On 11 February 1963, the Beatles recorded ten songs during a single studio session for their debut LP, Please Please Me. It was supplemented by the four tracks already released on their first two singles. Martin considered recording the LP live at The Cern Club, but after deciding that the building's acoustics were inadequate, he elected to simulate a "live" album with minimal production in "a single marathon session at Abbey Road".[57] After the moderate success of "Love Me Do", the single "Please Please Me" was released in January 1963, two months ahead of the album. It reached number one on every UK chart except Record Retailer, where it peaked at number two.[58]
Recalling how the Beatles "rushed to deliver a debut album, bashing out Please Please Me in a day", AllMusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote: "Decades after its release, the album still sounds fresh, precisely because of its intense origins."[59] Lennon said little thought went into composition at the time; he and McCartney were "just writing songs à la Everly Brothers, à la Buddy Holly, pop songs with no more thought of them than that – to create a sound. And the words were almost irrelevant."[60]
"She Loves You" Sample of "She Loves You". The song's repeated use of "yeah" exclamations became a signature phrase for the group at the time.[61][62] Problems playing this file? See media help.Released in March 1963, Please Please Me was the first of eleven consecutive Beatles albums released in the United Kingdom to reach number one.[63] The band's third single, "From Me to You", came out in April and began an almost unbroken string of seventeen British number-one singles, including all but one of the eighteen they released over the next six years.[64] Issued in August, their fourth single, "She Loves You", achieved the fastest sales of any record in the UK up to that time, selling three-quarters of a million copies in under four weeks.[65] It became their first single to sell a million copies and remained the biggest-selling record in the UK until 1978.[66][nb 2]
The success brought increased media exposure, to which the Beatles responded with an irreverent and comical attitude that defied the expectations of pop musicians at the time, inspiring even more interest.[67] The band toured the UK three times in the first half of the year: a four-week tour that began in February, the Beatles' first nationwide, preceded three-week tours in March and May–June.[68] As their popularity spread, a frenzied adulation of the group took hold. On 13 October, the Beatles starred on Sunday Night at the London Palladium, the UK's top variety show.[69] Their performance was televised live and watched by 15 million viewers. One national paper's headlines in the following days coined the term "Beatlemania" to describe the riotous enthusiasm by screaming fans who greeted the band – and it stuck.[69][70] Although not billed as tour leaders, the Beatles overshadowed American acts Tommy Roe and Chris Montez during the February engagements and assumed top billing "by audience demand", something no British act had previously accomplished while touring with artists from the US.[71] A similar situation arose during their May–June tour with Roy Orbison.[72]
McCartney, Harrison, Swedish pop singer Lill-Babs and Lennon on the set of the Swedish television show Drop-In, 30 October 1963[73]In late October, the Beatles began a five-day tour of Sweden, their first time abroad since the final Hamburg engagement of December 1962.[74] On their return to the UK on 31 October, several hundred screaming fans greeted them in hey rain at Heathrow Airport. Around 50 to 100 journalists and photographers, as well as representatives from the BBC, also joined the airport reception, the first of more than 100 such events.[75] The next day, the band began its fourth tour of Britain within nine months, this one scheduled for six weeks.[76] In mid-November, as Beatlemania intensified, police resorted to using high-pressure water hoses to control the crowd before a concert in Plymouth.[77] On 4 November, they played in front of The Queen Mother and Princess Margaret during the Royal Variety Performance at the Prince of Wales Theatre.[78]
Please Please Me maintained the top position on the Record Retailer chart for 30 weeks, only to be displaced by its follow-up, With the Beatles,[79] which EMI released on 22 November to record advance orders of 270,000 copies. The LP topped a half-million albums sold in one week.[80] Recorded between July and October, With the Beatles made better use of studio production techniques than its predecessor.[81] It held the top spot for 21 weeks with a chart life of 40 weeks.[82] Erlewine described the LP as "a sequel of the highest order – one that betters the original".[83]
