The Beatles Boxed Set (8 page)

            While
the album and some of its singles enjoyed success, the Beatles were still busy
with their shows, sometimes holding multiple shows on many days. Paul would
always have the guitar, sometimes sitting across John as they made their way
through another song. Being on the road presented them opportunities in
songwriting as they sometimes spent hours on buses or hotel rooms with nothing
to do but talk about chords and verses.

            The
Beatles’ second album,
With The Beatles
, was released at the end of
November with record advance orders of 270,000 copies, topping the half-million
mark in one week. It replaced the band’s previous album on the top of the charts
and remained there for another 21 weeks.

            The
album caught the attention of
The Times
’ music critic William Mann who
declared that Paul and John were “the outstanding English composers of 1963.”
With
The Beatles
became the second album in UK chart history to sell a million
copies, a record previously held by the 1958
South Pacific
soundtrack.

            And
then the mania began. The girls who would faithfully attend the Beatles’ shows
would flock onstage and just go berserk. They used to just dance to the music,
but now they leaped and screamed their heads off. Girls would go into fits of
hysteria with just a glimpse of the boys they’d nickname the Fab Four, looking
handsome in their suits and moptops.

            For
the boys, it all seemed unreal. It was only about a year ago when they were
playing Chuck Berry songs at the Cavern. And now, they had secured the
long-awaited record contract that propelled them to popularity. And each of
them had his own way of grappling with their newfound fame. And when it came to
the topic of idolatry, Paul said, “I don’t feel like I imagine an idol is
supposed to feel. Anybody who gets this amount of publicity is in ordinary
people’s eyes a fantastic being … it’s like the royal family. You have to like
them because you’re read so much about them.”

The
Beatles weren’t as successful in the United States initially partly due to
Capitol Records’ declining to issue their music, including the first three
singles. Negotiations led to the release of the songs in 1963, but legal issues
with royalties and publishing rights hindered the successful marketing of the
group in the US.

            Capitol
issued the material in December 1963. Then Brian spent $40,000 for a US
marketing campaign and enlisted the support of disk jockey Carrol James, who
first played the Beatles’ records in December 1963 and subsequently led to the
band’s music spread across the US radio. The Americans liked the band’s music
and demanded for more, causing Capitol to rush-release
I Want to Hold Your
Hand
later that month. The single sold a million copies and became a number
one hit in the US by January.

            The
Beatles were scheduled to visit the US a few weeks from when their single,
I
Want to Hold Your Hand
, was rush-released.

            About
four thousand screaming fans showed up at Heathrow to see the Fab Four before
they took the flight to the US that day, February 7, 1964. The aircraft landed
at New York’s John. Kennedy Airport, where a crowd of about three thousand
awaited them.

The Beatles appeared on
The Ed
Sullivan Show
and performed some of their songs

            The
Beatles had their first live US television show on
The Ed Sullivan Show
that about 73 million viewers in more than 23 million households watched. The
Nielsen rating service wrote that it was “the largest audience that had ever
been recorded for an American television program.”

            The
band also performed on their first US concert at Washington Coliseum on
February 11, 1964. The tickets cost between $2 and $4. More than eight thousand
fans flocked to the venue and screamed and clapped as the Fab Four performed.

            The
next morning, the Beatles returned to New York and did shows at the Carnegie
Hall. They then flew to Florida and appeared on the
Ed Sullivan Show
for
the second time before 70 million viewers. They flew back home to the UK on
February 22.

* * *

In
June and July 1963, the Beatles toured internationally and staged 37 shows in
Denmark, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand. In August, they
returned to the US for a thirty-concert tour of 23 cities. As usual, their
presence generated intense interest, attracting about ten and twenty thousand
fans to each thirty-minute performance from San Francisco to New York.

            In
August, the band was introduced to Bob Dylan who visited their New York hotel
suite and introduced them to cannabis. After six months of this meeting writes
Jonathan Gould, “Lennon would be making records on which he openly imitated
Dylan’s nasal drone, brittle strum, and introspective vocal persona.”

            The
Beatles’ fourth studio LP,
Beatles for Sale
, was recorded between August
and October 1964 and demonstrates the conflict between the “intense commercial
pressures” of global success, and the group’s “creative aspirations.” The album
included six cover due to the difficulty of available material. The album was
released in early December, of which eight original compositions stood out.

