Original subtitles

(gentle music)

(footsteps echoing)

(amplifier static)

(knocking)

PAUL: Ringo.

RINGO: Wait 'til we get on there and it dies a death.

JOHN: You're on, George.

(murmuring)

GEORGE: (mumbling) ... so when I bend down

I hope they don't split open.

(mumbling)

JOHN: Paul's all right, he's got his jacket on.

(murmuring)

(drumming)

JOHN: I get something in me head, you know,

and all the walls of Rome couldn't stop me.

JOHN: All right, pickled onion.

PAUL: I remember so vividly showing up at the show

and you'd be in your ordinary clothes,

and then you'd take out of your little suitcase

your suit and your shirt,

and put 'em on, and then finally your Beatle boots...

and you'd stand up, and you just looked at each other,

like, yeah, there we are.

(crowd screaming)

♪ She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah

♪ She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah

♪ She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah

♪ You think you've lost your love

♪ Well, I saw her yesterday

♪ It's you she's thinkin' of

♪ And she told me what to say

♪ She said she loves you

♪ And you know that can't be bad

♪ She loves you

♪ And you know you should be glad

♪ She said you hurt her so

♪ She almost lost her mind

♪ But now she says she knows

♪ You're not the hurting kind

♪ She said she loves you

♪ You know that can't be bad

♪ She loves you and you know you should be glad

♪ Ooh

♪ She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah

♪ She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Those are the Beatles, those are,

and this is Beatleland, formally known as Britain,

where an epidemic called Beatlemania

has seized the teenage population.

MAN: Usual here at London Airport.

Hundreds and hundreds of young Beatles fans.

The younger generation is going to hell.

Just gorgeous.

‐ MAN: They're what? ‐ They're gorgeous.

Their haircuts and clothes, they're setting a new fashion.

The various things, their clothes, their hair.

They sound different.

They're confident, they're natural.

They sort of represent the teenage people.

(audience screaming and cheering)

♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah

♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪

PAUL: By the end, it became quite complicated,

but at the beginning, things were really simple.

Thank you very much, everybody.

Thank you.

Thank you very much!

PAUL: A lot of people thought we were

an overnight sensation.

We weren't.

People didn't realize we had all this development.

They just saw these four things

that looked alike with this haircut,

and they knew how to play.

And they were a bit of a laugh, you know,

because that's what we'd been doing

all those years previously.

JOHN: I had a group.

I was the singer and the leader.

I met Paul, said do you wanna join me band, yeah,

and then George joined.

We were great live performers then.

I don't think anybody in the world saw us

outside of Liverpool and the few places

where we traveled to, because that's when

we had to perform live to a small audience

in the dance hall.

We had to hold them.

PAUL: We were just playing all the time.

Then we went out to Hamburg, and that was a real slog.

We were playing, sometimes, eight hours a day.

I was right in the middle of the naughtiest city

in the world at 17 years old.

It was kind of exciting.

RINGO: I was with Rory Storm.

We were like the top band in Liverpool,

and for some reason, this guy in Hamburg

decided to come to Liverpool and take

all the bands to Germany to play.

Well, we went to see these punks, and that was it.

PAUL: I still remember that moment the first time

Ringo played with us.

Bang, he kicks in.

And it was an Oh My God moment.

I remember looking, and we're all looking at each other

like, yeah, this is it.

Whoo, I'm getting very emotional.

JOHN: Once we got Ringo, we started to do better,

and sort of do it professionally.

You know, for me, I'm an only child.

I felt like I suddenly had three brothers.

RINGO: We just wanted to play.

Playin' was the most important thing.

GEORGE: Hamburg was a bit messy, I mean, to sleep

all huddled together in one room.

There were no bathroom or anything,

but then we'd had practice because

we didn't have a bathroom at home.

JOHN: We used to have this saying that I used to chant,

and they would answer.

When they were depressed, you know,

when the group was going nowhere

and this was a shitty deal, we're in a shitty dressing room,

I'd say, where we goin' fellas? And they'd go‐‐

GEORGE: To the top, Johnny.

JOHN: And I'd say, where's that, fellas?

And they'd say,

GEORGE: To the toppermost of the poppermost, Johnny.

JOHN: I'd say, right, and we'd all say, cheer up.

We were always kinda a little nervous

before each step we went up the ladder,

but we didn't realize what was to come.

("Please Please Me" playing)

♪ Last night I said these words to my girl ♪

VINTAGE NARRATOR: The Beatles. In one meteoric year,

they've led the way from the cellars of Liverpool

to the national limelight.

VINTAGE REPORTER: Do you have any fears that your public

eventually will move on to a new favorite?

PAUL: It's stupid to worry about things like that.

GEORGE: It's not worth missing your sleep for it.

‐ No. ‐ No.

It could happen tomorrow,

and it could, you know, we could have quite a run.

(audience cheers and applauds)

I was living in Sweden, and the Beatles came to Sweden.

I remember, I went day after day

and stood outside the hotel at the end of school,

and I just remember seeing their figures on a balcony.

Once a day, the Beatles would come out and wave.

PAUL: Hello, my name's Paul McCartney

and I play bass guitar.

GEORGE: Hello, people there.

I'm George Harrison and I play solo guitar, yeah.

RINGO: This is Ringo Starr, and I play drums.

JOHN: And this is John Lennon, and play better guitar.

(laughter)

CURTIS: They were like a gang. Do you know what I mean?

They each had their little characteristic.

I mean, John was surprisingly fearless.

Paul was surprisingly cute.

Ringo was cheeky and irresistible.

And George was the one that my sister was in love with.

You're tremendously lively and full of zing on the stage.

How difficult is it for you to keep up this zest?

Well, we do the zest we can.

(laughter)

‐ I've spent my whole career, in a way,

trying to recapture in things that I write,

the hilarity of four friends one drink down,

age 19, laughing at their jokes and all the new stuff

that they find really funny.

The Beatles were kind of the dream of how you might be

with your friends as you went through life.

Oh, screaming, screaming. That's reminded me, yes.

Do you say, why do they scream?

I don't know. I couldn't tell you.

(laughs)

If somebody scores a goal,

there's a louder cheer from all the people.

If we shake our heads, it's the equivalent

of scoring a goal.

(indistinct) ... who screams the loudest?

Do you see what I mean?

Yes, yes I do understand.

You'll do that, and they scream.

(playing "Twist and Shout")

(crowd screaming)

♪ Shake it up baby, now

♪ Shake it up baby

♪ Twist and shout

♪ Twist and shout

♪ Come on, come on, come on, come on baby, now

♪ Come on baby

♪ Come on and work it on out

♪ Work it on out

♪ Well you twist your little girl

♪ Twist your little girl

♪ You know you twist so fine

♪ Twist so fine

♪ Come on and twist a little closer now

♪ Twist a little closer

♪ And let me know hat you're mine

♪ Let me know you're mine

♪ Well shake it, shake it, shake it, baby

♪ Shake it up baby

♪ Shake it, shake it, shake it, shake it, baby now

♪ Shake it up baby

♪ Well shake it, shake it, shake it, baby now

♪ Shake it up baby

♪ Yeah ♪

(audience screaming)

(bells toll)

VINTAGE NARRATOR: This is the BBC Home Service.

Here is the news, read by Frank Phillips.

FRANK PHILLIPS: Thousands of teenagers

who had been waiting for more than 12 hours

in Liverpool to book for a Beatles show were disappointed.

At one time the queue was stretched

for over a mile, and the police had to seal off

side streets to traffic.

Ambulance men dealt with more than 100 casualties,

most of them suffering from exposure to the rain.

When the tickets ran out, many young girls

burst into tears.

More rain is forecast for...

LEONARD PARKIN: Hello, London, this is Leonard Parkin

calling radio newsreel from Washington.

President Kennedy and Governor John Conally

were shot today from an ambush

as President Kennedy's motorcade

left the center of Dallas, where the President

was on a speaking tour.

(somber music)

PAUL: It was disturbing for us.

It was a mixture of all these sort of strange things,

you know, where the world was at.

It was scary.

But in all truthfulness, we were more in our own heads,

you know, being in a band.

You know, we were lads.

It was like, this is our journey,

and things have been falling to place

outside of our consciousness.

Even the first trip to America.

There was no plan. You could not plan it.

PAUL: I'd been very fussy about America.

I'd said, we can't go to America having failed.

If we ever get a number one there, then we can really go in,

and, you know, we'll be kings.

CARROLL JAMES: So, Marsha Albert has the honor

of introducing something brand‐new,

an exclusive here at WWDC.

Marsha, the microphone here on The Carroll James Show

is yours.

MARSHA: Ladies and gentlemen,

for the first time on the air in the United States,

here are the Beatles singing "I Want to Hold Your Hand."

("I Want to Hold Your Hand" playing)

♪ Oh, yeah, I'll tell you somethin'

♪ I think you'll understand

♪ When I say that somethin' ♪

PAUL: I remember, we were in Paris

playing at the Olympia.

♪ I wanna hold your hand ♪

A telegram came through, and it said,

Congratulations, boys. Number one in America.

