It Was 50 Years Ago Today … Sunday, February 9th, 1964

A Brief Comment by Doug Draper

Was it really 50 years ago, or to put it an even scarier way for we aging baby boomers facing the last chapters of our lives, half century!

The Beatles on Ed Sullivan Show, February, 1964

When you start talking like this, of course, it reminds one of the early days when we’d roll our eyes while are grandparents retold stories about the first time they heard an Al Jolson record or what it was like living through the Great Depression.

Yet here this aging baby boomer goes anyway with memories of that Sunday night, 50 years ago this February, when I joined my family and more than 73 million others across North America to watch performances from this young group of mop tops from Liverpool, England on the Ed Sullivan Show. 

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” announced old stone-face Ed above an eruption of screams from those who were lucky enough to get a ticket to be part of his studio audience that night, “The Beatles.”

The next thing my brother Dave and I heard as we fixed our eyes on the black and white screen in our family’s home in Welland was the one, two, three count-in by Paul McCartney and the first chords of a song that has so often since become a trivial pursuit question – What was the first song The Beatles performed on The Ed Sullivan show that night.? Just for a little fun, I will leave it to our readers to take a stab at that one, if they would like to,  in the comment area  below. 

As my brother and I watched The Beatles perform that night, we also heard our parents in the background say things that so many parents across the country were saying, like; “Oh God, look at their hair” and my all-time favourite; “A year from now, no one will even remember who they were?Well, parents aren’t always right, are they?

And as for any younger people under the age of 25 who may be rolling their eyes over all of this Beatles nostalgia, let me just end with this. In recent years, when I go to some of my favourite record stores and see yet another display of the group’s old albums, updated for the fourth or fifth time on CD and vinyl – and I ask one of the friendly store managers who is still buying this stuff, the answer I get is this; “You’d be surprised, but mostly people under the age of 25.”

If you are one of those people under the age of 25 who has snuck in and bought a copy of Revolver, Rubber Soul or Abbey Road. I promise I won’t out you. It might be like me back in 1964, sneaking in to a record store to buy one of those Al Jolson discs my grandparents reminiscing about back then. 

Finally, a few people who offered comments to a piece I posted  on Niagara At Large this February 8^th  on how I feel Beatlemania was one of the very few times over the past 50 years where a grassroots movement conquered corporate control over what we consume, began listing their five, all-time favourite Beatle songs. 

Let me up the ante here and ask you to share your – yes, just one, if that’s possible – most favourite Beatle song, if you have one, along with a few lines on why you hose that one. 

I will try to get it  started by choosing ‘Nowhere Man’, a song with a melancholic melody and introspective lyrics that already seemed a planet or two away from the ‘She Loves You, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah’ from only a year and a few months earlier. It also showcased some of the best of The Beatles’ infectious vocal harmonies, and that electric guitar riff by George Harrison, where the notes almost sound like crystal chimes ringing, makes me want to go out and search for one of those Vox amplifiers they were using. 

Now it’s your turn to pick one.

(Niagara At Large invites you to share your views on this post. A reminder that we only post comments by individuals who share their first and last name with them.)