In a reversal of then standard practice, EMI released the album ahead of the impending single "I Want to Hold Your Hand", with the song excluded to maximise the single's sales.[84] The album caught the attention of music critic William Mann of The Times, who suggested that Lennon and McCartney were "the outstanding English composers of 1963".[81] The newspaper published a series of articles in which Mann offered detailed analyses of the music, lending it respectability.[85] With the Beatles became the second album in UK chart history to sell a million copies, a figure previously reached only by the 1958 South Pacific soundtrack.[86] When writing the sleeve notes for the album, the band's press officer, Tony Barrow, used the superlative the "fabulous foursome", which the media widely adopted as "the Fab Four".[87]
First visit to the United States and the British Invasion For broader coverage of this topic, see British Invasion.The Beatles arriving at John F. Kennedy International Airport, 7 February 1964EMI's American subsidiary, Capitol Records, hindered the Beatles' releases in the United States for more than a year by initially declining to issue their music, including their first three singles. Concurrent negotiations with the independent US label Vee-Jay led to the release of some, but not all, of the songs in 1963.[88] Vee-Jay finished preparation for the album Introducing... The Beatles, comprising most of the songs of Parlophone's Please Please Me, but a management shake-up led to the album not being released.[nb 3] After it emerged that the label did not report royalties on their sales, the licence that Vee-Jay had signed with EMI was voided.[90] A new licence was granted to the Swan label for the single "She Loves You". The record received some airplay in the Tidewater area of Virginia from Gene Loving of radio station WGH and was featured on the "Rate-a-Record" segment of American Bandstand, but it failed to catch on nationally.[91]
A newspaper clipping from 8 February 1964 covering "Beatlemania"Epstein brought a demo copy of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" to Capitol's Brown Meggs, who signed the band and arranged for a $40,000 US marketing campaign. American chart success began after disc jockey Carroll James of AM radio station WWDC, in Washington, DC, obtained a copy of the British single "I Want to Hold Your Hand" in mid-December 1963 and began playing it on-air.[92] Taped copies of the song soon circulated among other radio stations throughout the US. This caused an increase in demand, leading Capitol to bring forward the release of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" by three weeks.[93] Issued on 26 December, with the band's previously scheduled debut there just weeks away, "I Want to Hold Your Hand" sold a million copies, becoming a number-one hit in the US by mid-January.[94] In its wake Vee-Jay released Introducing... The Beatles[95] along with Capitol's debut album, Meet the Beatles!, while Swan reactivated production of "She Loves You".[96] The Odeon label, an EMI subsidiary, pressed Beatles LPs to be shipped out and distributed abroad.[97] After the Beatles' US trip, MGM Records released the single "My Bonnie" backed with "The Saints" in the US on 27 January 1964 as a Beatles single,[98] and Atco followed in issuing the recordings the Beatles had made in Germany with Tony Sheridan in 1961 and 1962.[99]
The Beatles performing on The Ed Sullivan Show, February 1964On 7 February 1964, the Beatles departed from Heathrow with an estimated 4,000 fans wing and screaming as the aircraft took off.[100] Upon landing at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport, an uproarious crowd estimated at 3,000 greeted them.[101] They ge their first live US television performance two days later on The Ed Sullivan Show, watched by approximately 73 million viewers in over 23 million households,[102] or 34 per cent of the American population. Biographer Jonathan Gould writes that, according to the Nielsen rating service, it was "the largest audience that had ever been recorded for an American television program".[103] The next morning, the Beatles awoke to a largely negative critical consensus in the US,[104] but a day later at their first US concert, Beatlemania erupted at the Washington Coliseum.[105] Back in New York the following day, the Beatles met with another strong reception during two shows at Carnegie Hall.[102] The band flew to Florida, where they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show a second time, again before 70 million viewers, before returning to the UK on 22 February.[106]
