The Beatles: Image and the Media

ONE: “The Twentieth Century’s Greatest Romance”: Imagining the Beatles

1 one “The T wentieth Century’s Greatest Romance” Imagining the Beatles Many baby boomers could recite the facts of how a group of working class kids lived their own rags-to-riches story, rising from the tough northern English port city of Liverpool to enjoy the greatest commercial success ever witnessed in the history of popular music . They could tell how these four lads—John, Paul, George, and Ringo—affected everything from hairstyles to philosophies. In fact, many children (and grandchildren) of baby boomers could tell you the basic story. Many more could deliver a favorite lyric or two. The Beatles remain successful nearly four decades after their breakup, and they continue to send recordings to the top of the charts. Undoubtedly this can be partly explained by their celebrated songbook. But, surely, other bands and entertainers from the 1960s have wellthought -of music catalogs. With the Beatles, however, there is something extra. People continue to be fascinated by the four young men behind the music, and for many the Beatles resonate with those times as no other phenomenon or icon. Better, the Beatles’ image resonates with a youthful and halcyon ideal of those times. This book concerns that image and its evolution from teen idol vacuity to countercultural ideal and takes a chronological approach in answering the following questions: How were the Beatles depicted over time in the mainstream press? How did their image evolve? How did the evolution of the Beatles’ image interact with cultural and historical processes and events? Finally, how were the different 2 imagining the beatles aspects of the Beatles’ image incorporated into American culture with regard to lifestyle and world view?1 The Beatles arrived in an America in the midst of great change. It was an America on the verge of events that would highlight divisions of age, race, gender, and class. And it was an America on the brink of a conflict that would have repercussions upon America ’s foreign policy, international reputation, and national conscience for decades to come. How best, then, to capture these times and the place of the Beatles’ image in contemporaneous American culture ? For this study, American mainstream media are the primary sources, for it is through these media, these various industries and companies competing in the marketplace, that the image is defined for the public. I have focused my research on the most widely circulated presentations of the image, found in the mainstream press, on the national television networks, in film, and on sound recordings. The New York Times was chosen for analysis because of its reputation and its position as a major media gatekeeper. For the years under consideration, 1963–70, few American newspapers were as renowned for their thoroughness and independence or as influential in defining what was newsworthy. More importantly, the New York Times was widely read by other journalists (Whole World 299); as such, the Times’ detailed coverage of the Beatles was influential in shaping coverage by other media outlets, particularly during the band’s first visit to the U.S. and throughout the touring years, 1964– 66. Other sources, among them Time, Life, Newsweek, Look, and Seventeen, were analyzed as outlets for widely circulated images of the Beatles; before the advent of the rock press, these publications provided the most detailed and widely distributed representations of the image. For the period under consideration, these publications were among those magazines having the greatest number of readers (Daniel Starch 2–20). Rolling Stone’s presentation of the Beatles is described in detail. It was the most successful and influential of the rock and roll publications founded in the 1960s, expanding be- imagining the beatles 3 yond a dedicated countercultural readership to become a respected monitor of youth culture. While competitors such as Crawdaddy!, Cheetah, and Eye struggled and ultimately went out of business, Rolling Stone’s circulation continued to grow. It became the rock and roll publication with the most currency among the youth of the period and one of the most important vehicles for creation and transmission of the Beatles’ and other performers’ images. The sources for this study present a thorough time capsule of the evolving image ; they also present a window on the zeitgeist of the culture for which the image had so much meaning. For our purpose, image refers to the vehicle by which audiences know the Beatles. A complex...