ENGLISH B EXTENDED ESSAY

November 2020 session

CATEGORY 2B Influence of The Beatles in England and the United States of America

How The Beatles influenced the social, and cultural in England and United States during the Beatlemania?

N.° de palabras: 4004

Supervisor: Gisela Riccio Ipanaqué

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Table of content:

Introduction: 3 Chapter 1: The band that changed the history 4

1.1 Overview of the legacy of The Beatles 4

1.2 The end of Era 5

Chapter 2: The Beatles influence in Great Britain 6

2.1 First Steps 7 2.2 Jump to the fame 8 2.3 Social impact in England 9 2.4 Cultural impact in England 10

Chapter 3: 10 3.1 Boom in the United States 11 3.2 Social influence in the United States 11 3.3 The influence during the civil rights fight 12 3.4 Briticisms in American English 13 3.5 Cultural influence in the United States 14 3.6 The influence of their lyrics in their songs 14 3.7 The culture of drugs and alcohol 15

Conclusions 16 Bibliography 17

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Introduction

It is well known that The Beatles had a massive influence in the social and cultural aspects during the first years of the band and the very well know “Beatlemania” between 1963 to 1966 in England and the United States. However, it is important to consider how the most successful and praised band in the modern history motivated a whole generation related to the postwar period, to the lags it left and to the beginning of the 60s decade. In this extended essay I will describe the early years of the band to their rise to fame and prove that their music and lyrics, had an enormous impact on the world society. The 60s decade were marked by the progressivism that the new generations were given, the desire for world peace not only in the United Kingdom, but also in the United States were the group was seen as the embodiment of progressive ideals seeking change in post-war society. I choose my research question because beside my love for the band music it’s really interesting seeing how this band changed their decade and marked the world in a way that any band has being capable to imitate.

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Chapter 1: The band that changed the history

“If someone tells me they don't like The Beatles so much ... I don't trust him so much anymore” (Charly Garcia, 1998)

Overview of the legacy of The Beatles

I think that is impossible that anyone doesn’t know who The Beatles are. Well in fact there are people who do not know their music itself, but even those have at least heard about their songs one time in their lives. Who would have thought that 4

Liverpool boys John Lennon (rhythm guitar, vocalist), Paul McCartney (bass, vocalist), George Harrison (lead guitar, vocalist) and Ringo Starr (drums, vocalist), marked by the death or separation of their parents at an early age, (with the exception of George), were going to become world-famous international stars, making The Beatles the most acclaimed and successful band in the modern history of the music. Despite the short time that the band had since was created at that moment, The Beatles’ had a massive influence on music and popular culture. The enormous popularity that the group had managed to achieve thanks to

"Beatlemania”, made that as time went by their compassions were increasingly sophisticated, but popular at the same time. The initial band was conforming by John

Lennon, a singer and a very good guitarist, and Paul McCartney, a bassist and singer, both of them were largely self-taught as musicians. When the band was already formed, they think that they need an urgent change because they thought that the other musicians didn’t fit with the image of the group, so they decide to change the cast of accompanists, adding by the end of 1957 the membered lead 5 guitarist Josh Harrison and then, in 1960 for several formative little changes in the band, they finally complete their most famous, recognized and acclaimed line up.

There is little to talk about how much this band changed the music, the popular culture and the entire world. Basically the combination of their extraordinary talent and being in the right place at the right time with the right people that launched them to their enormous fame. As flag bearers of socially appointed rock and roll music, each of their movements was heavily analyzed and The Beatles never did something wrong. They were always looking to improve their musical abilities and forge new and interesting sonic territories, their position as precursors meant that the band was alone in this travel but they never surrender and prove to be the best in all aspects.

The Beatles were a rock and roll band, half their own, half covers, who blew the wig off an entire generation. Between the release of the single 'Love Me Do' in the year of 1962 and the breakup of the band 1970, they made almost 200 songs and sold more than 200 million records something ridiculously big in terms of sales, making them the band with the most album sales in the whole history and marking a precedent in the modern history of the music. Their charisma and His first appearances sparked unprecedented scenes of mass hysteria and made a legion of fans that till this day listen their songs.

End of an Era

When the band decided to break up in 1970 an era was finished. The Beatles were separated, in part, by the egos war between their two main songwriters, Lennon and

McCartney. The other two, George and Ringo, used to keep a low profile. Every 6 member specially Lennon, preferred compositions with a direct style, without too many arrangements. McCartney, on the other hand, enjoyed adding string instruments, but concluded that the group should regain its roots as a simple rock band. So this band never could have finished what they want. But their music and their lyrics are what really caused them to be one of the greatest band ever created.

That time was characterized by love and the desire for peace thanks to the themes they composed. Of course, they knew how to anticipate their time and create a new atmosphere. In the end, as early as 1967, Beatlemania was practically over. But that doesn’t mean the end of their careers, all the members took different paths and evolve in different ways.