"Hold Your Hand," it was like ah!

We just jumped on each other's backs,

ran around and just partied round and round

this little room for hours, just screaming.

♪ I wanna hold your hand

♪ I wanna hold your hand ♪

PAUL: Like visas, passports, America, here we come.

♪ And when I touch you ♪ (radio chatter)

♪ I feel happy inside

♪ It's such a feelin' that my love

♪ I can't hide ♪

When we came, I know this for myself,

and I know because we talked to each together,

we were in America before the plane landed.

I could feel New York.

It was an incredible sensation.

It's like, come on down, boys.

♪ I want to hold your hand ♪ (cheering)

VINTAGE REPORTER: The Beatles have left the airplane.

They're standing on the stairway,

there's that fabulous hairdo.

And one of them is waving!

(announcer shouting excitedly)

GEORGE: We all knew America, all of us.

And we'd been through all those movies,

whether it was Disneyland, or Doris Day and Rock Hudson,

or whatever, you know, James Dean, Marilyn,

everything was American.

MALE REPORTER: Apparently they're gonna make

a concerted effort to get through into the building.

MAN IN CROWD: We love you, Beatles!

MALE REPORTER: Where, in just a few moments,

a scheduled press conference will begin.

EDDIE IZZARD: America's always seen as the motherland

for British performers, for any performer in the world.

MALE REPORTER: What about the reports

that you guys are nothing but a bunch of

British Elvis Presleys?

It's not true, it's not true!

(laughter)

What that is is what any comedian would want to do.

The trick of dealing with heckles

is to say the first thing that comes into your brain.

And they'd already got to that place.

And they could all do it.

MALE REPORTER: I got a question here.

Are you going to get a haircut at all?

‐ No. ‐ No thanks.

I had one yesterday.

(laughter)

That's no lie.

The Beatles were cheeky, kind of where every kid wants to be,

couple of adults want to be,

being able to talk back to the people

who are telling you what to do.

They were cheeky, and I think people in the world like that.

It's not aggressive, it's not nasty, it's just brazen.

MALE REPORTER: Why does your music excite them so much?

We don't know, really.

If we knew, we'd form another group and be managers.

(laughter)

RALPH PAUL: And now, here he is, Ed Sullivan!

(jazz music)

(audience cheers)

ED SULLIVAN: Thank you very much.

Now yesterday and today, our theater's been jammed

with newspapermen and hundreds of photographers

from all over the nation, and these veterans agree with me

that the city never has witnessed the excitement

stirred by these youngsters from Liverpool

who call themselves the Beatles.

Now tonight, you're gonna twice be entertained by them.

Right now, and again in the second half of our show.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Beatles!

(audience screams and applauds)

♪ Close your eyes and I'll kiss you

♪ Tomorrow I'll miss you

♪ Remember I'll always be true

♪ And then while I'm away

♪ I'll write home every day

♪ And I'll send all my lovin' to you ♪

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: We watched Ed Sullivan every Sunday night,

my brother and mom and I.

It wasn't even a question.

It's just, that's what we'd do.

And, man I'd never seen anybody that looked like them.

♪ Close your eyes and I'll kiss you

♪ Tomorrow I'll miss you

♪ Remember I'll always be true ♪

It was like a revelation.

And when you're a little kid, you don't know

it's a revelation, but it was like the whole world lit up.

Suddenly I felt like I could be friends with them.

And I'm black. (laughs)

♪ All my loving

♪ All my lovin'

♪ All my lovin' I will send to you ♪

(screams and applause)

(gentle music)

People would say to me, you think you wanna be white?

You like those guys?

It's just like, I never thought of them really

as white guys, they were the Beatles.

They were colorless.

You know, and they were fucking amazing.

(crowd chattering)

The Beatles gave me this idea that everybody was welcome.

If you weren't the hippest kid in the neighborhood,

it didn't matter because you could be a Beatle fan,

and I liked that.

And that sort of carried me into these older days

where it's like, I am my own person.

I can look the way I wanna, I can be the way I want,

and it's okay, and I got that specifically from them.

MALE ANNOUNCER: Fresh after their appearance

on The Ed Sullivan Show,

where over half the country was watching,

the four English musical stars with their pudding bowl haircuts

were mobbed by about 4,000 shrieking teenagers

when they got to the Plaza Hotel.

RINGO: We had the whole floor in the Plaza.

(murmuring)

And the four of us ended up in the bathroom,

just to get a break from the incredible pressure.

Let me on it. Let me on it.

‐ No, let me. ‐ Me!

Me, me!

Television, me!

‐ You. ‐ Me.

‐ No, you. ‐ Me.

‐ After you, sir. ‐ Cut.

RINGO: But we loved it.

To pick up a small transistor radio‐‐

it was the first time in New York‐‐

and hear you comin' out the radio,

it was mind‐blowin'.

JOHN LENNON: Hey, this is John Lennon of the Beatles

on 1010 W‐I‐N‐S.

MURRAY THE K: Now, we just wanna tell everybody,

this was the Beatles' station, they're taking over,

they're telling us what to play.

‐ (phone ringing) ‐ WOMAN: Hello?

Yes, long distance calling for the manager of the Beatles.

May we have his name, please?

WOMAN: Their manager's name is Mr. Brian Epstein.

(gentle music)

PAUL: Looking back now, it was Brian Epstein.

He was the guy who got us famous, really.

Brian was class.

That was what Brian was.

He was like Liverpool class.

When Brian was 27, he was a grownup, and he had a car.

(laughs)

The Beatles' parents were Liverpudlian,

working class people that had been through a war.

Our playgrounds were bombsites.

His parents ran a record shop.

VINTAGE REPORTER: Seems a funny sort of world

for a young man like you to be in.

How did you get into it? How did you start?

I heard about them through a lad

who was asking for a record by them

in one of my stores, or my family's stores,

in October, 1961.

Growing up, my mom always wanted me to talk proper.

You know, all of us, really.

You know, like, I talk like I'm from Liverpool.

Fuck you, I'm tellin' you, don't give me any hard time.

PAUL: Whereas Brian was very well‐mannered,

very well‐spoken, so we felt we could trust him.

EPSTEIN: I went down to see them in Liverpool

at the Cavern Club.

EMCEE: The Beatles will sing "Some Other Girl."

(audience screams and claps)

(playing "Some Other Girl")

EPSTEIN: They were fresh, and they were honest,

and they had what I thought was a sort of presence,

and there's this terrible vague term, star quality.

Whatever that is, they had it.

♪ Some other guy now

♪ Has taken my love away from me

♪ Some other guy now

♪ Has taken away my sweet desire, oh no ♪

PAUL: He was looking at our stage presence.

The early days, it was clear that he had

a vision of us that was beyond the vision

we had of ourselves.

(classical music)

EPSTEIN: Backstage, they were playing

around the clubs in Liverpool.

Rather scruffily dressed,

black leather jackets and jeans,

and rather untidy stage presentation,

but having great fun.

But I don't think they would have bothered

to do anything about it, because young,

inexperienced people are not really very good

at presenting themselves properly

in the right sort of quarters.

He took us to a tailor...

and we went to this guy,

and he made us up suits, you know.

I'm not sure exactly what time

we'll be back in Washington.

We're going to Washington tomorrow,

and we'll be coming back on Wednesday.

Bye.

PAUL: Brian kept us together as a team.

REPORTER: What place do you think

this story of the Beatles is gonna have

in the history of Western culture?

You must be kiddin' with that question.

Culture, it's not culture.

‐ REPORTER: What is it? ‐ It's a good laugh.

(screams and applause)

CARROLL JAMES: This is Carroll James,

and now, from the Washington, D. C., Coliseum,

the world's most exciting group,

Capitol recording stars, the Beatles.

PAUL: You know, the suits.

It's the simplest of ideas.

It suddenly made us one person.

A four‐headed monster.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, everybody,

and good evening, how do you do?

We would like to sing a song

which we recorded on an LP that we made,

and that's English for album,

an album that we made, and we'd like you,

we'd like you, if you would,

to sort of join in and clap your hands, you know,

and stamp your feet.

The song's called "I Saw Her Standing There."

One, two, three, four!

(playing "I Saw Her Standing There")

♪ Well, she was just 17

♪ You know what I mean

♪ And the way she looked

♪ Was way beyond compare

♪ How could I dance with another

♪ When I saw her standing there

♪ She looked at me

♪ And I, I could see

♪ That before too long, I'd fall in love with her

♪ She wouldn't dance with another

♪ When I saw her standin' there

♪ Well my heart went boom

♪ When I crossed that room

♪ And I held her hand in mine

♪ Well, we danced through the night

♪ And we held each other tight

♪ And before too long

♪ I fell in love with her

♪ Now I'll never dance with another

♪ Since I saw her standing there

♪ We danced through the night

♪ And we held each other tight

♪ And before too long I fell in love with her

♪ Now I'll dance with another

♪ Since I saw her standin' there

♪ Well, since I saw her standing' there

♪ Since I saw her standin' there♪

(audience screams and claps)

(people chattering)

‐ REPORTER: Which one are you? ‐ Eric.