            In
1965, the Beatles were guests at Lennon and Harrison’s dentist’s place for
dinner, who, without their knowledge, laced their coffee with LSD. John and George
became regular users of the drug and were joined by Ringo on occasion. Paul
wasn’t sure about taking the drugs but finally relented in 1966. He was the
first Beatle to discuss LSD publicly, saying that “it opened my eyes” and “made
me a better, more honest, more tolerant member of society.”

            The
band had their first controversy in June 1965 when Queen Elizabeth II appointed
them Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) after being nominated by
Prime Minister Harold Wilson. Their appointment was met with protests because
that time, the honor was given to military veterans and civic leaders. Some
conservative MBE recipients even returned their own insignia in defiance.

            The
band’s fifth studio LP,
Help!
was created to accompany their film with
the same name. The album contained original material except for two covers. It
also included Paul’s
Yesterday,
which was arranged or guitar and string
quartet and was recorded without the other group members. The single would
become the most recorded cover versions of any song ever written.

            The
Beatles had their third US tour in August 1965, which became “perhaps the most
famous of all Beatles concerts”. They performed in front of 55,600 people at
New York’s Shea Stadium. They also followed up with nine successful concerts in
various American cities.

The Beatles on their concert at Shea
Stadium

            By
the end of their tour, the band had met with Elvis Presley, who was such a
musical influence on the band. Presley invited them to his home in Beverly
Hills.

            In
December 1965, the Beatles released their sixth studio album,
Rubber Soul
.
This album became a commercial success, and was seen as a major artistic
achievement of the band.
Rubber Soul
was one of the greatest albums in
music history.        The album entered the British charts on December 11. By
Christmas, it replaced
Help!
at the top of the charts and remained there
for eight weeks.

            The
Beatles followed this up with another album,
Revolver
, released in
August 1966, a week before their final tour. It was, again, a commercial
success, peaking at number one on the British and American charts and remained
at the top spot for seven weeks and six weeks, respectively. It became number
one in the All-Time Top 1000 Albums and number 3 in the
Rolling Stone
magazine’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

            The
Beatles decided to stop touring, and their final commercial concert was in
1966. They were exhausted by the dehumanizing pressures of fan mania and their
attempt to play music, which was overwhelmed by their frenzied fans. The final
straw came in the summer tour of 1966 when they blew off a state reception with
the government of Ferdinand Marcos, then-president of the Philippines. The
Beatles found out that the Marcos regime was unaccustomed to taking “no” for an
answer. The band members were punched and kicked by annoyed soldiers at the
airport and left the country with difficulty.

            Then
came another controversy that dogged the Beatles. John had given an interview
with British reporter Maureen Cleaver and said, “Christianity will go. It will
vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue about that; I’m right and I will be proved
right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first,
rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity. Jesus was alright but his disciples were thick
and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.”

            John’s
bigger than Jesus comment went unnoticed in England, but not in America,
particularly with Christians in the American “Bible Belt.” Though Brian Epstein
publicly criticized the magazine
Datebook
, alleging that it took John’s
words out of context, and John had apologized for what he said, some of the
faithful staged boycotts and bonfires of Beatles records and fan paraphernalia.

            Barely
a year later, Paul, John, George and Ringo had the shock of their lives when
they learned that their manager since 1962, Brian Epstein, died of an
accidental overdose of Carbitral, a sleeping pill that he washed down with
alcohol. At the time of Brian’s death, the Beatles were in Bangor with the
Indian guru, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. They did not attend Brian’s funeral to
allow his family privacy.

With
the death of Brian Epstein, the Beatles was disoriented and uncertain about
their future. Now, Paul felt it was his responsibility to fill the void left by
their manager’s death and became the group’s
de facto
leader and
business manager.

            The
Beatles returned in the recording studio and, before their disbanding in 1970,
came up with what critics considered to be their finest materials. They had
produced
Revolver
in 1966
and
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club
Band
in 1967,
The Beatles
in 1968 and
Abbey Road
in 1969.

            Between
1963 and 1970, the Beatles released 22 UK singles and 12 LPs. Seventeen of the
singles and 11 of the LPs became number ones in charts. The Beatles also topped
the US
Billboard
Hot 100 twenty times and had recorded 14 number one
albums. In addition, Paul and John became one of the most celebrated
songwriting partnerships. Paul, particularly, wrote five of the band’s last six
US number ones:
Hello, Goodbye, Hey Jude, Get Back, Let It Be,
and
The
Long and Winding Road.

As
early as the conclusion of their American tour, there were signs, though not
many people saw them, that the Beatles were headed in different directions.