50 years ago today, America met the Beatles. 50 years! What was life even like before that? I'm slowly making my way through Tune In (which has a lot to say about pre-Beatles music), and while Elvis and Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly certainly got the ball rolling, nothing in the history of music seized the world quite like Beatlemania. Here's the famous first performance on the Ed Sullivan Show:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jenWdylTtzs
I love everything about this. Cool, steadfast John, ever-enthusiastic Paul, dorky adorable George, bobble-head Ringo on his little platform...not to mention that glorious awkward interaction at the end (*hand shakes* *hand shakes* *waves* "...well, see ya!"). How crazy that this was so many people's first look at the Beatles. That they hadn't always been around, their faces weren't plastered on t-shirts and lunch boxes yet, Rubber Soul and Sgt. Pepper and Abbey Road hadn't been recorded. Ahhhh, how exciting to have witnessed the start of a musical era!
I'm usually just fine with the fact that I don't have cable, but times like these I really wish I could watch a CBS Beatles special on a Sunday night (that, or you know, the Olympics).
But since I can't, I'll just have my own little celebration watching online videos and listening to records.
Happy 50 years of Beatlemania, America.