Eric?

It's not for me, it's for Paul.

I'm doing a sh‐‐ (laughs)

Eric, here is the American public.

‐ I'm John. ‐ You're John?

It was only a joke.

Yes, well John, here is the American public.

40 million American viewers staring you‐‐

‐ Only looks like one man to me. ‐ Staring you right in the face.

Oh, it's the camera man.

What is your impression of the American public?

You've been here for a while now.

They are the wildest.

‐ Why? ‐ I don't know.

Tonight was, the mob was ridiculous.

All those 8,000 people all shouting at once,

and we were trying to shout louder than them

with microphones, and we still couldn't beat 'em.

Was America something like what you though it would be?

No, nothing like. We thought it would be much quieter.

We thought, you know, we'd have to grow on everybody,

and everybody seems to know us all

as if we've been here for years, it's great.

I love the Beatles for them and I'll always love them,

even when I'm a 105‐year‐old grandmother,

I'll love 'em, and Paul McCartney,

if you are listening, Adrian from Brooklyn

loves you with all her heart.

(cheering)

PAUL: It's a romantic thing to us, being in America,

playing to our American fans.

‐ Ringo has a sexy nose! ‐ A sexy nose?

George has got sexy eyelashes.

Who has?

George has got sexy eyelashes.

‐ Which one is George? ‐ That one.

He's got sexy eyelashes.

(screaming)

PAUL: The very earliest records were all

pleas to the fans, and it was all personal articles.

JOHN: In the early days, we didn't count lyrics at all,

as long as it had some vague theme.

She loves you and he loves him and they love each other.

♪ So hold, hold, me tight, me tight

♪ Tonight, tonight, tonight, tonight

♪ It's you

♪ You, you, you ♪

It's all direct, it's kind of conscious.

We were actually appealing to girls.

We're young boys, we're appealing to girls

to get our fan base.

♪ You ♪

In those days has, yeah.

‐ (laughs) ‐ Go on.

You, yourselves, you write very good songs. Don't you?

Oh, thank you, thank you.

WOMAN: How do you write songs?

(laughter)

Well, you know, it just depends.

Sometimes we write them on old pianos,

and anything that's lying around.

Normally we sit down and try and bash one out.

But then again, there's no formula,

'cause he can come up with one one day,

completely finished, we still say we both wrote it though.

♪ I got ever reason on Earth to be mad

♪ 'Cause I just lost the only girl I had ♪

JOHN: We got a single every three months

and we'd have be writing literally in the hotel

or in the van.

We wrote on the road.

Mainly me and John.

George developed as a writer later,

and became an unbelievable writer,

but at the beginning it was mainly me and John.

So we'd be in a hotel room with two twin beds,

and he'd have his acoustic guitar, I'd have mine,

sit opposite each other, and because

I was left‐handed, he was right‐handed.

It was like looking in the mirror.

And we'd just start something and ricochet of each other.

He'd do a line, I'd do a line, we'd just write it down.

And when we were finished,

we didn't have a manuscript, but we had a sheet of paper

with the words, and we remembered the chords.

(singing happily)

Yeah, it's number one in Cashbox and Billboard.

Yeah, you know, in New York, three records,

"Please Please Me," "She Loves You,"

and "I Want to Hold Your Hand" are all number one.

(laughter)

Paul, John, yeah. Thanks.

But we'll see you, you know, in two weeks, I suppose.

(harmonium music)

My relationship with John was very close.

Musically, you know, we looked after each other, really.

It's like someone you kind of looked up to a little bit.

When I first met him, I talked to people in my life,

and they say, what do you like to do,

What are your hobbies and stuff?

And I sort of said, I like songwriting,

I've written a couple of songs.

And they'd all go, Oh, yeah, great.

What did you think about the football?

And I'd go, oh, okay, nobody interested.

When I said that to John, he said, oh, so am I.

I go, wow, wait a minute, big connection here.

I'd never met anyone who'd written songs.

So that's how we started.

I think it's something like just short of 300 songs

John and I wrote together.

(crowd singing "She Loves You" in unison)

♪ She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah

♪ She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪

♪ With a love like that, you know you should be glad ♪

My mother's father, who was from Liverpool.

There was that pride thing, they were from Liverpool.

And nine years old.

When your favorite group is the Beatles,

it is like supporting a winning football team,

because they just keep winning the cup.

You'd wait all week to hear the hit parade show

so that you would hear, for sure, the Beatles' song,

because they would get to number one.

Top British vocal group, top four records of the year,

the world's leading vocal group, the Beatles!

(screams and applause)

♪ Can't buy me love

♪ Love

♪ Can't buy me love

♪ I'll buy you a diamond ring, my friend

♪ If it makes you feel all right

♪ I'll get you anything, my friend

♪ If it makes you feel all right

♪ 'Cause I don't care too much for money

♪ Money can't buy me love ♪

For some reason, whatever we were putting out,

they were loving it.

And they loved us wherever we went.

It was a surprise to us, too.

MAN: John, Paul, George o Ringo. The Beatles!

(screaming)

It was a different kind of fame,

because we didn't have social media,

we didn't have satellite television,

and yet the word would spread

that this group would be coming.

Once it was big in one country, it got bigger in the next.

JOHN: Australia, there was more people

come to see us there than anywhere.

I mean, it looked like, I think,

the whole of Australia was there.

MALE REPORTER: Along the nine‐mile route

from Adelaide Airport to the city,

almost a quarter of a million people lined the street.

My picture of it, there was a ship

going to discover the New World.

And the Beatles were in the crow's nest,

and we just said land ho.

♪ The second time I caught you talking to him

♪ Do I have to tell you one more time

♪ I think it's a sin

♪ I'm gonna let you down

♪ Let you down

♪ Gonna leave you flat

♪ Gonna let you down and leave you flat

♪ Because I told you before

♪ Oh, you can't do that ♪

And so we were all on this ship in the sea,

not just Beatles, but our movement

and our generation, and we went somewhere.

(screaming)

And of course, next most extraordinary thing

is the fantasy version of the Beatles from '64,

you know, Hard Day's Night.

("A Hard Day's Night" playing)

♪ It's been a hard day's night

♪ And I've been workin' like a dog

♪ It's been a hard day's night

♪ I should be sleepin' like a log ♪

MAN: You fancy yourselves as actors then, do you?

No, definitely not, but we enjoyed making the film,

and especially with the director.

The director was great, you see,

and it made it much easier for us.

United Artists said,

"You ought to be able to make a good, quick,

low‐budget film with them,

as long as it's in the cinemas by July,

because we think they'll be probably a spent force

by the end of the summer."

‐ Give us a kiss. ‐ I shall call a guard.

Ah, but what? They don't take kindly to insults, you know.

The only thing that was a plan

through the seven weeks of the shoot

is that sense of protection.

Being protective when they had to be supporting one another

in a family way.

♪ It's been a hard day's night

One of the things about Hard Day's Night,

and everything you heard about the Beatles

is the lack of self‐pity, that we had a feeling

they were adoring what was happening to them,

and that made it like a completely virtuous circle.

Fan, Beatles, fun, excitement, music.

And of course, everybody in the world

could buy tickets to see them.

MALCOLM GLADWELL: What you're seeing is the emergence

of this international teen culture.

If you're 14 in 1964, who are you looking to for cues?

Not your parents.

♪ I should be sleepin' ♪

Beatles hysteria is sort of

a muscle flexing of that generation.

The baby boom.

It's no accident you see all this kind of youth culture

coming out of that time, because quite literally,

the society is dominated by teenagers.

♪ You know I feel all right ♪

(cheering and screaming)

("Roll Over, Beethoven" playing)

♪ Gonna write a little letter, mail it to my local DJ

♪ It's a rocking little record

♪ I want my jockey to play

♪ Roll over, Beethoven

♪ Gotta hear it again, today

♪ You know my temperature's rising

♪ And the jukebox blows a fuse

♪ My heart beating rhythm

♪ While my soul is singin' the blues

♪ Roll over, Beethoven

♪ Dig these rhythm and blues ♪

(audience cheering)

(laughter)

♪ Roll over, Beethoven

♪ Roll over, Beethoven

PAUL: The first time we went to America

it was just 10 days, so when we came back,

they were waiting for us.

MALE REPORTER: Tell me, several people

on these radio programs want to know,

what do you plan to do when the bubble bursts?

Aw, shut up, Fred.

(laughter)

We're gonna have a laugh.

The biggest question in 1964

was when is the bubble gonna burst?

MALE ANNOUNCER: WFUN South Miami.

I was 21 years old, news director of a station in Miami,

WFUN, Fun in the Sun Radio.

(upbeat music)

We got word that the Beatles were gonna come to America,

and I wrote a letter asking for an interview with them,

and I sent it to Brian Epstein, their manager.

I got this letter back, inviting me on the tour.

(helicopters whirring)

And I said, I'm not goin'.