Chapter 2: The Beatles influence in Great Britain:

If we want to talk about success in music, we have to mention The Beatles. As we said The Beatles are the most influential band of all time. As John Mucie mention

“Their early appearances provoked unprecedented scenes of mass hysteria. The group whose popularity was to be variously gauged as greater than that of Elvis

Presley or Jesus Christ are widely acclaimed as one of the most significant forces in the history of popular music, as being a symbol for teenagers worldwide and for revolutionizing British pop culture”. Muncie J. (2000). But what difference them from every music band from their time and the future generations? Well that’s basically the mark and legacy they have left in music. Because The Beatles were not only pretty boys band, they marked the decade and the century with their music and lyrics.

They were one of the decade-defining bands of the middle 60s, the band were totally immersed in everything related to made them even better. They represented what 7 the future 60s will become. The Beatles were the middle between the rock’n roll and the blues pop, because if we look into the future bands like The Rolling Stones, they share many similar qualities between them, also because both bands had a massive impact in the music business during the “British Invasion” although The Rolling

Stones were more a psychedelic type of music The Beatles was one of the innovating in forms of music, art and culture in that time.

First Steps

As David Simonelli says “the band "virtually redefined what it meant to be British", and British culture became "the most exciting culture on earth" for the first time since the start of the industrial age”. Simonelli, David (2013). When the band move to

London in 1963 they attached all the attention to the city, they were the “maypole” because being Britain was equal to be privileged only because of The Beatles. They changed the lifestyle of many teenagers that across the nation only because of their music something that history proves does not happen overnight.

A very rare fact that many people don’t know is that Ringo Star was not the first drummer of the band. The first drummer was Pete Best he started playing in 1959 and continue playing during the Hamburg tour but, the producer George Martin was not happy with his playing, because he said he was not able to follow the beat of the songs they played, and also he convinced the manager of the band or better known as the fifth Beatle Brian Epstein said that his curly hair did not fit the image of The

Beatles, and finally he was fired, after that the band asked to Richard Starkey most know as Ring Starr to joined and in that way the original and most recognized popular and remembered line up of the band was placed. 8

Jump to the fame

In 1962 after being in Hamburg making songs and stuff for a future album, they made a song that will broke all the commercial and climb up to the top of the charts, "Please

Please Me." After that the popularity of the band, explode because of this “new kind of music”. This events were followed by a series of massive concerts and a lot of tours inside the UK, where they were greeted with fervent enthusiasm throughout the following year. The amazing success in their country surpassed the most important artists in the world such as Tommy Roe, Chris Montez and Roy Orbison.

They were overshadowing by the success of The Beatles, that they began his touring around the country starting with two of the national tours, that they had American stars’ headliners, but they keep shouting and screaming the name of The Beatles for approximately 2 hours. So all the promotional posters put The Beatles as the head of the tours because that was what the people want, but the band felt bad because they didn’t want that a small band opaque big artists beside that this was the first time that a British artist was superbly bigger than an American band.

In the last trimester of 1963, the band gained a lot of popularity and they appear on the TV program Sunday Night at the London Palladium in front a television audience of 15 million viewers, and it was the place where the term Beatle mania was used for the first time, due to the great hysteria and the great recognition that the band had achieved. That year was chaotic for the band, because every television program press wanted an interview with them, also having a podcast every week. But despite all the work and a massive media attention that sometimes they had to deal with, the group managed to still recording songs and made an EP to present their new ideas 9 to a fervent audience hungry for new music. The era of the 1960s, when the so- called "consumer society" began, owes much to The Beatles. Beatlemania lasted longer than expected for a fashion, just over three years, from the end of 1963 to

1967. Therefore, it is clear that this group marked a milestone in each country that they went, so much, that in all the towns where they played, many fans gathered and in some cases, the police had to take care that no one was injured.

Social impact in England

As David Simonelli says “From 1963, the Beatles provided one of the first opportunities for female teenagers to exhibit spending power and publicly express sexual desire, while the group's image suggested a disregard for adults' opinions and parents' ideas of morality”. Simonelli, David (2013). The teenagers “rebelled” against the system and the impositions of the decade. Socially The Beatles influence in the British teenagers during the 60s, in a way that the youth started experiment in an artist way, specifically in the music, in sexual moral, and in the art because there were all attached to the western influence’s, absorbing all the British cultural development and contributed to expand it in their country very quickly. Also the whole image of the group influenced the way of developing the younger generations, basically how they would dress, how they would act and talk, and how they would live their lives. The style of the Beatles changed with the times and so did the most loyal fans that tried to copy their style even after the band break.

