It’s been a hard day’s night
And I’ve been working like a dog
It’s been a hard day’s night
I should be sleeping like a log
THE BEATLES
By the end of 1963, the Beatles had completed an exhausting marathon of six tours, more than 250 live shows, numerous television appearances, three number one songs, and three albums, and they were making their first movie.
As 1964 opened, New York City’s Idlewild Airport had been renamed for the recently slain John F. Kennedy, and the Warren Commission began its closed-session investigations into his assassination. Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, declared war on poverty while preparing to increase military aid to South Vietnam. The U.S. Surgeon General announced that smoking is hazardous to your health.
Italy, meanwhile, asked the world for technical expertise to help prevent the collapse of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and Richard Burton proposed to his Cleopatra costar, Elizabeth Taylor. A fishing trawler anchored off British waters to begin broadcasting “the new music,” while Indiana Governor Matthew Walsh declared the Kingsmen’s single “Louie Louie” pornographic and requested that DJs ban it from the airwaves.
The BBC launched Top of the Pops in Britain to compete with Ready Steady Go. The Beatles released their first U.S. single, “I Wanna Hold Your Hand,” and vaulted to number one on February 1. Six days later they landed at JFK on Pan Am flight 101 and were greeted by five thousand screaming girls in the upper balcony of the arrivals lounge. Ringo Starr would later comment, “It was so exciting. On the plane, flying into the airport, I felt as though there was a big octopus with tentacles that were grabbing the plane and dragging us down into New York.”
Among their many photo ops, the Beatles meet a young Cassius Clay in training for his heavyweight championship bout with Sonny Liston in Miami. They also record their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show; in February, an estimated seventy-three million viewers tuned in. By April, the Beatles’ songs hold the top five spots in the U.S. Billboard charts and account for sixty percent of all U.S. record sales. And the Rolling Stones and a host of British bands are feted by U.S. record labels and broadcasters.
The British Invasion has begun.