I Loved Them, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah

This morning, I got a call from my sister. She would have been 16 when the Beatles made their debut on the Ed Sullivan Show. I would have been almost 11. She asked if I remembered coming out to the barn fifty years ago and telling her that it was time to come in and watch. No... I didn't remember that. She would have been helping to milk the cows on a cold winter night, and it was my job to go fetch her.

I remembered watching them, however. I guess that my mom knew she really wanted to see it, so apparently I was sent out to call my sister in when it got close to the time they'd appear. Everyone had heard about The Beatles being booked for the show that night. But, milking simply didn't stand still for things like Ed Sullivan. I'm surprised I wasn't out helping, too. But, maybe it was my turn to stay in. Or maybe Daddy was there to do it. It was a Sunday night, in the middle of February; he wouldn't have been doing much else except milking. Maybe both of my older sisters came in. I can't remember anyone in the living room but me, Mother and the sister who called me today.

She went on, asking if I remembered watching it. Oh yes. She laughed that she probably went along with Mother's opinion: they were so scruffy looking--what was the big deal anyway? She's a huge fan now--she credits her middle son with her conversion. But I remember going upstairs to my newly-created "room" (it was basically a corridor between the stair case and the big girls' room) and laying on the bed and thinking, "Wow. I really liked them!"

I was startled by all the screaming girls in the audience. I'm not sure I've ever screamed like that, for any reason, in my entire life. But, I could understand the enthusiasm that those screams represented. Their music was so good. They were cute! It's really silly now to think how I felt when I was 11, seeing them for the first time. It may very well have been the first time I heard them, too. I didn't listen to the kind of radio where they'd have been played when I was 11. I wasn't in charge of what got listened to at our house.

I remember buying my first Beatles album when I was in high school, though. It was "Let It Be" because that was the year I would have had any money at all to spend on something like that. They were as good as their reputation declared them to have been. When I got to college, one of my roommates had actually seen them perform in Los Angeles when she was in junior high. That was pretty awesome. By the time I was old enough, hip enough and had the money, they weren't a group anymore.

But, they did define music when I was starting into that time of life when everything is so intense and emotional. They were really good and I do remember knowing that the very first time I saw them play.

 

They appeared for three weeks in a row on Ed Sullivan in February. This video shows all three appearances.