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Cultural impact in England

They were the change that the British people need it. In their footsteps came many other great bands that will also contribute to this cause but without the impact of The

Beatles. The television programs began to be more creative; and innovating in music and context aspects that they showed to the audience’. Socially people began to feel to less restrictive when they talk repressive, and people came to feel more free and able to express themselves. One of the most amazing and curious facts was the type of haircut that the band wore and that caused a big stir in that time, and till this day it exists in the older generations, and become a symbol among youth, being one of the most requested at that time. Having that hairstyle meant being something different form the rest of the musical aggrupation’s, and all the previous ones.

Chapter 3: The British Invasion in the United States

"There has never been a band in the history of music that has influenced culture, society and politics in the world like The Beatles"

-Pamela Parra

The Beatles were known almost everywhere in the world for the massive publicity they were given. The so-called British Beatlemania reached other peaks when the popularity of the group finally moved to other countries. It is the case of the United

States that on when they did their first tour there, thousands of fans were waiting at the airport and screaming at the top of their lungs. And it was because of the success of The Beatles in America, that in the next years a lot of famous and recognized 11 groups tried to reach that fame in the country, but nothing compares with the success that the band had in their time.

BOOM in the United States

Once it became an international phenomenon in 1964, Beatlemania surpassed in its popularity and make the band world recognized reaching faraway places in many different continents, like the massive concert in Adelaide Australia in 1963 with the largest attendance (300 000) in one place, but they reach their massive popularity with the called British Invasion On 9 February, was the first time that The Beatles had their first and massive television performance in the United States on The Ed

Sullivan Show, in that time they made history because almost 70 million viewers in over 23 million houses that watched the show. The rating TV service reported that it was the biggest television audience ever recorded in a live American TV show. Many journalists at that time said that their appearance on this show was a Big Bang that was revolutionary for the country. While other journal called Stanley calls it "arguably the most significant postwar cultural event in America", adding that "Their rise, the scale of it and their impact on society, was completely unprecedented.” McCormick,

Neil (6 May 2015). When they appear for the second time on The Ed Sullivan Show, on 16 February, was watched by almost 73 million viewers being the most viewed live program during that time. These became one of the axes by which the media tried to find information: everything they did was immediately known in all regions of the planet. The enormous experience that the group had achieved thanks to "Beatle mania", help them that their future songs were increasingly sophisticated, showing signs of maturing in their lyrics and in the musical aspect. 12

Social Influence in the United States

For the United States, the band became kind of the figure of the progressive ideals that were surging during that time, spreading their ideals and influence over the massive social and cultural revolutions of the 1960s. Both social and cultural band impact in the US began to show itself massively in their visit during the first months in 1964, which served as a key moment in the development of generational awareness. American sociologist David Riesman said “The Beatles' success was "a form of protest against the adult world”; Doggett, Peter (2015). In the last trimester of the 1964, The New York Times Magazine described Beatlemania as a "religion of teenage culture" was in that way how the teens in America they longed to expect about some foreign group that wasn’t American. According to historian Michael

James Roberts, “Even though their early songs avoided such issues, the band represented "cultural change and the oppositional stance of the youth culture against the establishment". Roberts, Michael James (2014). They began to create their music - says Bonilla - in a stratified British society with very little social movement.

"But his influence was not limited to Britain but to the US, which was going through a dramatic moment at the time." According to Bonilla, a predominant factor is the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, in 1963, and the strong movements that developed at that time, such as the "baby boomers." This was a term used to refer to the generation born in World War II and who would later monopolize world wealth. Boys and girls attended college and tried to improve society. Given all this, the social presence of The Beatles for the quality of their records, in lyrics and music, was also mixed with war and the economy. British musicians forged their image 13 according to that interaction with the new groups that emerged in England and

America. It it’s incredible to think the magnitude that the group have to convince many people to follow this groups.

The influence during the civil rights implantation

This highlights had an important significance during the US breakthrough in the year of 1963 occur in the same year that the Civil Rights Act was created, and coincidentally the first US LP created, introducing to The Beatles, was released by an African-American–owned record label called Vee-Jay Records. The outstating LP popularity preponderance of a variety of cover song of different recordings by black artists, allow The Beatles to introduced this music to a new audience of African

American people and helped the band to "legitimate" an aspect of the African-

American music history in general.

Briticisms in American English

The linguistic Harold Sommers thinks that The Beatles developed year by year their own distinctively British idiom, and add a lot of references to certain British locations and customs, or used certain language patterns that seem a little bit strange to all the Americans. (Michael Rundell,2013). Beatlemania sounding all over the world in the middle 60s was the point of inflection of Anglicization and the British invasion in

America of music. Back in the day the discs were the only source of English for many people and The Beatles were the most famous band and who the people listened.

Many America bands began to sign in a Britain accent, because it was considered something “classy”. Obviously this had consequences in the language field because 14 thanks to the Beatlemania in United States the band was listened everywhere and with that their peculiar way to talk was attached by the Americans thought the past of the years.

