The Big Bang: The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show

73 million viewers, including Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen, tuned in and flipped out

February 9, 2024February 9, 2024 Gillian G. Gaar 0 Comments 1964, 60th anniversary, Davy Jones, Ed Sullivan, George Harrison, I Want To Hold Your Hand, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, The Beatles, The Ed Sullivan Show

CBS publicity photo of The Beatles and Ed Sullivan (Image: Wikipedia)

It was called “The Night That Changed America,” that evening of February 9, 1964.

An estimated 73 million Americans gathered around their television sets to watch The Ed Sullivan Show, this week featuring, in the words of its avuncular host, “these youngsters from Liverpool who call themselves The Beatles.” In fact, the youngest Beatle, George Harrison, was 20; Paul McCartney was 21; and both John Lennon and Ringo Starr were 23. Still, they were young enough to make their seismic upending of the music industry seem revolutionary.

McCartney is fond of saying The Beatles had determined they would never go to the U.S. until they had a number one record there. Actually, the Beatles were no position to make any such demand. Throughout 1963, their ostensible U.S. label, Capitol (a subsidiary of EMI, who’d signed The Beatles in the UK), had no interest in their records and palmed them off to lesser labels, where, on release, they made no impact. But the band’s stock continued to rise in their native UK, and in November 1963, their persistent manager, Brian Epstein, flew to New York City to bring America on board. He secured a meeting with Ed Sullivan, who’d been tipped off about The Beatles’ success by his overseas talent scouts. And on a recent trip, he himself had seen fans storm London airport on October 31, when the group arrived home from a Swedish tour. Recognizing that the band created the same kind of excitement as Elvis Presley had in the 1950s, he agreed to three appearances by the group, two live, and a pre-recorded segment to air later, early in the new year.

Things were coming together. By the end of November, Capitol agreed to release the band’s next single, “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” and back up their support with promotional dollars. As the single began rising up the charts, New York promoter Sid Bernstein, an Anglophile who’d been following the Beatles’ progress in the British newspapers, finally got Epstein to agree to two concerts at Carnegie Hall, fit in around the Ed Sullivan appearances. And when “I Want to Hold Your Hand” topped the U.S. charts, America was primed and ready for the arrival of the Fab Four on February 7, 1964.

The Beatles “I Want To Hold Your Hand,” Capitol Records 1964

You can see the frenzy of that first visit in the footage shot by documentarians Albert and David Maysles (Grey Gardens, Gimme Shelter), subsequently released in the film What’s Happening! The Beatles in the USA, footage later purloined for innumerable other documentaries. The Beatles are fresh-faced and funny, rolling with the punches, whether that’s dodging screaming fans or deftly swatting away queries from the press (Question: “Do you know American slang? Are you ‘for real’?” Lennon: “Come and have a feel!”).

It’s the same boundless energy you see on display in their Ed Sullivan appearances. They began February 9th by recording a quick, three song set for later broadcast on February 23. The big push was for the live debut, that would come later that day. Knowing they were the show’s big draw, Sullivan wisely split their performance, satisfying the audience’s anticipation by having the Beatles open the show, then bringing them back later during the broadcast.

During that opening spot, McCartney takes much of the spotlight, first with the ebullient “All My Loving” and then, soothing parental nerves, slowing things down with “Till There Was You” from the Broadway hit The Music Man, already a standard (it was during this number where helpful captions were provided identifying each Beatle by name; Lennon’s carried the additional notation, “Sorry girls, he’s married”). Then comes a rousing finish with “She Loves You,” and its inimitable battle cry: “Yeah, yeah, yeah!” It was a potent elixir that galvanized young ears across the country. It was said that throughout New York City, not a single hubcap was stolen when The Ed Sullivan Show was aired; “Even the criminals had a rest!” Harrison later observed.

With their matching suits, elfin boots, well-groomed hair and jiggling demeanor, the Beatles look like wind-up toys. Their enthusiasm is infectious, irresistible, reaching right out of the television to grab you. No wonder so many aspiring rockers have said that after gathering around the family TV set to watch the show, they couldn’t wait to rush out to buy a guitar themselves to join in on all the fun. And this was the key to the Beatles’ lasting appeal. They weren’t merely entertainers. They were also inspirational figures. Suddenly, a whole new world had opened up. Life now had endless possibilities.

This was especially true for musicians of course, all those kids who headed out on after school on Monday to buy a guitar. But even established acts recognized that a change was in the air. Bob Dylan was amazed when he heard The Beatles’ songs on the radio, later telling Rolling Stone “They were doing things nobody was doing. Their chords were outrageous, just outrageous, and their harmonies made it all valid.” Though he admitted he kept his interest in this “teeny-bopper” group to himself for the moment, “it was obvious to me that they had staying power. I knew they were pointing the direction of where music had to go.”

Clipping from an old local TV guide promoting The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show (Image: eBay)

There were six other acts before The Beatles made their return on the show. One of them featured the cast of the musical Oliver!, in which Davy Jones was appearing in the plum role of the Artful Dodger, never imagining that The Beatles were laying the template for his own future stardom as a member of the Prefabricated Four — The Monkees. Then The Beatles come roaring out of the gate for their second spot with “I Saw Her Standing There,” a crowd pleaser to this day and their strongest number of the show; note how McCartney looks straight into the camera each time he sings the line “I fell in love with her,” knowing that’ll make every girl watching at home swoon. Their current hit, “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” winds everything up, after which Sullivan invites them over for a handshake and a final wave at the studio audience.

Just look at their faces in that moment. Grinning from ear to ear like they haven’t a care in the world. They’ve delivered a musical wake-up call that resonated from east coast to the west, made the Beach Boys Capitol’s number two rock act, and singlehandedly launched the British Invasion. Why should they care that the New York Times wrote them off the next day as “a fine mass placebo” and the New York Herald-Tribune described them as “Seventy-five percent publicity, twenty percent haircut and five percent lilting lament”? Now that the U.S. had succumbed, the Beatles were biggest act in the world. And the future beckoned. During their trip, Harrison received a new Rickenbacker 360-12 12-string guitar, which he’d soon put to good use; already, the opening chord to “A Hard Day’s Night” was waiting in the wings.