We got the war in Vietnam escalating,

the president just died,

Muhammad Ali is training three blocks from our studio,

the Ford Mustang is being released.

It's one of the biggest news years

in the history of the world.

Why would I, a news guy, want to travel

with a band that will be here in October

and go on in November?

(bell dinging)

My boss had said, you gotta go.

My father pulled me aside before I went on tour,

and he said, watch your back,

these men are a menace to society.

♪ It's been a hard day's night

♪ And I've been workin' like a dog ♪

This is Larry Kane, on tour with the Beatles.

Let me give you a little description

of the dangers of being with the Beatles.

When we drove up to the stage door,

the Beatles were almost crushed completely

by youngsters who will mash themselves

against the wall, broke about 50 windows,

throwed rocks, jelly beans, undershirts, sandals.

The situation was one of sheer havoc,

even though the police did their best to stop it.

The first couple of days, there was a bewilderment.

There was a wondrousness.

Is this really happening to us?

One girl stuck her hand through the window

and grabbed at my face.

I'm okay, don't worry, people, I'm all right.

Four cities later, in Vancouver, British Columbia,

7,000 kids rushed the stage.

Thank you, folks!

Before we do the next song.

DEREK TAYLOR: Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen,

the Beatles have come a long way to do this show.

We have to cut it short unless you move back.

They're very worried about the situation in the front.

Back, back, back.

240 kids wound up in the hospital.

None of the police in any of these cities

were prepared for this.

Nobody was prepared for this.

Wouldn't you say, Derek, that police departments

don't realize how bad it is?

DEREK TAYLOR: I think that's true.

They've all seen crowds before.

I mean, they all say, we know our own people,

we know the police potential,

and we're going to be able to handle it.

But what they've never seen is a Beatle crowd.

This is the biggest thing that's ever happened.

There's no question about it.

It's like nothing before.

It's not like Presley, not like Sinatra,

it's not like the late President Kennedy.

It's the Beatles, and they are without precedent.

(crowd screaming)

Thank you!

Thank you very much, everybody, ciao.

You're wonderful, thank you.

Singin' a song from the first album that we ever made,

a song which was originally recorded

by a group called the Shirelles,

just a little chicken.

Yeah, yeah.

Singin' a song called "Boys," Ringo!

(playing "Boys")

♪ I've been told when a boy kiss a girl

♪ Take a trip around the world, hey, hey

♪ Bop shoo‐wop, bop bop shoo‐wop

♪ Oh, now

♪ Bop shoo‐wop, bop bop shoo‐wop

♪ Hey, hey

♪ Bop shoo‐wop, bop bop shoo‐wop

♪ Whoa, yeah she say you do, yeah ♪

I was way in the back, way at the top,

surrounded by lots of girls

really crying, real tears, and so beside themselves.

I felt as much as a girl can feel.

I was in love with John.

I remember spending all day putting my hair in beer cans

to make sure it was straight, 'cause I had curly hair.

Picking up the dress, because of course,

they would see me, along with 15,000 girls.

It was this sense of world music,

that we were all loving them all over the world.

♪ My girl says when I kiss her lips ♪

LARRY KANE: This is Larry Kane onboard

the Beatle Bird, as I call it.

I have with me George Harrison. How you doin' George?

GEORGE: I'm very well, Larry, and how are you?

LARRY: Fine, you glad to be back in America?

GEORGE: Yeah, it's great.

This is Larry Kane with the Beatles, flying across America.

With me I have Ringo Starr.

Right over Kansas, 3,000 feet in the air.

We're on our way to Cincinnati.

They had a wild one yesterday.

on his exciting, 25‐city coast‐to‐coast tour.

Atlantic City, Philadelphia, but let's talk a little bit

about the crowds at Indianapolis.

Back and forth again. The stage set for Milwaukee tonight.

You can hear the buzz and excitement

here at the Chicago Amphitheater.

Now in Detroit, Michigan.

The Beatles really shook up the crowd in Toronto.

In Montreal, Canada.

Hi, this is Larry Kane, travelling with the Beatles.

Let me explain to you the type of feeling

that you get after 15 performances

watching the Beatles in action,

and watching the crowds.

It's a chilling feeling inside

because you know you are experiencing

a phenomenon that is the only one of its kind

in this century thus far, and it probably

will go down in history as the greatest

show business example of music and admiration

in many, many hundreds of years.

♪ Yeah, yeah, boys

‐ ♪ Don't you know I mean boys ‐ ♪ Yeah, yeah, boys

♪ Talkin' about boys now

♪ Yeah, yeah, boys

(vocalizing)

♪ Yeah, yeah, boys

♪ Talkin' about boys now

♪ Yeah, yeah, boys

♪ What a bundle of joy ♪

Thank you!

Remember, too, that in 1964,

there were riots throughout the South

because of the civil rights movement.

You started to feel a social change happening.

‐ Civil rights or civil war! ‐ This is Larry Kane.

The big question mark still with Jacksonville

not knowing whether they will be able to perform.

I had received a report from my station that the Gator Bowl

in Jacksonville was gonna be segregated,

so I mentioned it to them in the interview.

What about this comment that I heard about

concerning racial integration at the various performances?

PAUL: We don't like it if there's any segregation

or anything, because it just seems mad to me.

LARRY: And I could see Brian at the corner of the room

goin' like, oh my God.

Well, you're gonna play Jacksonville, Florida.

Do you anticipate any kind of difference in that opinion?

PAUL: I don't know, really,

it'd be a bit silly to segregate people

'cause you know, it's really stupid, isn't it?

You can't treat other human beings like animals.

GEORGE: That's the way we all feel.

PAUL: That's the way we all feel,

and a lot of people in England feel that way,

you know, because there's never any segregation

in concerts in England, and in fact if there was,

we wouldn't play 'em, you know.

During that same summer,

we had the three civil rights workers in the South

who were missing, and then found dead.

I was 15,

living in segregation.

It was an apartheid that's probably difficult

for a lot of people to even picture.

The only white person I would even have contact with

was a salesman who would come into the community.

It was ripe for something different I think,

at the time I heard that the Beatles were coming to town.

All of them, by the way,

were very emphatic about Jacksonville.

They said that if there was going to be segregation

of any kind, we're not going.

We play to people, that's what we did.

We didn't play to, like, those people,

or that people, you know what I mean?

We just played to people.

It was amazing that the four of them,

young men seeing the world,

started to act up and blow back on this

very, very hot and sensitive issue

knowing that it would really irritate a lot of Americans.

We had to all decide, we agreed on a thing,

before we'd do it.

That is one of the classic things about the Beatles.

Four votes had to be carried

for any idea to go trough.

JOHN: Instead of going for an individual thing,

we went for the strongest format, for equals.

That was one thing to be said about us,

we were very, very close to each other.

We'd always stick together.

PAUL: We all had to agree, so there is a strong decision.

You know, the proof's in the puddin',

it worked really well.

(rock music)

It was my first concert, and I went by myself.

The only catch in my breath that I got

was when I went to my seat, and there were

all those other people around me,

and I still can feel that to this day,

that there were all these white people around,

but I remember standing up with everybody,

and just yelling as loud as I could

and singin' along.

That was the first experience I had

where it was possible to be around people

who were different, and at least for a while,

those differences could disappear.

(cheering)

♪ If I fell in love with you

♪ Would you promise to be true

♪ And help me

♪ Understand

♪ 'Cause I've been in love before ♪

The people who ran the Gator Bowl

integrated for the first time ever,

which from my historical perspective and study,

ended all that in most of the big stadiums in the South.

And the next eight days are probably

the most grueling of the tour.

It looks like the Beatles are holding up strong.

Every night on the airplane they would go up,

up to the front of the plane where the opening acts were,

and kneel down and talk to them.

Every single night, they would ask them

if they were okay, because they were

being ignored by the crowd.

This is Larry Kane traveling with the Beatles,

and they're looking forward to going back to England,

because they'll be there for two weeks,

where they'll record records, and do music,

and that's believe it or not,

another month‐long tour, this time

in their own country, sometimes just by bus,

and that's pretty hard.

My mother died in the summer of 1964,

and somehow or another, it got to them

that she had passed away,

and Paul and John both consoled me.

PAUL: John and I, we both lost our mothers.

Mine had died of cancer, and his had died

in a terrible road accident,

so that kind of pulled us together a lot.

You know, bein' teenagers, we each needed

to do something that would get us away

from this tragedy, and so songwriting was it, really.

♪ 'Cause I couldn't stand the pain ♪

They were very, very sensitive to other people's feelings.

All four of them.

They were intelligent people who cared about other people,

who had a sense of themselves.

They also liked making fun of me.

John, last night you were very kind,

and Derek was very kind to invite us up to see the movie,

which we have seen twice.

JOHN: I never invited him at all.

I just saw him sittin' there listenin'.

LARRY: Well, anyway. (laughs)

JOHN: Only kiddin', Larry.

LARRY: This has been Larry Kane

traveling with the Beatles.

It's extraordinary, when you think about it

that they were touring in this kind of circus of life.

The sort of madness of all that jamboree

of excitement and hysteria.