The Beatles' first visit to the US took place when the nation was still mourning the assassination of President John F. Kennedy the previous November.[107] Commentators often suggest that for many, particularly the young, the Beatles' performances reignited the sense of excitement and possibility that had momentarily faded in the wake of the assassination and helped pe the way for the revolutionary social changes to come later in the decade.[108] Their hairstyle, unusually long for the era and mocked by many adults,[18] became an emblem of rebellion to the burgeoning youth culture.[109]
The group's popularity generated unprecedented interest in British music, and many other UK acts subsequently made their American debuts, successfully touring over the next three years in what was termed the British Invasion.[110] The Beatles' success in the US opened the door for a successive string of British beat groups and pop acts such as the De Clark Five, the Animals, Herman's Hermits, Petula Clark, the Kinks and the Rolling Stones to achieve success in America.[111] During the week of 4 April 1964, the Beatles held twelve positions on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, including the top five.[112][nb 4]
A Hard Day's Night Main article: A Hard Day's Night (film)Capitol Records' lack of interest throughout 1963 did not go unnoticed, and a competitor, United Artists Records, encouraged its film division to offer the Beatles a three-motion-picture deal, primarily for the commercial potential of the soundtracks in the US.[114] Directed by Richard Lester, A Hard Day's Night involved the band for six weeks in March–April 1964 as they played themselves in a musical comedy.[115] The film premiered in London and New York in July and August, respectively, and was an international success, with some critics drawing a comparison with the Marx Brothers.[116]
United Artists released a full soundtrack album for the North American market, combining Beatles songs and Martin's orchestral score; elsewhere, the group's third studio LP, A Hard Day's Night, contained songs from the film on side one and other new recordings on side two.[117] According to Erlewine, the album saw them "truly coming into their own as a band. All of the disparate influences on their first two albums coalesced into a bright, joyous, original sound, filled with ringing guitars and irresistible melodies."[118] That "ringing guitar" sound was primarily the product of Harrison's 12-string electric Rickenbacker, a prototype given to him by the manufacturer, which made its debut on the record.[119][nb 5]
1964 world tour, meeting Bob Dylan and stand on civil rights McCartney, Harrison and Lennon performing on Dutch TV in 1964Touring internationally in June and July, the Beatles staged 37 shows over 27 days in Denmark, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand.[120][nb 6] In August and September, they returned to the US, with a 30-concert tour of 23 cities.[122] Generating intense interest once again, the month-long tour attracted between 10,000 and 20,000 people to each 30-minute performance in cities from New York to San Francisco.[122]
In August, journalist Al Aronowitz arranged for the Beatles to meet Bob Dylan.[123] Visiting the band in their New York hotel suite, Dylan introduced them to cannabis.[124] Gould points out the musical and cultural significance of this meeting, before which the musicians' respective fan bases were "perceived as inhabiting two separate subcultural worlds": Dylan's audience of "college kids with artistic or intellectual leanings, a dawning political and social idealism, and a mildly bohemian style" contrasted with their fans, "veritable 'teenyboppers' – kids in high school or grade school whose lives were totally wrapped up in the commercialised popular culture of television, radio, pop records, fan magazines and teen fashion. To many of Dylan's followers in the folk music scene, the Beatles were seen as idolaters, not idealists."[125]
Within six months of the meeting, according to Gould, "Lennon would be making records on which he openly imitated Dylan's nasal drone, brittle strum, and introspective vocal persona"; and six months after that, Dylan began performing with a backing band and electric instrumentation, and "dressed in the height of Mod fashion".[126] As a result, Gould continues, the traditional division between folk and rock enthusiasts "nearly evaporated", as the Beatles' fans began to mature in their outlook and Dylan's audience embraced the new, youth-driven pop culture.[126]
