Beatle Mania 0

The streams of syrup unleashed in media stories about the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ appearance on the Ed Sullivan show have been silly and stultifying. I have relentlessly avoided them.

The times were not so syrupy.

Young men were dying for old men’s lies in Viet Nam, as today different youngsters die for different lies from different old men in a different part of the world; the protest movement was starting to bloom. The Civil Rights struggle (which still is going on, by the way) was nearing its height. The great civil rights and anti-war demonstrations were yet to happen. Acid rock was just on the horizon. A culture war was brewing, one that continues still as the forces of reaction continue to, well, react.

I remember boys getting suspended from school for “Beatles haircuts,” which were quite short in retrospect. One of the students in my high school, directed to cut his hair by the principal, had his head shaved; the principal forced him to wear a toboggan cap until it grew back.

Michael Tomasky tries to bring some reality to the orgy of saccharine nostalgia.

Full Disclosure:

I did not pay much attention to the Beatles until later, after seeing a Leonard Bernstein “Young People Concert” in which Bernstein praised the richness and complexity of their music. I was more into Cannonball Adderley and Rimsky-Korsakov. And I was always more of an Airplane freak.