And yet, they were able to express

the way they were feeling, the weirdness of it,

because inside those Beatles suits,

were composers.

They were writers.

(indistinct voices)

RINGO: Comin' in the wrong, half way through the song.

Well was it a 12‐bar?

(guitar playing)

The studio was like our little haven.

Once we got back there, we knew we could experiment.

Hear ourselves.

And we would write songs that would be a progression,

and that would be fun to record.

(amplifier static)

GEORGE MARTIN: Brian Epstein and I

worked together very closely planning their future.

We agreed that we should put out

a single every three months, and an album every six months.

♪ Baby's good to me, you know she's happy as can be

♪ You know, she said so

♪ I'm in love with her and I feel fine ♪

DEREK TAYLOR: I was under pressure

because I got sucked into the time difference.

I would say to Brian, you know,

I need more time in the studio, and he would dole out time,

like giving scraps to a mouse.

One of the great things about our recording

was the schedule.

You go in at 10 o'clock in the morning,

tune up, have a ciggy, have a cup of tea or something,

and then John and I, mainly, would present the song

that we'd written to everyone.

(guitar music playing)

Just go through it, anyway.

Make mistakes, just to practice it.

Try to remember, John, and if I don't,

well, it's just too bad, okay?

Is it just me and you?

One, two, three, four.

(singing)

(overlapping, indistinct remarks)

One, two, three, four.

♪ Ooh

♪ Ooh I need your love, babe

♪ Yes you know it's true ♪

Ringo'd tap along, George just sussed the chords,

and then George Martin would go, oh

that's half nice, that's marvelous.

It'd take about 20 minutes to do that.

♪ Hold me, love me ♪

PAUL: George, what did it sound like

with the base doin' a funny thing?

Did it sound any good, or did it sound just a lovely crap?

(indistinct responses)

GEORGE MARTIN: Take three.

GEORGE: One, two three four.

(singing)

At the very beginning, George Martin

was the only man that could press the button to record.

We'd just play it and do it, oh did you get that, George?

GEORGE MARTIN: I'm giving up here.

‐ JOHN: Wonderful, Paul. ‐ GEORGE MARTIN: Very lovely.

PAUL: Ah, keep that one. Mark it fab.

Do you want to have a listen before we go on to the next one?

(whirring)

George had recorded The Goons.

That was like a cult thing that we all loved,

and we all knew it.

GEORGE MARTIN: At that time I was a comedy producer

recording Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers,

and a lot of English comedy actors.

So he picked up our humor,

he picked up our camaraderie, you know.

We thought, he's mad, we love him.

JOHN: We'll just have to have a go of it, you see.

GEORGE MARTIN: Oh, you're a right keeper, aren't you?

JOHN: I know.

On the early record, George Martin was a god.

GEORGE MARTIN: To begin with, I was very much in charge.

I was the kind of schoolmaster teaching them everything,

and they had to do what I told them.

PAUL: You had one‐and‐a‐half hours

from 10:30 to finish that song.

Boom.

So that focused you.

That was a great discipline.

(whirring)

‐ Hit it, Declan. ‐ JOHN: We'll do it again.

PAUL: We'll try and get it good, too.

GEORGE MARTIN: I'm just gonna start recording.

John, whenever you like, the red light's on.

Every minute of the day, someone wanted something.

You know, drive to EMI to do a record.

Down here to SoHo to do a photo shoot.

Ride back to do some TV show.

♪ I'm a loser

♪ And I'm not what I appear to be

♪ Of all... ♪

JOHN: I was singing the wrong words there.

Drive to Birmingham to do a gig.

(crowd screaming)

End up in a nightclub.

We were just doin' four or five things a day,

but we had each other.

And we brought that to the music.

("Eight Days a Week" playing)

♪ Oh, I need your love, babe

♪ Yes, you know it's true

♪ Hope you need my love, babe

♪ Just like I need you

♪ Hold me, love me ♪

The thing about the scale is that

writing lots of songs is not particularly difficult.

Volume is not the thing.

The extraordinary thing about the Beatles

is the amount of great songs.

Schubert wrote about 800 songs,

of which probably 100 are absolutely beautiful melodies.

The other 700, pretty good.

The only comparison with that kind of level of melody

may be Mozart.

Very, very, high volume of very good melodies.

You have to wait a long time, then,

'til you get someone who's up in the hundreds,

and that's when you hit the Beatles.

Which is why I think you can compare them in some ways,

because of the sheer volume of the invention.

♪ I ain't got nothin' but love, girl

♪ Eight days a week

♪ Eight days a week ♪

(cheers and applause)

BRIAN EPSTEIN: Hello again from Hullabaloo, London.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Richard Lester.

(applause)

What do you think we could tell them

about the new Beatles flick?

First of all, it's going to be different from the last one.

It will be in color,

it'll be a film that has a lot of plot,

and a lot of entertainment about it,

and Ringo's in trouble again.

We need protection.

We've got a record to do tomorrow.

I need protection.

And you shall have it.

Get me Protection.

♪ You don't realize how much I need you

♪ Love you all the time and never leave you

♪ Please come on back to me

♪ I'm lonely as can be

♪ I need you ♪

We'd enjoyed very much doing Hard Day's Night.

We'd kinda taken it seriously, but the film Help!

We were kind of pretty disinterested.

You know, we were now doing it again,

and so it couldn't be quite as exciting as the first time.

Nothing is.

(organ music)

The main thing I remember, we all had meetings

about tax structure, and they would sort of say,

oh you gotta put your money in the Bahamas or somewhere.

So where we were asked about the film,

we'd say, can we go to the Bahamas?

We were told, you're gonna film in the Bahamas.

You write a scene.

♪ I get high when I see you go by

♪ My oh my ♪

In 1965, they invited me to Nassau

to watch them film the movie Help!

I walked into the house, and I saw something very unusual.

They were all high on marijuana.

And I'd never seen this before.

‐ Hey, Paul. How you doin'? ‐ JOHN: Hello, Larry.

‐ LARRY: Good to see you again. ‐ PAUL: Lovely to see you again.

LARRY: Hey, John. How are you doin'?

(laughs)

What is this "anything can happen" business?

‐ Thanks a lot. ‐ JOHN: Anything, Larry.

LARRY: We'll be talking to you.

(John laughs)

In all truthfulness, we spent a lot of that film

slightly stoned.

(squeaking)

Things were spiraling like crazy during Help!

There were people coming in with contracts for

bubble gum royalties and being condescending.

And then the press were getting aggressive.

They owned all of us.

JOHN: There's no switching off.

The elevator man wants a little piece of you

on your way back to your room.

The maid wants a piece of you back at the hotel.

I don't mean sexually, I mean a piece of your time

and your energy.

And it's like a politician.

You're on 24 hours a day.

LARRY: I think that John got fed up first.

He became agitated or frustrated

about what was being written, particularly from 1965 onward.

Richard Lester had said, we need a song.

And John started it.

So by the time I came to see him, he had a lot of it.

And it said to me, you know, this is

kind of autobiographical.

You know, "When I was younger, so much younger than today."

I knew what he meant, and I knew now he was more insecure,

'cause we were all a bit more insecure

than we'd been when we were 17.

‐ (crowd screaming) ‐ One, two, three, four!

♪ Help

♪ I need somebody

♪ Help

♪ Not just anybody

♪ Help

♪ You know I need someone

♪ Help

♪ When I was younger, so much younger than today

♪ I never needed anybody's help in any way

♪ But now these days are gone

♪ I'm not so self‐assured

♪ Now I find I've changed my mind

♪ And opened up the door

♪ Help me if you can, I'm feelin' down

♪ And I do appreciate you bein' round

♪ Help me get my feet back on the ground

♪ Won't you please, please help me

♪ And now my life has changed

♪ In oh so many ways

♪ My independence seems to vanish in the haze

♪ But now these days are gone

♪ I'm not so self‐assured

♪ Know that I just need your light

♪ I've never done before

♪ Help me if you can, I'm feelin' down ♪

JOHN: I always liked "Help!" because I meant it, it's real.

The lyric is as good now as it was then.

It's no different.

It was just me singing help, and I meant it.

♪ Won't you please, please help me

♪ Help me, help me ♪

(audience screaming)

We were not gettin' a lot of money from records.

We had the worst deal in the world,

but we had a deal and we were on vinyl,

and that's all that mattered.

You gotta remember, we made our money playin' live.

♪ Well, he took some honey

♪ From a tree

♪ Dressed it up and they called me

♪ Everybody's trying to be my baby

♪ Everybody's trying to be my baby

♪ Everybody's trying to be my baby now ♪

RINGO: It just got bigger, and bigger, and bigger.

♪ Woke up last night

♪ Half past four

♪ Fifty women knocking on my door

♪ Everybody's trying to be my baby

♪ Everybody's trying to be my baby

♪ Everybody's trying to be my baby, now, yeah ♪

Then it got crazy.

They went back to America,

they started playing the stadiums.

Places like Portland, San Francisco,

Metropolitan Stadium in Minneapolis.