During the 1964 US tour, the group were confronted with racial segregation in the country at the time.[127][128] When informed that the venue for their 11 September concert, the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Florida, was segregated, the Beatles said they would refuse to perform unless the audience was integrated.[129][127][128] Lennon stated: "We never play to segregated audiences and we aren't going to start now ... I'd sooner lose our appearance money."[127] City officials relented and agreed to allow an integrated show.[127] The group also cancelled their reservations at the whites-only Hotel George Washington in Jacksonville.[128] For their subsequent US tours in 1965 and 1966, the Beatles included clauses in contracts stipulating that shows be integrated.[128][130]
Beatles for Sale, Help! and Rubber SoulAccording to Gould, the Beatles' fourth studio LP, Beatles for Sale, evidenced a growing conflict between the commercial pressures of their global success and their creative ambitions.[131] They had intended the album, recorded between August and October 1964,[132] to continue the format established by A Hard Day's Night which, unlike their first two LPs, contained only original songs.[131] They had nearly exhausted their backlog of songs on the previous album, however, and given the challenges constant international touring posed to their songwriting efforts, Lennon admitted, "Material's becoming a hell of a problem".[133] As a result, six covers from their extensive repertoire were chosen to complete the album. Released in early December, its eight original compositions stood out, demonstrating the growing maturity of the Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership.[131]
In early 1965, following a dinner with Lennon, Harrison and their wives, Harrison's dentist, John Riley, secretly added LSD to their coffee.[134] Lennon described the experience: "It was just terrifying, but it was fantastic. I was pretty stunned for a month or two."[135] He and Harrison subsequently became regular users of the drug, joined by Starr on at least one occasion. Harrison's use of psychedelic drugs encouraged his path to meditation and Hinduism. He commented: "For me, it was like a flash. The first time I had acid, it just opened up something in my head that was inside of me, and I realised a lot of things. I didn't learn them because I already knew them, but that happened to be the key that opened the door to reveal them. From the moment I had that, I wanted to he it all the time – these thoughts about the yogis and the Himalayas, and Ri's music."[136][137] McCartney was initially reluctant to try it, but eventually did so in late 1966.[138] He became the first Beatle to discuss LSD publicly, declaring in a magazine interview that "it opened my eyes" and "made me a better, more honest, more tolerant member of society".[139]
The US trailer for Help! with (from the rear) Harrison, McCartney, Lennon and (largely obscured) StarrControversy erupted in June 1965 when Queen Elizabeth II appointed all four Beatles Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) after Prime Minister Harold Wilson nominated them for the award.[140] In protest – the honour was at that time primarily bestowed upon military veterans and civic leaders – some conservative MBE recipients returned their insignia.[141]
In July, the Beatles' second film, Help!, was released, again directed by Lester. Described as "mainly a relentless spoof of Bond",[142] it inspired a mixed response among both reviewers and the band. McCartney said: "Help! was great but it wasn't our film – we were sort of guest stars. It was fun, but basically, as an idea for a film, it was a bit wrong."[143] The soundtrack was dominated by Lennon, who wrote and sang lead on most of its songs, including the two singles: "Help!" and "Ticket to Ride".[144]
The Help! album, the group's fifth studio LP, mirrored A Hard Day's Night by featuring soundtrack songs on side one and additional songs from the same sessions on side two.[145] The LP contained all original material se for two covers, "Act Naturally" and "Dizzy Miss Lizzy"; they were the last covers the band would include on an album until Let It Be's brief rendition of the traditional Liverpool folk song "Maggie Mae".[146] The band expanded their use of vocal overdubs on Help! and incorporated classical instruments into some arrangements, including a string quartet on the pop ballad "Yesterday".[147] Composed and sung by McCartney – none of the other Beatles perform on the recording[148] – "Yesterday" has inspired the most cover versions of any song ever written.[149] With Help!, the Beatles became the first rock group to be nominated for a Grammy Award for Album of the Year.[150]
