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February 9, 1964: The Beatles appear (to great success) on the Ed Sullivan Show on where they were seen by at least seventy-three million viewers!! It became apparent to the Beatles during this performance that they were receiving the same hysterical response in America that they'd left behind in England. The United States represented the world's largest and most influential market, the cradle of rock 'n' roll, and their ultimate conquest.
When the Beatles' plane landed at Kennedy Airport, 3,000 fans met the Beatles, stoked by near-constant New York radio airplay of their British catalog. EMI had blanketed the States with a $50,000 campaign outing their phenomenal success in the United Kingdom, promoting "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and the companion LP, Meet the Beatles!, with a merchandising blitz of buttons, stickers, and Beatle wigs!
Capitol Records cobbled together the Meet the Beatles! album (the U.S. release) from nine With the Beatles songs (the UK release), the current single, and it's two B-sides ("This Boy" in the UK and "I Saw Her Standing There" in the U.S.
The sets on the Ed Sullivan Show seared the four Beatles' likenesses upon a new generation:
Interesting note: the Beatles included a musical-comedy number ("Til There Was You" from The Music Man) in their Ed Sullivan appearance, breaking with the typical rock 'n' roll approach. This conventional score had entered the American consciousness through a three-year run on Broadway and a hit 1962 film. Likely, this revealed the Beatles' grander ambitions to appeal across generational lines, even as they focused on the teenage experience; concurrently, on another level, it reassured skeptics that rock 'n' roll arose from familiar styles.
The Beatles' breakthrough held a lasting effect for a musical enlightenment that proved more than merely distracting social entertainment. As Lennon told Michael Braun in 1963: "This isn't show business. This is something else."
The Beatles' new single (Paul's "Can't Buy Me Love") had more infectious energy knit around a tight 12-bar blues in the verses (like many of the songs that influenced the Beatles), and John came back with his own 12-bar blues, "You Can't Do That," which appeared as the B-side of "Can't Buy Me Love"!!
Reminder about the Billboard Hot 100 chart on April 4, 1964; the top five slots were:
The Beatles dominated national record sales as well as the radio as never witnessed before or since!! The Beatles sat atop the U.S. singles chart for 14 weeks and the album chart of May 2 sported three Beatle albums among the Top 4!
From the American perspective, rock 'n' roll had waned in popularity since Little Richard had entered the ministry in 1957, Jerry Lee Lewis succumbed to scandal in 1958 (after marrying his 14-year-old, second cousin, his career never recovered!), Buddy Holly died in a 1959 plane crash, Elvis Presley was inducted into the military, and Chuck Berry was incarcerated in 1962 (Mann Act for transporting a minor across state lines!).
The Beatles listened obsessively to Bob Dylan's second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan in Paris in January 1964, and soon channeled his psychological approach to lyrics by that August with Lennon's moody "I'm a Loser." The Beatles communed with Dylan over marijuana a few days later in New York! When Dylan shocked the folk establishment by recording half of his 5th album (Bringing It All Back Home) with electric-instrument settings of poetry emphasizing personal experience rather than social causes, then by plugging in his Stratocaster (an electric guitar) at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, Dylan merely punctuated what the Beatles -- and the harder Rolling Stones, Who, Kinks, Animals, and Yardbirds -- had suggested: rock music would outgrow mere teenage consciousness.
A Hard Day's NightAfter the Ed Sullivan Show and a closed-circuit televised concert in Washington, DC, the Beatles spent a week in Miami performing a second Sullivan show.
A Hard Day's Night recreates a claustrophobic day in their lives preparing for a fictional televised concert.
This song appears as the first "performance" in A Hard Day's Night. As the Beatles play cards in a storage car, their musical instruments appear in their hands; as the song comes to a close, the instruments disappear again.
A Hard Day's Night is the first extended Beatles project with all-original songs, documenting the growing variety of influences in the Lennon-McCartney palette.
Lennon releases his first book, In His Own Write.
A year earlier, the Beatles could still be heard at the Cavern Club in Liverpool; now, Epstein filled their schedule with the best concert halls and media!
Can you hear the four phrases identified above in THIS bridge?
The Lennon-McCartney songwriting partnership:
[error in textbook: this should be 0:38, NOT 0:28]
Can you hear the AA' form of this verse?
Can you hear the aa' form of this verse?
Can you hear the aa' form of this verse?
The internal form of each verse of "Things We Said Today" is identified by Everette & Riley (2019) as "SRDC" form. Notice that, in the case of these verses, the internal form can also be interpreted as an aaba (micro) form.
SRDC = aaba' (micro) in these verses
Can you hear the SRDC form (aaba') in this verse?
Can you hear the SRDC form (aaba') in this verse?
Can you hear the SRDC form (aaba') in this verse?
the "micro" form for verses is "aa"
Can you hear the "aa" form in this verse?
This section is very different compared to "Bridge 1a" and "Bridge 1b"
Can you hear the "aa" form in this verse?
This section is very similar to "Bridge 1a"
This verse is shortened (only part of "phrase 1" appears)
[**this is incorrect in your textbook; the timestamp should be 0:41, NOT 0:21]
The Beatles' hyper-popularity pushed them into huge venues, inventing the major-attraction, large-arena rock concert tour long before amplifiers could produce decent sound for such halls, the capacity of which range from 3,600 to 32,000. Their equipment was simply inadequate, and they could not be heard above the screaming (and fainting) throngs, let alone hear themselves!! The June theater appearances in Denmark and Holland were notable for Ringo's temporary replacement by Jimmie Nicol due to a tonsillectomy.
Highlights of this tour included meeting Fats Domino in New Orleans and Elvis Presley in Los Angeles.
During this tour, of most lasting importance, the Beatles took a leadership role standing up for civil rights when they discovered their show at the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville was to have segregated seating. Lennon demanded "We never play to segregated audiences and we aren't going to start now. I'd sooner lose our appearance money."
Beatles records became so iconic that they set off a new trend: blacks covering white music. Black Soul singers, especially, began covering Lennon-McCartney material, including Ella Fitzgerald ("Can't Buy Me Love"), the Supremes ("You Can't Do That"), Otis Redding ("Day Tripper"), Wilson Pickett ("Hey Jude"), and Stevie Wonder ("We Can Work It Out"). Booker T. & the M. G.'s (the house band at Stax Records), created instrumental versions of nearly the entire Abbey Road album as McLemore Avenue (1970). Clearly, if the real world hadn't integrated yet, rock 'n' roll held aloft an ideal of racial harmony for all to hear!
The Beatles' fourth album, Beatles for Sale was recorded in the fall of 1964.
While 1963 had seen them sweep Britain, 1964's schedule took them to America twice, provided for an all-original soundtrack to their first film, and prompted still another holiday product that fall.
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