Chicago White Sox Park.

♪ Last night, I didn't stay late

♪ 'Fore home I had 19 dates ♪

There were lots of other groups touring at this point,

but nothing like this.

The money they were making, night after night,

compared to other acts, was unprecedented.

The fact is, they had to play stadiums.

Promoters and local police had to be begging Brian Epstein,

telling him, you know, you can't go

and play a 5,000‐seat theater

and have 50,000 teenagers going crazy outside.

It would be impossible to control.

This was massive.

The first big stadium tour in history.

And the biggest show of them all was New York.

There was the announcement of this concert,

and I was like, can we?

And my mom was like, We don't have the money for this.

And then something,

I don't know how she did it,

I don't know, I don't know how she did it,

but she got two tickets.

And she didn't tell me.

So this is what happened.

She said, "We need to go." I said, "Where are we going?"

She said, "I'll let you know when we get there." Okay.

So we're on the train, and I'm not paying any attention.

And we get up, and I say, where are we?

And she said, we're at Shea Stadium.

And I said, why?

And she held up two tickets,

and all I remember is my head going poof.

(laughs)

(crowd screaming)

(helicopter whirring)

GEORGE: It was just amazing, we don't believe it.

Biggest thing ever, 56,500, someone said.

It's fantastic. It just knocked you out, you know.

Shea Stadium is an enormous place.

I mean, that was the first time it was used

for a rock concert.

Vox made us special, big amplifiers for that tour,

and they were, like, a hundred watts.

(laughs)

It just obviously, you know, wasn't enough.

Ladies and gentlemen, here are the Beatles!

(fans screaming)

Hello! Hey!

Hello!

Hello, John.

We'd like to do a song

off our LP album, Beatles VI, I think.

Can you hear me?

Hello?

It's called "Dizzy Miss Lizzy"!

(playing "Dizzy Miss Lizzy")

♪ You make me dizzy, Miss Lizzy

♪ The way you rock and roll

♪ You make me dizzy, Miss Lizzy

♪ When we do the stroll

♪ Come on, come on, come on, come on Lizzy

♪ Love me before I grow too old

♪ Gonna tell you, mama

♪ I want you to be my bride ♪

One of the most remarkable things about

the Beatles playing live is how in tune they are.

Because, they can't possibly hear themselves.

I don't think they had monitors.

They don't sound very big,

even if they were cranked to the max,

they're not that loud.

I mean, Shea Stadium being the most extreme,

because I don't even think there's a P. A. at Shea Stadium.

They're going through the Tannoy,

which must have sounded like

a thousand transistor radios detuned.

(tinny sound)

♪ Just a‐rockin' and a‐rollin'

♪ Girl I wish you were mine ♪

We did the house P. A., you know,

"And on first base is Willy Wonka,"

whatever they said, that's the equipment we had.

(laughs)

♪ When you rock and roll ♪

RINGO: I could not hear anything.

I'd be watching John's ass, Paul's ass,

his foot's tapping, his head's nodding,

to see where we were in the song.

♪ I wanna be your lovin' man ♪

(crowd screaming)

PAUL: We played for 56,000 people at Shea Stadium.

After that, you know, you just sort of think to yourself,

what more could you do?

I remember George bringin' up the subject with Brian.

Hey, is this touring gonna be an annual event?

And I think he was the first one

that brought up the idea of, Hey, I've had enough of this.

That was the good thing about being four together.

We're not like Elvis, you know.

I always felt sorry for Elvis 'cause he was on his own.

He had his guys with him, but there's only one Elvis.

Nobody else knew what he felt like.

But for us, we all shared the experience.

They came back to England late summer of '65.

(crowd screaming)

The last time the Beatles played in Britain

was that winter, you know, seven or eight days.

My grandparents bought me tickets to see them,

and my parents refused to let me go.

♪ Got a good reason

♪ For takin' the easy way out ♪

The Beatles captured my imagination

like no other group at that point.

It was the way that I began to interpret the world.

Each new record was built on the record before,

you had this wonderful storyline advancing

through with the Beatles.

By the end of the year, we'd been told

there would be more records forthcoming.

(crowd screaming)

And they went back into studio.

(Paul speaking indistinctly)

GEORGE: The light's on.

You might as have a go and sing one song.

JOHN: See if we're all in tune when we play, George.

GEORGE MARTIN: "Girl," take one.

♪ Is there anybody going to listen to my story

♪ All about the girl who came to stay ♪

The first reaction to the new, innovative sound

of Rubber Soul was, I don't like this.

I think they've lost their minds.

♪ Girl, girl ♪

What are they thinking? You know, what's this?

♪ She's the kind of girl who'll put you down

♪ When friends are there

♪ You feel a fool ♪

I kind of went from being a kid

to being a teenager, so some of those things

felt like the right thing, but it was still surprising,

this group I liked changed so much.

♪ Girl ♪

There's a big jump from "I Want to Hold Your Hand"

to, Well, she told when she was young

when pain would lead to pleasure.

♪ Was she told when she was young

♪ That pain would lead to pleasure

♪ Did she understand it when they said ♪

I couldn't understand it at all when I first heard it.

I didn't think it was any good.

And then, six weeks later,

you couldn't live without the record, and that's good.

That's when you trust the people that make music

to take you somewhere you haven't been before.

(rock music)

VINTAGE REPORTER: Formal occasion at Buckingham Palace

on a foggy October morning.

The ceremony is bestowing awards of honor,

a ceremony hallowed by a tradition

going back over the centuries.

Members of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.

MAN: Do you think the Beatles

should have been awarded the MBE?

MAN #2: Well, I think the Beatles have probably

done as much for popular music

than people like Rodgers & Hammerstein and Gershwin did.

The only difference being, the Beatles have done it

in a matter of two or three years,

where it took most other people a lifetime.

REPORTER: What's the MBE going to do your teenage rebel image?

Who's got a teenage rebel image?

Have any of you any ambitions left at all?

I'd like to be a duke.

(laughter)

JON SAVAGE: They had achieved something,

and there were, if you like, influencers,

but at the same time they were prisoners of their fame.

And I think they were beginning to chafe

at people's expectations.

The first three months had been lopped off

to do whatever the Beatles' third film was going to be.

And then it didn't happen.

And so for the first time since they'd

become successful and famous, they had three months off.

(soft guitar music)

GEORGE: It had been four years for us

of legging around in this mania,

and we were tired, we needed to rest.

♪ I once had a girl

♪ Or should I say

♪ She once had me ♪

You know, the thing is that we're all interested

in other things before the Beatles,

and we didn't really have time,

but we were always looking around.

I got involved with a gallery owner.

We'd go to Paris and we'd buy paintings.

We'd go to the dealer. So it was very exciting.

Of course, George had developed an interest in Indian music.

(sitar music)

GEORGE: I just wanna carry on progressing with music,

you know, writing more and just learning more about it.

I've written so many songs that I've just thrown away

as I've been writing them, because I've wanted,

when I finally recorded one of mine,

I wanted it to be worth putting on the LP

alongside Paul and John.

I feel now I've got more idea about how to write songs.

(violin music)

We bought this house in the country

on this estate, Maureen and Zach, my son,

and John was up the road.

We started to grow up, and we started

to have families, and we started

to put less energy into the Beatle bag.

We all, kind of, were very aware

that we didn't live in each other's pockets anymore.

We all had separate existences.

There's an interview that John Lennon gives

to Morning Cleave, which is publish in March '66

where he talks about his reading.

He says I'm not really sure what I'm going to do next,

this isn't everything, which is not

what a pop star was supposed to say.

(camera clicking)

That same month, March, they were doing a photo shoot.

JOHN: By then, we were really sort of beginning to hate it.

A photo session was a big ordeal,

and you had to try and look normal,

and you didn't feel it.

PAUL: Bob Whitaker was one of the photographers

who took our pictures, and he came up with,

we all put on white lab coats

and we pretend to be mad professors.

JOHN: The photographer's a bit of a surrealist, you know?

(upbeat music)

We really got into it,

and that's when we felt, like, yeah.

♪ To say about the things that you do ♪

PAUL: To us, you know, this wasn't a big deal, really,

because these kind of shocking things

were part of the art scene.

♪ About the good things that we can have

♪ If we close our eyes ♪

JOHN: I especially wished

for it to be an album cover, you know.

It got out in America,

and there was some kind of fuss.

They were like, what?

My beloved Beatles?

No!

This must stop.

MAN: Sorry.

JOHN: Are you gonna keep that one, please.

GEORGE: Yeah, just leave it out again then.

PAUL: Okay.

GEORGE: I'll just have to vamp it up a bit.

JOHN: Now he tells me.

RINGO: We're having more fun in the studio.

It was getting more experimental.

The songs were getting better, more interesting.

♪ When I wake up early in the morning

♪ Lift my age

♪ And I'm still ♪

JOHN: Hey?

RINGO: They weren't, like, big plans.

You know, sometimes they just unfolded.

Complete fluke.

JOHN: Okay, ready.

