November 22, 1963 is a date burned into the psyche of any American aged five or older on that day that JFK was assassinated in Dallas. As a people, we were collectively shattered. We wouldn’t emerge from these doldrums until about two months later, when our senses were distracted by the intriguing sight and sound created by four lads from Liverpool, a place most had never heard of. From that time onward, their music, charm, ‘long’ hair, and their ever-expanding originality would make us smile, think, and dare us to be and look different. All while raising the bar on popular music at an astonishing rate Their arrival marked the beginning of the 60s as we have come to know them.
Their debut American single, I Want To Hold Your Hand, released just after Christmas, would enter the American charts in mid-January and reach #1 by the beginning of February. Their appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9 sealed the deal. A week later, their first American album, Meet The Beatles, was #1 on the Billboard charts and the rest is truly history.
After JFK, they were exactly what we needed. And as we would come to learn over the years, their timing was impeccable.
As many Beatle aficionados are aware, all British and American albums varied at least slightly in track listing, running order, and release date from 1964-66. Meet The Beatles, the Capitol Records release here in America, did not exist in England. Its British counterpart was on Parlophone Records and was called With The Beatles, and though it varies slightly from the American LP, this was, essentially, the record that we fell in love with when we fell in love with the Beatles.
The British version was released a couple of months before its American offspring.
With The Beatles hit stores in the UK on November 22, 1963.
Look it up.
Paul Rocha, October 2018
