridiculous. Someone on Ed's staff (maybe even Ed) thought the "show" was not those four boys with the then-freaky haircuts. It was the way those girls in the audience reacted.
But to me, it was all a big "So what?" The music itself was fine but unremarkable. None of us knew how much better they'd get and how their music would be so tethered to what was happening here, there and everywhere for years to come.
At Emerson Junior High the next day, there was some talk about The Fab Four but not a lot. There was a girl I sat next to in some classes named Marnie who was quite ga-ga over the whole Beatles thing. She was unable to talk about much else except them their music, their outfits and which one of them she'd marry.
I think she finally set her sights on Ringo, not because she liked him best but because he seemed the neediest. Being way too logical for my age, I told her that, given the way record sales were going, not one of those four gents was ever going to be needy. She gave me an annoyed look and explained: "No fan of rock and roll ever chooses to sleep with the drummer." This was a thirteen-year-old girl telling me this.
Beatlemania did not sweep totally over the Emerson Campus but one day a few weeks later, amazing posters began appearing around the school. A group called The Girls' League occasionally staged events in the gym during lunchtime. It cost a quarter to get in and you could sit in there and eat your lunch while taking in a half-hour show, all proceeds going to charity. They'd had a folk singer there and before him, a classical violinist. I think between the two mini-concerts, they'd taken in about nine dollars.
But it looked like they'd shatter that record with the next show in the gym: That Friday, The Beatles would be performing. That's right. I said, "The Beatles."
I cannot tell you why anyone for one second thought it was even a skillion-to-one possibility. Not only were The Beatles not anywhere near Los Angeles but they usually didn't play in junior high gymnasiums for twenty-five cents admission. It couldn't possibly be them…absolutely positively couldn't possibly be them. Still, as the week wore on, it felt like whoever was performing there wouldn't be playing to empty seats. As my friend Kerry put it, "No, I'm sure it won't be the real Beatles…
"…but suppose, just suppose it is. Think how foolish you'd feel if you missed out your chance to see them perform live. And for a quarter!" Marnie was definitely going and she hinted that she had inside information that it actually would be John, Paul, George and that drummer no one wanted to sleep with. She seemed wired into the new-but-growing-rapidly Beatles Fan Network and I heard several students say, "Marnie sounds like she knows something."
When the lunch bell rang that Friday, a mob of students stampeded for the gym, quarters at the ready. I wanted to go just to see what the show would consist of but since I stopped at my locker to get my lunch, I got there too late. It was sold out. A lot of kids didn't get in and I was standing with several of them as we experienced a moment — just one brief over-in-two-seconds moment of total unreality. From inside, we could hear the sound of The Beatles — the real Beatles — playing "She Loves You," complete with all the yeah-yeahs.
But after those two seconds of shock, I announced, "It's the record" and everyone else who was jerked back to sanity said, "Of course! I recognized it right away!" A few students from inside who'd apparently thought it was really going to be The Beatles, walked out grumbling. One of them told us, "It's four girls in black suits and Beatle wigs. They have these old, beat-up guitars and a kid's drum set and they're just pretending to be The Beatles and mouthing the words to the record." Like it could have been anything else.
I felt bad for Marnie, thinking how disappointed she had to be…but later, I found out that she was not crushed. Quite the contrary, she was the one who had organized the concert…organized it and she was the one portraying Paul McCartney.
TO BE CONTINUED