John was not mechanically minded,

and he took a tape home, and the tape would run off

to the other reel, and he put it on

like it was the start, but it was the end of the song,

and that's when the guitar came.

(imitating warbling)

And he brings it in, man, you gotta hear this.

We said, great, we gotta do that.

Fall in the boffins.

♪ Lay down and surrender to the void

♪ It is shining ♪

And I always remember being in Brian Epstein's house

and John playing it to Brian, and to George Martin,

and saying, What do you think of this?

You can see there's a puzzlement going across their faces.

But instead of saying, oh, come on guys,

I think you really oughta put another chord in,

he knew to leave us alone by then.

♪ It is shining ♪

Slow down or speed up the tape,

even putting backwards tape in,

put in electronic sounds, and this is the kind of

thing you can do in a recording,

which you obviously couldn't possibly do live

because it is, in fact, making up music as you go along.

"Tomorrow Never Knows" breaks so many barriers,

musically speaking,

and does so many things that no one had done before.

It's got a drone all the way through,

which is something that happens in Indian music

and used to exist in Western music in the 12th century.

So it sort of triggered a whole movement

that popular music would start to bring in these

other records from the avant garde,

put them into mainstream songs,

into an album that millions of people would hear.

♪ Love is all and love is everyone

♪ It is knowing ♪

RINGO: You know, when we first started,

we were the nice, clean mop‐tops

and every mother's son and everyone loved us.

And suddenly there were a few things

that they don't understand.

It's just, we're men now.

We're a bit older than those lads that started out.

You can't live all your life by what they want.

We can't go on forever

as four teens with mop‐tops playing "She Loves You."

♪ Of the beginning

♪ Of the beginning

♪ Of the beginning ♪

When we were back on the road,

we got on a train and went up to Hamburg.

GEORGE: By then, I don't think we wanted to be anywhere.

It was like automatic pilot, you know.

There was so much more pressure from the press

trying to get at you, you know,

for whatever reason.

We're not horrid snobby.

FEMALE REPORTER: Yes, you are.

That's your version.

That's only in your mind.

GEORGE: Because we're not flattering you.

You know, you all expect sort of nice answers

to all the questions,

but the questions aren't nice questions.

We don't have to have nice answers.

And if we don't give nice answers,

it doesn't mean we're snobby, it just means we're natural.

(applause)

Everything was hit‐and‐run in those days,

and I think the next day after the Hamburg concert

we had a flight to Tokyo.

(man speaking Japanese)

It's amazing security.

I've ever seen so many people guarding.

MAN: But we don't want you to be hurt‐‐

GEORGE: No. MAN: We're trying our best.

(crowd chattering)

GEORGE: Everywhere we were going, it was

a demonstration of one thing or another.

In Japan, people were demonstrating

because the Budokan was supposed to be

a special spiritual hall

and only reserved for martial arts, not pop music.

(crowd screaming)

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome the Beatles!

(crowd screaming)

(amplifier static)

GEORGE: It was very strange. The audience were very reserved.

Respectful.

Very quiet to what we had become accustomed to.

Very quiet.

"Nowhere Man."

Two, three, four.

♪ He's a real nowhere man

♪ Sitting in his nowhere land

♪ Making all his nowhere plans

♪ With no one ♪

RINGO: We were playing crap.

We were just sort of surviving.

♪ Knows not where he's going to

♪ Isn't he a bit like you and me? ♪

PAUL: We had a day off in the Philippines, in Manila,

and then somebody said

"You're supposed to be visiting the Palace."

RINGO: Madam Marcos had invited us to dinner.

Brian had told her no.

Then the next morning, someone brought the newspapers.

"Beatles Snub President."

By late '66, it felt dangerous, you know?

Because everybody was out of hand.

Even the cops were out of line.

They were all just caught up in the mania.

JON SAVAGE: The build‐up of tension,

and also dissatisfaction and frustration,

and now they went straight into the complete nightmare.

Now, this religious controversy.

I know you don't want to say too much about it,

but does it worry you that it's going to fall out

when you get to the stage?

Well, it worries me, yes,

but I hope everything will be all right

in the end, as they say.

Do you think this is going to be a controversial tour

like the Philippines was?

Oh no, no, no.

No, it's going to be fine.

What makes you say that?

Oh, it'll be fine. You watch.

It'll be great.

("Good Day Sunshine" playing)

♪ Good day sunshine ♪

It was all because of that interview

John had given while on vacation.

It was reprinted in America months later.

"Lennon says the Beatles are bigger than Christ."

(bells tolling)

At that time, churches were losing their congregations.

People were going to church less and less and less.

John was saying, we're so famous,

we're so, oh you won't believe the fame.

I mean, like, we're bigger than Jesus.

It was a harmless remark in the middle of an article,

and it never made the front page in England.

LARRY: That unleashed a firestorm

in the United States.

It was almost like the plot of Help! had become real,

and they actually had a lot of people

who suddenly wanted to dismember them.

This is The Layton and Charles Show

on WAQY Radio, broadcasting at 1220 on your dial

until about nine o'clock this morning.

We'd like to urge you to take your Beatle records

and your Beatlemania to any one of our 14 pickup points

anywhere in Birmingham, Alabama.

Don't forget the destruction of those Beatle records

will take place in just a few days,

and we'll keep you informed of all of that.

They were just stunned.

You have to really put it into perspective.

I mean, the whole scandal was very serious,

partly because of the violence

that was in America at the time.

(shots whistling)

We'd just had the Texas sniper, Charles Whitman,

who'd just shot dead 20 people.

This was the same country only three years before

where the President had been assassinated.

It had got dangerous, and we were threatened.

We knew we weren't being blasphemous.

We weren't anti‐Jesus.

In fact, we all had pretty religious upbringings, really.

But you do see John as sort of a broken man,

because you realize he had to apologize.

I was the only thing that would stop this.

I pointed out that fact in reference to England,

that we meant more to kids than Jesus did,

or religion at that time.

I wasn't knocking it or putting it down,

I was just saying it as a fact.

And it sort of is true, better more for England than here.

I'm not saying that we're better or greater

or comparing us with Jesus Christ as a person,

or God as a thing, whatever it is,

you know, I just said what I said,

and it was wrong, or was taken wrong,

but now it's all this.

He's longing to break out of it and do a joke,

but he knows he can't.

If it had said television is more popular than Jesus,

I might have got away with it.

(laughter)

I just happened to be talking to a friend,

they used the word Beatles as a remote thing,

not as what I think, because Beatles

as those other Beatles, like other people see us,

I just said they are having more influence

on kids and things

than anything else, including Jesus.

I said it in that way,

which is the wrong way, yep, yep.

PAUL: He was scared. We were all pretty scared.

Most of the people in the room understood it.

It's like one of those lines.

It didn't hold us back at all.

(screaming)

MAN: Concert tomorrow night is far below a sell‐out.

How do you feel about‐‐

JOHN: Very rich.

(upbeat music)

♪ I know that she knows ♪

There were three road managers, roadies,

on the tour, period, in '66, that was it.

I was friends with the opening act.

They said, Do you wanna do it?

I didn't even know how to set up a drum kit at the time.

I had no idea.

I was a musician in Boston, a folk singer.

I had no qualifications at all.

We only ever had a couple of roadies.

Didn't matter where we were.

Biggest band in the land, that's all we had.

And in Cleveland, the sound was so bad

that everybody rushed the stage.

REPORTER: Cleveland Stadium has been absolutely riots.

The whole place went wild here,

broke the barriers, came through the police cordon.

We managed to get the Beatles off the stage,

they were even all over the stage.

ED: I really thought I was gonna get hurt.

We get to Memphis and there's been a bomb scare,

and we had to delay the show, I think the

bomb‐sniffing dogs throughout the whole theater.

That kind of stuff was happening all the time.

It was terrifying.

Some people would set off firecrackers in the hall

and you'd think one of the others had got shot.

And we flew off to St. Louis, and it was pouring rain.

My job was to sit backstage with my hand on the plug,

and the instructions were, if one of them fell down,

like knocked out by the shock,

then you should pull the plug, and that would stop the show.

It was a joke.

(crowd screaming)

This was three weeks that they just

took a deep breath and said, okay,

let's just do this and we'll make a lot of money.

(somber music)

RINGO: A lot of the time we were going through the motions,

and we all started to get pretty fed up.

George particularly was quite vocal about that.

GEORGE: I was saying, "I don't wanna do this anymore.

I don't like this."

I certainly felt that that was it.

You know, that we weren't going to tour again like that.

There was no enjoyment in it.

The music wasn't being heard. It wasn't dong anything.

It was just a sort of freak show.

The Beatles were the show, and the music

had nothing to do with it.

As we were musicians, we felt, if we're gonna be Beatles,

the only reason to be a Beatle is to make music,

and not be in a circus.

And when we were finished, I remember

just being piled in the back of this meat wagon,

which was steel, and nothing else inside.

We're all in this, sort of sliding around

as it went around the corners,

and we're all really mad at the whole bloody thing.

John started, and George, like, oh that's it.

I've had enough, you know.

And we all agreed.

