"...Given What Lennon Eventually Said About Jesus, Seems Like Sunday Night Was The Perfect Place to Start It All...."

It was fifty two years ago today / Ed Sullivan booked a band to play

And still guaranteed to raise a smile / they've never yet gone out of style

Ed introduced to me and you / the act you've known for all these years.

Four kids from Liverpool who were once told by a major record label executive that "groups with guitars are on the way out."

That turned out to be one of history's less insightful predictions.

Today, February 9, is the fifty second anniversary of the first appearance of The Beatles on the Sunday night variety program that, in those days, was that time's equivalent of "must see TV", The Ed Sullivan Show.

Fifty two years accounts for a whole lot of words having been said, shared, printed and/or posted about that time, that night, those guys and that music.

So, in the spirit of commemoration, while trying to prevent a predictable lack of concentration, let's just hit a few, quick anecdotal reminiscences.

Ringo Starr on their concern about the quality of the sound the American TV audience would hear...

"The main thing I was aware of when we did the first Ed Sullivan Show was that we rehearsed all afternoon. Y'know, TV was such bad sound, so we would have 'em, like, tape our rehearsals, and we'd go up and we'd mess with the dials, y'know, that they had in the control booth. So we'd sort of got it all set with the engineer there, and we went off for a break, and -- the story has it, 'cause we didn't see it -- but the cleaner came in (laughs) while we were out, and she came to clean the room and the console, and thought, 'What are all these chalk marks?', and wiped them all off. So then we had a real hasty time trying to get some sound." 

George Harrison on one socially beneficial phenomenon of the Fab Four appearance that night...

"Later, they said that there was the least reported, or there was no reported crime. Even the criminals had a rest for, like, 10 minutes, while we were on."
 
And then future superstar Bruce Springsteen on the impact that Sunday night had on the culture...

"This was different. 'Shifted the lay of the land; four guys, playing and singing, writing their own material. There was no longer going to be a music producer apart from the singer, a singer who didn't write, a writer that didn't sing. It changed the way things were done. The Beatles were cool, they were classical, they were formal and created the idea of an independent unit where everything could come out of your garage."

It really was something very special.

And unique, in the sense that the culture and the country, for that matter, the world, has never really seen anything like it since.

Time and its passage, though, take a little bit of a toll.

The music, along with a little of the magic, have survived half a century, even, some might argue, continued to flourish.

The excitement, the real, palpable feeling in the pit of the stomach and center of the heart that something extraordinary was happening right before our eyes and ears....

well, that part of it, in fairness, falls into the category of "you really had to be there."

But, trust me, it really was something to see.

And hear.

Paradoxically, the music, and its impact, has continued to charm and connect to this very day.

While the band itself was, for all intents and purposes, done and done just seventy two short months after that Sullivan Sunday night.

But their contribution to the culture was undeniable.

And our affection for them both powerful and, well, affecting.

So powerful and affecting, in fact, that just eight years later, to the day, that the Fabs sang their songs on Sullivan, Paul McCartney debuted his first post-Beatles effort, Wings, in small university settings.

And...wow...were we excited about what was next in the Beatles history?

Damn right we were.

And did we eagerly hang on every note and chord that came our way?

Damn right we did.

And did we lovingly indulge a lot of what was, honestly, pure crap from that period?

Damn right we did.

(Find your worn, frayed copy of the LP Wings Wildlife and cringe while you re-visit),

Because, you see, it didn't matter.

Love is, and was, blind.

And we loved those guys.

For all the reasons that those aforementioned sayings, sharings, printings and postings have offered and continue to offer to this day.

And for all the reasons that every new generation that discovers the music offer when asked why they've come to love it, as well.

Magic, by its nature, is both elusive and illusory.

Making it difficult, if not impossible, to specifically define.

Let alone trace back to an exact moment of first appearance.

This particular magic, though, is, like the artists who created it, easily traced back to an exact moment of first appearance.

8:12 PM, Eastern.

February 9, 1964.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.