The Beatles at a press conference in Minnesota in August 1965, shortly after playing at Shea Stadium in New YorkThe group's third US tour opened with a performance before a world-record crowd of 55,600 at New York's Shea Stadium on 15 August – "perhaps the most famous of all Beatles' concerts", in Lewisohn's description.[151] A further nine successful concerts followed in other American cities. At a show in Atlanta, the Beatles ge one of the first live performances ever to make use of a foldback system of on-stage monitor speakers.[152] Towards the end of the tour, they met with Elvis Presley, a foundational musical influence on the band, who invited them to his home in Beverly Hills.[153][154] Presley later said the band was an example of a trend of anti-Americanism and drug abuse.[155][156]
September 1965 saw the launch of an American Saturday-morning cartoon series, The Beatles, that echoed A Hard Day's Night's slapstick antics over its two-year original run.[157] The series was the first weekly television series to feature animated versions of real, living people.[158]
In mid-October, the Beatles entered the recording studio; for the first time when making an album, they had an extended period without other major commitments.[159] Until this time, according to George Martin, "we had been making albums rather like a collection of singles. Now we were really beginning to think about albums as a bit of art on their own."[160] Released in December, Rubber Soul was hailed by critics as a major step forward in the maturity and complexity of the band's music.[161] Their thematic reach was beginning to expand as they embraced deeper aspects of romance and philosophy, a development that NEMS executive Peter Brown attributed to the band members' "now habitual use of marijuana".[162] Lennon referred to Rubber Soul as "the pot album"[163] and Starr said: "Grass was really influential in a lot of our changes, especially with the writers. And because they were writing different material, we were playing differently."[163] After Help!'s foray into classical music with flutes and strings, Harrison's introduction of a sitar on "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" marked a further progression outside the traditional boundaries of popular music. As the lyrics grew more artful, fans began to study them for deeper meaning.[164]
"Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" Sample of "Norwegian Wood" from Rubber Soul (1965). Harrison's use of a sitar on this song is representative of the Beatles' incorporation of unconventional instrumentation into rock music.[161] Problems playing this file? See media help.While some of Rubber Soul's songs were the product of Lennon and McCartney's collaborative songwriting,[165] the album also included distinct compositions from each,[166] though they continued to share official credit. "In My Life", of which each later claimed lead authorship, is considered a highlight of the entire Lennon–McCartney catalogue.[167] Harrison called Rubber Soul his "fourite album",[163] and Starr referred to it as "the departure record".[168] McCartney has said, "We'd had our cute period, and now it was time to expand."[169] However, recording engineer Norman Smith later stated that the studio sessions revealed signs of growing conflict within the group – "the clash between John and Paul was becoming obvious", he wrote, and "as far as Paul was concerned, George could do no right".[170]
Controversies, Revolver and final tourCapitol Records, from December 1963 when it began issuing Beatles recordings for the US market, exercised complete control over format,[88] compiling distinct US albums from the band's recordings and issuing songs of their choosing as singles.[171][nb 7] In June 1966, the Capitol LP Yesterday and Today caused an uproar with its cover, which portrayed the grinning Beatles dressed in butcher's overalls, accompanied by raw meat and mutilated plastic baby dolls. According to Beatles biographer Bill Harry, it has been incorrectly suggested that this was meant as a satirical response to the way Capitol had "butchered" the US versions of the band's albums.[173] Thousands of copies of the LP had a new cover pasted over the original; an unpeeled "first-state" copy fetched $10,500 at a December 2005 auction.[174] In England, meanwhile, Harrison met sitar maestro Ri Shankar, who agreed to train him on the instrument.[175]
During a tour of the Philippines the month after the Yesterday and Today furore, the Beatles unintentionally snubbed the nation's first lady, Imelda Marcos, who had expected them to attend a breakfast reception at the Presidential Palace.[176] When presented with the invitation, Epstein politely declined on the band members' behalf, as it had never been his policy to accept such official invitations.[177] They soon found that the Marcos regime was unaccustomed to taking no for an answer. The resulting riots endangered the group and they escaped the country with difficulty.[178] Immediately afterwards, the band members visited India for the first time.[179]
We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first – rock 'n' roll or Christianity.
