“Famous? Fame was not the goal. Money was not the goal. To be able to know how to get peace of mind, how to be happy, is something you don’t just stumble across. You’ve got to search for it.”
So said George Harrison when The Beatles split up after only eight years – an incredibly short time when you think what a phenomenon they were. As John Lennon once sang: “So Captain Marvel zapped us right between the eyes!”, their music amazed us. It was like no other.
The Fab Four, The Lads, The Mop Tops, The Four-Headed Monster; those were just a few of the nicknames given to the group. They skyrocketed to fame in the U.S. after appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 and the following year performed before 56,000 screaming Beatlemaniacs in Shea Stadium. I was there and that awesome day remains one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life.
Sadly, George and John are no longer with us. Today marks the 19th anniversary of George’s death – stricken by a cancer that ravaged his once healthy and supple body. And John, the peace-loving, anti-war, anti-violence activist, was senselessly gunned down in 1980 by a madman whose name will never cross my lips.
There are no words that can express how deeply The Beatles touched our hearts and souls. We embraced them and their music changed our lives forever. In all the world there is only one group with the word ‘mania’ attached to its name: the greatest band ever – The Beatles!
ZAP!!
“I tell you, there is no other band,
there will never be any band like them ever,
for eternity. They are the best.
I say to you here in 1965
that the children of 2000
will be listening to The Beatles.
And I sincerely mean that.” –
Brian Epstein, Manager
NAR © 2020
The Elephant's Trunk 
It is incredible what they did in such a short amount of time! I love their music, they definitely started a new era!
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Thank you! I’ve been a Beatles fan since the age of 13 and was fortunate enough to see them in Shea Stadium in NY in 1965. I still listen to their music all the time and am getting my grandkids hooked on them as well! Never too young!
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so cool!! what is your favourite song? I am between let it be and yesterday!
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Those are great songs! I think my favorite one changes just about every day but I have always loved Because and just about anything George sings. “Something” was my wedding song. ❤️
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A short and very sweet tribute to the enduring phenomenon that was the Beatles. Could it really be a whole fifty years since they split up? And fifty-one since I bought The Ballad of John and Yoko?
One senses the passion in this little vignette for the music that quite literally ‘changed the world,’ and inspired countless pop groups, musicians of all cloths, and song writers. No word is wasted in inspiring the reader to go back in time to a now-vanished and creative decade like no other, in which the Beatles’ influence propelled the instruments, equipment, recording gear and technique through the roof. Indeed Abbey Road featured the first-recorded sounds of the now-ubiquitous synthesiser.
As I once said to a naysaying friend, ‘You could go to anyone in any country in the world and ask them, “Do you know any songs by the Beatles?” Even in the furthest flung outposts and islands, a big smile would break over a black/brown/yellow/white face, and out would come a hum, a whistle, even a voice, “na na na nah nah nah …” perhaps?
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Thank you for that ‘validation’, if you will, Simon. It’s impossible for a Beatles fan to succinctly explain to a non-fan why we love them as much as we do, the depth and range of emotions we feel. Sure, they were cute and funny and they loved each other like brothers but that was just the icing; the heart and soul of The Beatles was in the quality of music, the rapturous harmonies they created together and the love they spread across the universe. Four extremely talented ‘youngsters from Liverpool’, still wet behind the ears and with no formal musical training, all bestowed with some sort of heavenly gift of making music, knitting verse and note together to create a magical, seamless tapestry that the world will never see again. In the early days when The Lads would get depressed and think they were going nowhere, John would say “Where are we going, fellas?” and they’d go “To the top, Johnny. And he’d say “Where’s that, fellas?” and they’d say “To the toppermost of the poppermost!” And John would say “Right!” They made it and will remain there forever. We are the privileged ones to have experienced the phenomenon that is The Beatles. And it’s getting better all the time! “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”
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