Sir Paul McCartney has seen the world over the last 60 years since the Beatles went to the USA in 1964, but sadly for the last few decades he has been without two of his closest friends John Lennon and George Harrison.
Asked what he would like to say to them now he says simply: “I would say I love you, because growing up in Liverpool you never said that. You never told a guy you loved him, unless he was like your brother or something, and they were brothers.”
The tender moment comes in a new interview which forms part of the documentary Beatles ’64 released on Friday, which is all about Beatlemania in the Sixties and how it grew across America. The documentary captures The Beatles’ 1964 United States debut, a three week stay which catapulted them to global fame and came in the aftermath of JFK’s assassination.
McCartney adds: “When we came America had been in mourning. It was quite shortly after Kennedy had been assassinated, maybe America needed something like The Beatles to lift it out of mourning and just sort of say, life goes on, the joy you see in these audiences, is like being lifted out of sorrow.”
McCartney and Lennon already had American influences from the very beginning of their song writing before they had been there. Looking at a photo of his own childhood home at an exhibition, McCartney says: “Me and John could just sit around writing stuff, we’d written the song She Loves You in the next room, and my dad was in the other room, so we came in to play it to him, for the first time. She Loves You, yeah yeah yeah, and he’s at the end of it, he said, ‘boys it’s very nice but couldn’t you sing she loves you yes, yes, yes?’.
“He said, there’s enough of these Americanisms around. But you know, coming to America, this was to us, the land of freedom. It was funny, because once we got here, we learned that wasn’t quite the story.” It was only a year or so later that McCartney’s dad would have waved him off to the States. On February 7, 1964, The Beatles arrived in New York City to excitement and hysteria.
Once they landed at Kennedy Airport Beatlemania swept New York and then began to grow around the entire country as newspapers and TV news bulletins captured the hysteria amongst the youth buying their records. Their debut performance on The Ed Sullivan Show attracted more than 73 million viewers, the most watched television event of its time.
Early on the trip also came a moment which was probably the last time The Beatles were able to hang out unnoticed without being mobbed- after Ronnie Spector took them to Harlem to hang out.
On camera Ronnie explains: “John called me at my house, and he said ‘Ronnie, we’re prisoners. We can’t get out. The whole place is surrounded by girls around the whole Plaza building’.
“So what did I do? I came down with the two Ronettes. We went upstairs. So we’re upstairs, having finger sandwiches on the floor, listening to 45s having a great time with all the Beatles.
“And then every minute The Supremes came in, Jay and the Americans, they would say, ‘Damn it, we have to get them take pictures’.
“They wanted to know everything about America, the food, the groups, the dancing. They asked us everything about Little Richard, Chuck Berry, the Marvelettes, you know. So they’d say, ‘what did they do on stage?’
“I’ll tell you the truth. They had to escape. They were prisoners. So I got a limousine. We went down the back stairs and went to Harlem. I said, I’m taking you to Harlem. Nobody will notice you up there. And they didn’t. They thought they were a bunch of Spanish dogs because of Spanish Harlem. So they didn’t pay them any mind.
“We went into Sherman’s BBQ. It was on 151street. They went in and they loved it, because nobody recognised them. You know, the black guys are eating their ribs, and the Spanish guys, and nobody paid them any attention. And it was great. They loved that, that nobody paid them any attention. See how sweet they were.”
The trip also had a big impact on culture and future of music, thanks to the Beatles’ influences which were predominantly black musicians.
Singer Smokey Robinson praises the band for speaking up about their love of black music after covering his song You Really Got A Hold Of Me on their second LP With The Beatles.
He explains: “I was elated. They were the first white group that I had ever heard in my life, the first white artist ever of their magnitude that I’d ever heard in my life say ‘Yeah, we grew up listening to black music. We love Motown. We listen to black music’.
“No other white artists had ever said that. Not any one of magnitude and until the Beatles said that there was a lot of segregation going on, especially in the south at that time, for shows.
“I’ve been shot at for wanting to go to the toilet, you know what I mean? So it was like that, you know? And the saving grace was the music, because it gave those kids a common love. It gave them something that they both loved and they both enjoyed.
“So when we first started going there, we would play these big arenas, and there’ll be a rope down the centre of the arena, and white kids on one side, black kids on the other side. And after they start hearing the music, and we go down there a year later, you see white boys are black girlfriends, and black boys and white girlfriends, and they were all dancing together and enjoying that music and having a good time. Music is the international language. It’s the barrier breaker.”
Fans also remember the time fondly, and how the Beatles and their music broke the mould and changed music and lives forever.
Screaming girls on the edge of hysteria talk about how “beautiful and fabulous” the Fab Four are.
Other girls buy lists of gifts to give them should they ever get to meet them in the Plaza hotel.
“The voices of those girls are fresh and surprising,” says the director David Tedeschi.
“The Beatles is a story we feel like we know, but those girls are something else. What they were feeling was so visceral they couldn’t put it into words. That’s why they screamed. And that was the story.”
The film features some unseen footage on raw 16mm cinéma-vérité footage shot by the late Albert and David Maysles showing the band clowning around in their hotel room, in part unaware of the growing hysteria beginning outside which would remain for years to come.
But although the Beatles were a hit almost everywhere they went – including New York and then Washington on this tour, there was one downbeat moment on the tour.
McCartney recalls their insulting treatment during a reception at the British embassy in Washington where staff called them scruffy. George Harrison was left close to tears and Lennon stormed out.
“We were kind of used to it,” McCartney says looking back with a shrug. “We’re working-class guys, and if you come up against posh people, you figure they are gonna look down on you.
“We didn’t give a flying f**k. They were working in an embassy, we were on the road rocking!”
* Beatles ‘64 will stream exclusively on Disney+ from Friday. Paul McCartney is touring the UK next month, ticket details at www.paulmccartney.com/live/got-back-tour-2024
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