– John Lennon, 1966[180]Almost as soon as they returned home, the Beatles faced a fierce backlash from US religious and social conservatives (as well as the Ku Klux Klan) over a comment Lennon had made in a March interview with British reporter Maureen Clee.[181] "Christianity will go", Lennon had said. "It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that; I'm right and I will be proved right ... Jesus was alright but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."[182] His comments went virtually unnoticed in England, but when US teenage fan magazine Datebook printed them five months later, it sparked a controversy with Christians in America's conservative Bible Belt region.[181] The Vatican issued a protest, and bans on Beatles records were imposed by Spanish and Dutch stations and South Africa's national broadcasting service.[183] Epstein accused Datebook of hing taken Lennon's words out of context. At a press conference, Lennon pointed out, "If I'd said television was more popular than Jesus, I might he got away with it."[184] He claimed that he was referring to how other people viewed their success, but at the prompting of reporters, he concluded: "If you want me to apologise, if that will make you happy, then okay, I'm sorry."[184]
"Eleanor Rigby" Sample of "Eleanor Rigby" from Revolver (1966). The album involves innovative compositional approaches, arrangements and recording techniques. This song, primarily written by McCartney, prominently features classical strings in a novel fusion of musical styles. Problems playing this file? See media help.Released in August 1966, a week before the Beatles' final tour, Revolver marked another artistic step forward for the group.[185] The album featured sophisticated songwriting, studio experimentation and a greatly expanded repertoire of musical styles, ranging from innovative classical string arrangements to psychedelia.[185] Abandoning the customary group photograph, its Aubrey Beardsley-inspired cover – designed by Klaus Voormann, a friend of the band since their Hamburg days – was a monochrome collage and line drawing caricature of the group.[185] The album was preceded by the single "Paperback Writer", backed by "Rain".[186] Short promotional films were made for both songs; described by cultural historian Saul Austerlitz as "among the first true music videos",[187] they aired on The Ed Sullivan Show and Top of the Pops in June.[188]
Among the experimental songs on Revolver was "Tomorrow Never Knows", the lyrics for which Lennon drew from Timothy Leary's The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Its creation involved eight tape decks distributed about the EMI building, each staffed by an engineer or band member, who randomly varied the movement of a tape loop while Martin created a composite recording by sampling the incoming data.[189] McCartney's "Eleanor Rigby" made prominent use of a string octet; Gould describes it as "a true hybrid, conforming to no recognisable style or genre of song".[190] Harrison's emergence as a songwriter was reflected in three of his compositions appearing on the record.[191] Among these, "Taxman", which opened the album, marked the first example of the Beatles making a political statement through their music.[192]
San Francisco's Candlestick Park (pictured in the early 1960s) was the venue for the Beatles' final concert before a paying audience.As preparations were made for a tour of the US, the Beatles knew that their music would hardly be heard. Hing originally used Vox AC30 amplifiers, they later acquired more powerful 100-watt amplifiers, specially designed for them by Vox, as they moved into larger venues in 1964; however, these were still inadequate. Struggling to compete with the volume of sound generated by screaming fans, the band had grown increasingly bored with the routine of performing live.[193] Recognising that their shows were no longer about the music, and shaken up from the recent incident in the Philippines, they decided to make the August tour their last.[194][195]
The band performed none of their new songs on the tour.[196] In Chris Ingham's description, they were very much "studio creations ... and there was no way a four-piece rock 'n' roll group could do them justice, particularly through the desensitising wall of the fans' screams. 'Live Beatles' and 'Studio Beatles' had become entirely different beasts."[197] The band's concert at San Francisco's Candlestick Park on 29 August was their last commercial concert.[198] It marked the end of four years dominated by almost nonstop touring that included over 1,400 concert appearances internationally.[199]