The Beatles Boxed Set (45 page)

The Beatles’ last stint in Hamburg,
December 1962

            Also
later that month, Epstein secured the boys an appearance on a TV show called
Thank
Your Lucky Stars.
Indeed, there was a lot that the boys had to be thankful
for. For one, the broadcast occurred on one of the coldest nights on record
when businesses were closed and everybody was indoors watching television.

            The
Beatles’ second single,
Please Please Me
, was recorded in late-November
1962, after which George Martin accurately predicted, “You’ve just made your
first No.1.” It was released in the UK on January 11, 1963 and climbed to the
top spot where it remained there for two weeks.

By
1963, the band agreed that all four members were to contribute vocals to their
albums despite Ringo’s restricted vocal range so as to “affirm his status as a
full-fledged member.” Paul and John had established a songwriting partnership,
and their dominant collaboration as the band’s success grew limited George’s
opportunities as a lead vocalist.

            George
Martin had already been planning for the Beatles’ debut album and considered
recording their LP live at the Cavern. However, he changed his mind after
realizing that the building’s acoustics were not enough so he opted to simulate
a “live” album with minimal production in “a single marathon session at Abbey
Road.”

            For
the album
Please Please Me,
the Beatles recorded ten songs plus the four
tracks released on their two singles,
Love Me Do, Please Please Me, P.S. I
Love You
, and
Ask Me Why
. The album, which the band recorded in a
single day, was released in March 1963 in the UK, and became a chart topper on
every national chart except
Record Retailer
where it remained at number
two. The album stayed at number one for 29 weeks.

At the EMI House, January 1963

            By
then, the Beatles have taken Britain by storm; their singles hit number one,
including
From Me To You, She Loves You,
and
I Want to Hold Your Hand
.
The album
Please Please Me
was released in America in July with the
title, “Introducing the Beatles” but it didn’t enjoy the success it did in the
UK initially.

The
Beatles played a gig in the North English town of Bedford in February 1963.
They knew when they arrived that things were different. They had a much larger
and louder crowd awaiting them. After the opening acts, it was time for the
Beatles to perform. And when they were revealed onstage, the screaming went a
notch higher than before.

            By
April, the mania escalated to new levels; there would be shrieks and screams
wherever they were. At the same time, the Beatles’ third single,
From Me To
You
, shot to number one. And
She Loves You
was successful as well as
it climbed the charts and reached number one within a few months. This single
achieved the fastest sales of any record in the UK during that time as it sold
three-quarters of a million copies within four weeks. It also became the band’s
first single to sell a million copies and remained the biggest-selling record
in the UK until 1978, when it was surpassed by Paul’s
Mull of Kintyre
with his post-Beatles band, Wings.

George at the Cavern, shortly before
Beatlemania swept the land

            According
to biographers and Beatles scholars, October was the month that the Beatles’ phenomenal
popularity began as their name spread throughout Europe. Along with their
increasing popularity was the increasing press attention. The Beatles responded
with a comical attitude that was clearly not what was expected of pop musicians
that time, thus inspiring even more interest.

            Later
that year, on October 13, 1963, the Beatles appeared on
Sunday Night at the
London Palladium
and were seen by more than 15 million viewers. Their
concerts were always jam-packed. Thousands of hopeful fans lined outside box
offices to secure tickets. In Sweden, police with dogs on leashes were called
to protect the group after some fans attempted to break through the barricades,
climb onstage, and throw themselves on the four lads. And when they returned in
London, it was greater chaos. Thousands of fans waited for them at the airport.

            That,
and all the pandemonium that followed the group through every performance and
appearance, marked what the press called Beatlemania.

            On
one occasion, the Beatles sang before the queen at the Royal Command Variety
Performance along with other stars such as Maurice Chevalier and Marlene
Dietrich. Before he began
Twist and Shout
, John enlivened the crowd by
saying, “Will the people in the cheaper seats clap their hands? And the rest of
you, if you’ll just rattle your jewelry.”

