Saturday, February 07, 2009

The Day Music Changed My Life

I may be acting a little over dramatic but it was on this date in 1964 that music changed my life. The morning newspaper reminded me that it was on this date in 1964...when I was 12 years old...that the Beatles came to America. News wasn't the same in 1964 and we didn't have the Internet so I can't remember for sure if I realized on this day that the Beatles were landing at JFK airport in New York. I do vividly remember their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show. I sat on the floor of my parent's living room and watched them...in black and white...while they played live in a theater that is now the home of "Late Show with David Letterman". Millions of Americans, not just teen-ager's, watched them. Much has been said about how that night was a kind of antidote for the national sadness that began a few months earlier with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. That night the Beatles seemed much more innocent than they were in the picture above. We know now that they were never innocent. The Rolling Stones took all the heat for being bad boys. The album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" came out in the Summer of Love, 1967. By that time few young people of my generation were innocent and the whole world was in technicolor.

1 comment:

Rob said...

I saw Paul McCartney on 2/9/90 and my wife and uncle were both born on that same day!

Good day. :)