The Beatles: 50 Years Hence
Today is February 9, 2014, and if you’ve been watching the news, you’ve surely noticed that today is the 50th anniversary of the #Beatles’ appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. In 1964, I knew nothing about branding, marketing, or scheduling appearances on national tv shows, much less about how to play a guitar. But I knew one thing, even at a tender age: those boys from Liverpool were magical! That long hair, that faint scent of scandal, that new “yea yea” music, those girls screaming… something was incredibly appealing about this foursome. And we had a color tv to watch this performance! The rest, as you know, is history.
That Christmas, I got an album: one of my most prized possessions. It looked just like the one pictured below. All my friends, indeed virtually every girl from age 7 to 17, thought Paul was da bomb. But I was just a little different: I thought George was smart, introspective, sensitive, cute. At some point, my brother blackened in a tooth or two and drew in a couple of tendrils on the album cover. But no matter: it was the music that rocked our worlds then and shapes us even now.