Cultural influence in the United States

While the industry in that time were dominated by the American influence of folk singers like the well-known Bob Dylan or even Joan Baez, both artist put in their songs some spreading’s of ideals revolutions but not in a very “overwhelming” way but in the other hand The Beatles songs, it was an extraordinary case that the lyrics and the music were combined in such a good way together that it was a perfectly constant changing in the moods of the which never disappointed anybody, it seemed, to evoke responses in large numbers of listeners of the day.

The influence of their lyrics in their songs

Another reason of their success in America was the impact of their lyrics and the

Briticisms’ that they added unconsciously to the subconscious of millions of people in the United States. It is amazing that the majority of their lyrics, but only a few of them had the topic of a social criticism or have a slightly political tint. When they started the song thematic were only about love. In almost 100 songs they recorded between the lapse of three years 1962 - 1965 (76 original songs and 24 cover versions) only 14 are not about love but even those have some references to this, with girls and women, heart breaking and relationships. But this changed in White

Album released in 1968, when they started to criticize the social classes during the

60s, in a metaphoric way. Even that the news songs follow a rock n roll path with 15 love thematic, there was, something new: it was their authentic language, which was something new in Britain. We can see this in a song from their first album Please

Please Me called “I Saw Her Standing There”: “Well my heart went boom when I crossed that room and I held her hand in mine.” This was different from the “poppy” back then. They started using the language that young spoke, understood, and could feel identify with it. Another thing that they influence in United States was that they made drugs look like an enjoyable and liberating feeling.

The culture of drugs and alcohol

They were one of the first bands to “normalize” the use of drugs like the cannabis and LSD without any trouble. The band's first drug use assumption was with the release of Sgt. Pepper album. In the song "A Day in the Life", the album's closing track, was banned by the BBC for apparently had a drug reference on the line " I’d love to turn you on "; and also with the song “Lucy in the sky with diamonds”, because they thought that the title was a LSD reference. Although the band did not accept that the titles or lyrics of the songs made reference to drugs in 1967 McCartney accepted that he got to consume LSD and with that comment the link between rock music and drugs was formalized. We can see that their lyrics in their music play an important role because it was the way they express and also it was the way people and media can perceive the message they give.

As John Lennon said “The '60s saw a revolution ... in a whole way of thinking. The

Beatles were part of the revolution, which is really an evolution, and is continuing.

We were all on this ship – a ship going to discover the New World. And the Beatles were in the crow's nest” – John Lennon, 1974 16

Conclusions:

 This extended essay demonstrated the true impact that The Beatles had in

their country and in the United States. This band had the biggest impact,

marking an inflection point in the music industry and in the general culture of

many countries that were greatly influenced and marked a before and after

in them.

 The era of the 1960s, when the so-called "consumer society" began, owes

much to The Beatles. The group marked the youth of millions of people.

Socially in England the band gave to the female teenagers one of the first

opportunities show the power and express their sexual desire against the

moral and strict rules of the adults. Also they made the British culture the most

interesting in the whole world.

 The Beatles were the first band that began the well-known “British invasion”

during the 60s in the USA. They made that younger people in America explore

their own creativity through the music and motivated them to acquire new

British habits like alcohol and drugs. Also their look was “the fashion” in the

world and the teens love it. The Beatles introduced Briticisms to the American

English and till this day they are impregnated in their way of express. They

were and will be the band that marked the history.

 This extended essay was not able to cover different regions and countries in

the world where The Beatles had a lot of influence in them but I hope this

research can serve as a base so that in a future somebody could talk about

this. 17

References:

 Ian Inglis. (2000). The Beatles, Popular Music and Society a Thousand

Voices. England: Palgrave McMillan.

 Masaryk University, Brno. (2006). The Beatles and Their Influence on

Culture. United States: Faculty of Arts Department of English and American

Studies.

 Roberts, Michael James (2014). Tell Tchaikovsky the News: Rock 'n' Roll,

the Labor Question, and the Musicians' Union, 1942–1968

 Simonelli, David (2013). Working Class Heroes: Rock Music and British

Society in the 1960s and 1970s. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

 Doggett, Peter (2015). Electric Shock: From the Gramophone to the iPhone

– 125 Years of Pop Music. London: The Bodley Head.

 Romanowski, William D. (2006) [1996]. Pop Culture Wars: Religion and the

Role of Entertainment in American Life

 Without Author. (2019). Cultural impact of the Beatles. 2020, de Wikipedia

Web Site: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_impact_of_the_Beatles

 Chris Huff. (2018). How The Beatles changed music and the world (or at

least got credit for it). 2020, de DISC MAKERS BLOG Web Site:

https://blog.discmakers.com/2018/05/how-the-beatles-changed-music-and-

the-world-or-at-least-got-credit-for-it/