Beatleness: How the Beatles and Their Fans Remade the WorldThe Beatles arrived in the United States on February 7, 1964, and immediately became a constant, compelling presence in fans’ lives. For the next six years, the band presented a nonstop deluge of sounds, words, images, and ideas, transforming the childhood and adolescence of millions of baby boomers. Beatleness explains how the band became a source of emotional, intellectual, aesthetic, and spiritual nurturance in fans’ lives, creating a relationship that was historically unique. Looking at that relationship against the backdrop of the sexual revolution, the Vietnam War, political assassinations, and other events of those tumultuous years, the book critically examines the often-heard assertion that the Beatles “changed everything” and shows how—through the interplay between the group, the fans, and the culture—that change came about. A generational memoir and cultural history based on hundreds of hours of in-depth interviews with first-generation fans, Beatleness allows readers to experience—or re-experience—what it was like to be a young person during those eventful and transformative years. Its fresh approach offers many new insights into the entire Beatle phenomenon and explains why the group still means so much to so many. |
Contents
Preface | |
One Setting the Stage | |
Two Something | |
Three British Boys | |
Four The Embodiment of Cool | |
Five Id Love to Turn You | |
Six We All Want to Change the World | |
Seven The Last | |
Eight Beatleness Abounds | |
Notes | |
Bibliography | |
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Common terms and phrases
Abbey Road adults American antiwar appeared artists audience band band’s Beatle album Beatle fans Beatle music Beatle songs Beatlemania boys cool counterculture cover critical culture didn’t drugs Dylan Ed Sullivan Show experience fans heard fans recall fans remember feel felt female fan film four friends George girls guitar hair Hard Day’s Night hear Hey Jude hippie Hold Your Hand John and Yoko John Lennon John’s Kennedy kids knew later listening lives look magazine male fan Meet the Beatles Monkees months older fans parents Paul McCartney Paul’s Pepper play pop music protestors psychedelic radio released Ringo rock and roll Rolling Stone Rubber Soul screaming seemed singing song’s sound Strawberry Fields Forever talking teenage there’s thing thought understand Vietnam viewers watched weeks White Album words Yellow Submarine Yoko’s York young fans youngest fans youth