Gratitude Friday 02 07 25 The British Invasion

On this day in 1964, the Beatles landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Pan Am Flight 101 from London Heathrow. I found a video clip of them being greeted by thousands of fans and a press conference they then held soon after they got off the plane. Two nights later, they performed on the Ed Sullivan show. These are events seen as historical beyond the music world as what unfolded influenced so many facets of our society. It was also before my birth. There are readers who may never have heard of the Pan Am airline or even the name Ed Sullivan. I certainly hope there is no one out there who has never heard of the Beatles.

As far as the British Invasion, I suspect there are a few around who have not heard this term. It was not a war of weapons but guitars, vocals and drum sets, all under high amplification. The emergence of British Rock and Roll which had been up to that point dominated by the American music scene. Rock and Roll was in that era largely an American oriented market of US bands and artists like Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan (in his folk phase), the Beach Boys and many others. What unfolded was a music scene that influenced what was being recorded, what people listened to and even how people thought about the world. Influences across the pond on two continents that had broad societal implications globally. The Brits led the scene in the mid-60s and great things ensued.

This was the era in which I first heard music. The platform was in my earliest memory dominated on AM Radio and then later on FM radio.  My first transistor radio is pictured here. Small, portable cheap radios were a game changer. I can recall listing to the Beatles and even the moment I learned that they had broken up in 1974, I can also recall laying in bed after my bed time quietly listening to Casey Casem’s top ten as Paul McCartney and Wings single Silly Love Songs climbed to number one and stayed there for five weeks in 1976.   

My favorite bands were British the Beatles were certainly on that list, but I listened to Bowie, Pink Floyd, the Who, the Kinks and Queen among others. The platform in which we listened to music was on vinyl record albums with all kinds of cover art. Music was something that pulled people together. Even going to a record store, which was one of the coolest potential jobs for a young person, was a place in which you met people passionate about music and you were introduced to new music. People connected through music and it was a wonderful thing.

It is hard for me to fathom the 70s and 80s without considering the influence of music in general and the British music invasion specifically to growing up in that era. When you would meet another kid, learning what they were listening to was important in ways that it is hard to put into words. The sharing of new music was something that we spent time on as we explored what musicians were releasing.

Out of this came the era of huge concerts. Woodstock was legendary and a symbol of the youth movement that rose up in the years that followed the Beatles landing at JKF in 65. So was Altamont in a very different way. As the 1970s unfolded, arena rock concert events with groups like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, Queen and The Who were the places to be for youth. In the 80s, benefit concerts like Live Aid in 1985 came out of early concerts like the Concert for Bangladesh in 1971. Ominously, an attempt to recreate Woodstock in 1999 was highly commercialized and the antithesis of the peace and love themes it was hoped to replicate.

Music and the role it has in our society has changed as the manner we listen to it have shifted. As young people we used to create our own playlists on things called cassette tapes and then Compact Disks and share them with each other. As music moved to iPod and now commonly streams on highly individualized playlist that design around your own preferences the role it once had as a unifier and societal level influence has faded, at least from what I can determine. There are platforms which bring people together like the show American Idol, but the tactile and shared experience dynamics of music in our society has faded. If you see this differently, I would love to hear an argument to the contrary.

One other thought and something Julie and I talk about is how music from a prior generation is perceived by the current generation. We think and talk about this when we walk into a grocery store or elevator and everyone is humming to altered renditions of music by groups like the Cure, the Pixies or Nirvana that strike us as humorous and quite incongruent. We often find the lyrics and the songs do not fit the venue as others around us are blissfully unaware. We talk about how, when we were kids we would hear 1950s rock music and it sounded really quite dated. We do not hear bands like the Beatles in that way as they seem timeless, yet we wonder what a 20 years olds ear hears.

I am grateful for the influence that music had in my era of youth and the things it helped bring our generation together. It is part of who and what I am.

What are you grateful for today?