            And
after the Beatles’ performance, Dietrich told Epstein, “They are so sexy. They
have the girls so frantic for them, they must have quite a time.” Epstein’s
assistant, Taylor, later commented, “After every concert, the best-looking
female fans would be given instructions as to how to get back to the hotel. It
was one of the perks of the job, and the boys liked their perks … They had this
amazing power to point and say, ‘You, you, you, and you,’ and lovely young
women would arrive at the hotel simply begging for sex.”

            By
the end of 1963, the group was voted Top Vocal Group of the Year with seven of
their records in the top twenty; it was an unprecedented feat at the time.

            Beatlemania
continued to spread and escalate. For George, the whole thing sometimes seemed
unreal, but it also had its downsides. Now that he was famous, a lot of
strangers would come to him and tell him that they love him. There were
businessmen who presented offers, young girls who told him their fantasies. His
first Beatles song,
Don’t Bother Me
, was his reaction to all the
attention he was given and his desire to keep a space of his own.

Please
Please Me
dominated the
Record Retailer
chart for 29 and was displaced by their follow-up
album,
With the Beatles
, which the EMI delayed the release of until the
sales of the band’s first album subsided. The album was released on November
22, 1963 to record advance orders of 270,000 copies. It immediately climbed to
the top of British charts and remained there for 21 weeks. Some of singles
included in the album that became popular were
All My Loving, Please Mr.
Postman
and
Roll Over Beethoven.
Combining the weeks that the first
and the second albums stayed on the charts, the Beatles were top on the album
charts for 51 consecutive weeks.

           
With
the Beatles
was released ahead of the lead single
I Want to Hold Your
Hand
. The album caught the attention of
The Times’
critic William
Mann, who said that Paul and John were “the outstanding English composers of
1963.” The album also became the second album in UK chart history to sell one
million copies. The Beatles’ press officer, Tony Barrow, used the superlative
“the fabulous foursome” in writing the sleeve notes for the album. The media
quickly adopted it as “the Fab Four.”

           
I
Want to Hold Your Hand
was released in the UK in November 1963 and
immediately reached number one that month and had advance orders for more than
a million copies. It was released in the US a month later and spent seven weeks
at number one.

The
Beatles began their first nationwide tour in 1963. Their touring helped to
spread their popularity, and they would always be greeted with screams from
their fans. Upon their return in the UK after a tour of Sweden, the band was
greeted by a heavy rain at the airport and by “several hundred screaming fans”,
plus about fifty to a hundred journalists and photographers and representatives
from the BBC, becoming “the first of a hundred so-called ‘airport receptions.’”

            After
performing across the United Kingdom, the Beatles were set to carry out some
performances in the United States from February 7, 1964. The boys had reasons
why they should be a bit apprehensive: they didn’t know what kind of reception
they’d get once they step on American soil. They knew they were popular in the
UK and in some European countries, but what about in the US?

            Their
answer came when the plane touched down at Kennedy International Airport. The
sound from the crowd assembled to greet them drowned out the roar of the jet’s
engines. And when George looked out from his window, he couldn’t believe what
he was seeing. More than ten thousand screaming fans were there, singing “We
Love You Beatles, Oh, Yes, We Do.”

The Beatles’ first tour in America
included an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show that 73 million viewers watched

            And
when the foursome stepped out of the plane, the roar went wilder. An airport
spokesperson said, “We’ve never seen anything like this here before, never. Not
even for kings and queens.”

            The
Beatles were whisked from the airport to Manhattan in Cadillac limousines.
George rode with press aide Brian Sommerville to the Plaza Hotel where throngs
of ecstatic fans were waiting for them. The signs in the air that said “ELVIS
IS DEAD” and “COME OUT BEATLES” brought a smile to Epstein and John Lennon’s
lips. They had both predicted that the Beatles would surpass the king.