We were just sitting in the van,

saying, That's enough of that.

(piano music)

We all knew, to survive, we had to

get back in the studio and get to know each other

and play again.

I'm not holding back, George.

I'm giving my all.

GEORGE: It used to make us laugh when we'd read

people saying, the problem with the Beatles

is that while we were all growing up,

they were all on tour, and so they missed

the growing‐up period.

But the truth to it was, we were snatched out of our youth.

We were force‐grown like rhubarb

when you grow it under hothouse conditions.

You make it grow much quicker than it would naturally.

JOHN: Oh, God, now?

Broken another string.

PAUL: I think it'll probably be another day singin' in.

GEORGE: And what you can do with the bits

where you can't get it 'cause you haven't got enough breath.

‐ PAUL: Take over. ‐ All right, let's go.

In one way it was good because we went into the recording scene

and really, sort of, expressed ourselves

through the records, then,

because we could no longer do it outside.

♪ Living is easy with eyes closed

♪ Misunderstanding all you see

♪ It's getting hard to be someone but it all works out

♪ It doesn't matter much to me ♪

I got this idea for us all to be someone else,

because we were so fed up with being what we were,

we had to get out of it, one way or another.

GEORGE: Righty‐o!

JOHN: However you like.

You know, feel it.

PAUL: One, two, three, four.

("Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" playing)

I just said to everyone, we're not the Beatles.

It was to liberate us.

We gotta think of a new name for ourselves.

Gotta think up a new way of being,

a new way of recording, a new everything,

just to be fresh.

♪ So may I introduce to you

♪ The act you've known for all these years

♪ Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band ♪

PAUL: I'll be overpowering this time.

JOHN: I'll go.

I like it when you do, Paul.

PAUL: Quiet in the studio, please.

("Lucy in Sky with Diamonds" playing)

♪ Picture yourself in (laughs) a boat on a river ♪

PAUL: Just go right in with it.

Do those quicker.

♪ Cellophane flowers of yellow and green

♪ Yellow and green ♪

JOHN: Okay.

♪ Cellophane flowers of yellow and green

♪ Towering over your head

♪ Look for the girl with the sun in her eyes

♪ And she's gone

♪ Lucy in the sky with diamonds

♪ Lucy in the sky with diamonds♪

JOHN: It was the music that was interesting.

That was important.

As long as we were going forward and going somewhere,

it didn't matter.

("A Day in the Life" playing)

♪ I read the news today, oh boy

♪ About a lucky man who made the grade ♪

PAUL: There was a lot of faith involved

in everything that we did.

And the people around us had to share that faith,

or it wouldn't have worked.

♪ Now they know how many holes it takes

♪ To fill the Albert Hall ♪

Brian had to have faith in us.

George Martin had to have faith in us.

This is how it was for the Beatles.

You had to have faith.

We had to have faith in each other.

(indistinct remarks)

(gentle rock music)

(indistinct applause)

♪ Don't let me down

♪ Don't let me down

♪ Don't let me down

♪ Don't let me down

♪ Nobody ever loved me like she does

♪ Oh, she does

♪ Yeah, she does

♪ And if somebody loved me like she does

♪ Oh, she does

♪ Yeah, she does

♪ Don't let me down

♪ Don't let me down

♪ Don't let me down

♪ Don't let me down

♪ I'm in love for the first time

♪ Don't you know it's gonna last

♪ It's a love that lasts forever

♪ It's a love that has no past

♪ I got a feelin' that keeps me on my toes

♪ Oh, yeah

♪ Oh yeah, oh yeah

♪ I got a feelin'

♪ I think that everybody knows

♪ Oh yeah, oh yeah

♪ Oh yeah, yeah

♪ Yeah

♪ I've got a feeling, yeah

♪ Everybody had a hard year

♪ Everybody had a good time

♪ Everybody had a wet dream

♪ Everybody saw the sunshine

♪ Oh yeah, oh yeah

♪ Oh yeah, oh yeah

♪ Everybody had a good year

♪ Everybody let their hair down

♪ Everybody pulled their socks up

♪ Everybody put their foot down

♪ Oh yeah

♪ Woo‐hoo

♪ Everybody had a good year

♪ Everybody had a hard time

♪ Everybody had a wet dream

♪ Everybody saw the sunshine

♪ Everybody had a good year

♪ Everybody let their hair down

♪ Everybody pulled their socks up

♪ Everybody put their foot down

♪ Oh, yeah

♪ I got a feelin'

♪ I got a feelin'

♪ I got a feelin' ♪

(applause)

PAUL: What a suitable ending, I think.

("Eight Days a Week" playing)

♪ Oh I need your love, babe

♪ Yes, you know it's true

♪ Hope you need my love, babe

♪ Just like I need you

♪ Hold me, love me

♪ Hold me, love me

♪ I ain't got nothin' but love, babe

♪ Eight days a week

♪ Love you every day, girl

♪ Always on my mind

♪ One thing I can say, girl

♪ Love you all the time

♪ Hold me, love me

♪ Hold me, love me

♪ I ain't got nothin' but love, girl

♪ Eight days a week

♪ Eight days a week

♪ I love you

♪ Eight days a week

♪ Is not enough to show I care

♪ Oh, I need your love, babe

♪ Yes, you know it's true

♪ Hope you need my love, babe

♪ Just like I need you

♪ Hold me, love me

♪ Hold me, love me

♪ I ain't got nothin' but love, babe

♪ Eight days a week

♪ Eight days a week

♪ I love you

♪ Eight days a week

♪ Is not enough to show I care

♪ Love you every day, girl

♪ Always on my mind

♪ One thing I can say, girl

♪ Love you all the time

♪ Hold me, love me

♪ Hold me, love me

♪ I ain't got nothin' but love, babe

♪ Eight days a week

♪ Eight days a week

♪ Eight days a week ♪

JOHN: Hello, this is John speaking with his voice.

We're all very happy to be able to talk to you like this

on this little bit of plastic.

This record reaches you at the end

of a really gear year for us, and it's all due to you.

When we made our first record on Parlophone

towards the end of 1962,

we hoped that everybody would like what would already

been our type of music for several years already.

But we had no idea of all the gear things in store for us.

It all happened, really, when "Please Please Me"

became a number one hit, and after that, well,

cor' the blimeys, heave the mo'.

Our biggest thrill of the year‐‐ well, I suppose

it must have been top of the bill at the London Palladium

and then only a couple of days later

being invited to take part in the Royal Variety Show.

This time last year, we're all dead chuffed

because "Love Me Do" got in the top 20,

and we can't believe, really, that so many things

have happened in between already.

Just before I pass you over to Paul,

(Paul barking like a small dog)

I'd like to say thank you to all the Beatle people

who have written to me during the year,

and everyone who sent me gifts and cards for my birthday,

which I'm trying to forget, in October.

I'd love to reply personally to everyone,

but I just haven't enough pens.

In the meantime.

PAUL: This is Paul here.

Everything that John said goes for me, too.

Especially the bit about birthday cards

and the parcels, 'cause all our homes and offices

got sacks of mail last June.

Ow! (laughs)

When it was my birthday.

Anyway, we're all dead pleased

by the way you've treated us in 1963,

and we're trying to do everything we can to please you

with the type of songs we write and record next year.

Oh, yeah, lots of people asked us what we enjoyed best:

concerts and television or recording.

We like doing stage shows, 'cause it's, you know,

it's great to hear an audience enjoying themselves,

but the thing we like best‐‐ I think so, anyway‐‐

is going into the recording studio.

JOHN: Yes, we enjoy it very kindly.

PAUL: To make new records.

Which is what we'd been doing all day

before we started on this special message.

Well, what we like to hear most is one of our songs

taking shape in the recording studio,

one of the ones what John and I have written.

And then listening to the tapes afterwards

to hear how it all worked out, you see.

Ja, Ringo.

RINGO: Hello, Ringo here.

As you know, I was the last member to join the Beatles.

I started to play drums in the group 1962.

(laughs)

I've been in a couple of other groups. Ow!

PAUL: Just wish the people merry happy.

Go on, for Christmas. Christmas.

RINGO: Merry happy New Year,

and folks, happy Christmas,

and may everything you wish be granted.

PAUL: Sing us Wenceslas, King Wenceslas.

RINGO: Wenceslas.

♪ Well ♪

(spirited cheers)

GEORGE: Thank you, Ringo, we'll phone you.

(laughter)

I'm George Harrison. Nobody else has said anything yet

about our fan club secretaries,

Anne Collingham and Bettina Rose.

(laughter)

Not to mention, Freda Kelly in Liverpool.

JOHN: Good old Freda!

GEORGE: So on behalf of us all, I'd just like to say

a great big thank‐you to Anne, Bettina and Freda

for all the hard work that they've done,

and we just hope we can go on pleasing you for a long time.

It's your reaction to our records

that really matters.

And I'd just like to say...

♪ Brightly was the shone that night

♪ Though the winter cruel

♪ When a pork pie came in sight

♪ Gathering winter gruel ♪

THE BEATLES: Merry Christmas, everybody!