Now it's clear that the press saw Beatlemania as the best story to take the minds of adults away from what was otherwise a very unsettled in America. Only a few months earlier, as the nation sat glued to television screens watching the grim saga of a presidential assassination, it was the first time I ever realized that there could be events which could leave adults feeling as helpless as children.
Lacking any real support for our passions in he Houston Post, we turned to teen magazines for our best sources of information. 16 Magazine gave us exclusive and personal facts about what the Beatles ate, what they did in their free time, and most importantly, about the luckiest women in the world the three Beatle girlfriends. Cynthia and John were seen as a different category altogether and their marriage was scarcely discussed - marriage was a scenario we could barely envision for ourselves, and besides, there were still three eligible Beatles up for grabs. Wisely, the magazines were very supportive of Jane, Pattie, and Maureen, and we gradually accepted that none of us really stood a chance of being a Beatle girlfriend but would love to look like one. I studied their pictures carefully, more concerned with whether my hair would ever grow long and straight than Jane's answers to "40 Intimate Questions" or Pattie's "Letter from London". Besides, I could not stand to think about the idea of Pattie receiving letters from George "all through the Beatles'American tour" or the fact that Ringo treats Maureen "with tenderness and delights looking after her".
Contrary to popular opinion, Ringo was not the most popular Beatle in the States. Each girl had her favorite, and none of the four were lacking for followers. In my own circle of friends, Paul was the winner hands down. For me, it was a tossup between Paul and Ringo. I couldn't help being struck by Paul's gorgeous looks, but Ringo had such an appealing quality about him.
As the Beatles continued to tour America, I detected a change in attitude from adults, my own parents included. What had been simply amusing now seemed to be a phenomenon that could not be explained, that was getting out of hand. An article expressing this view was printed in the Houston Post titled "Beatle Madness Frightens Expert" by Dr. Bernard Saibel, Child Guidance Expert, Division of Community Service, The State of Washington". Dr. Saibel was horrified by the experience of seeing the Beatles at their Seattle concert. He described the "hysteria and loss of control" as "not simply a release", but "a very destructive process ... allowing the children a mad, erotic world of their own without the reassuring safeguards or protection from themselves". He was so taken aback by the experience of seeing 14,000 teenagers turn into "frantic, hostile, uncontrolled, screaming unrecognizable beings", he was compelled to advise parents that "such should not be allowed again, if only for the good of the youngsters". His final reflections were that "it was an orgy for teenagers"
An erotic world? An orgy? These were words barely comprehended by my young mind. I struggled for days with the meaning of what he was saying. Sure, the words to "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "I Saw Her Standing There" described images of a boy-girl relationship that I hoped to have when I got a little older. But could it really be possible that I had some kind of horrible demon lurking deep inside me that might escape as a result of listening to Beatles music, causing me to do things I didn't even know how to do at my age? But what were my feelings for the Beatles? Yes, I was affected deeply by them for reasons not fully known. I loved looking at them in photographs and on tv, but at age thirteen was too shy to talk to boys of my own age, much less have thoughts of men in their twenties. No, they weren't sexual objects to me and never became so. Admiring their good looks was one thing, but I always stayed in the real world as far as those matters are concerned. And of course, the music did something to me unlike any other music ever had. So what could it have been about? Dr. Saibel, you were really onto something though. Without realizing it, you predicted the turbulence of the decade known as the 60's. "Parents and adults have a lot to account for to allow this to go on", you said. But nothing or no one could have stopped the changes that were to come.
"It was a hell of a time to raise a teenager", one of my aunts commented several years ago. And I was lucky enough to get on board at exactly the right time, as the Beatles career and my teenage years coincided perfectly. It's difficult to know how much of the 60's can be credited directly to the Beatles and how much we were affected by their behavior. Ten years older than me, I could observe what they did and wonder what I would do when I was old enough to make decisions for myself. So many changes in society and attitudes. John says the Beatles are bigger than Jesus I couldn't dispute that. Beatles take drugs? Maybe there are benefits to expanding our minds. Beatles explore Eastern religion? I was disenchanted with my own religious upbringing. John going out with a Japanese woman? Maybe I'd want to date someone of another racial background someday. Beatles speak out against Vietnam? As a member of the large generation of baby boomers, we were discovering there was power in numbers. We could reshape our world, refuse to fight in an unjust war, influence what was taught to us in our universities, even cause laws to be changed. To me, the Beatles were like big brothers. They gave us a script to follow. We were now allowed to question authority, not follow meaningless tradition, and make our world into what we wanted.
And the music - how were they able to express what we were thinking so well? They surely changed our attitudes - it's hard to say how much. Each new album was a progression along the road of puberty to adulthood. It would be impossible for me to analyze each song, each album according to its' musical merits alone, as each one reminds me of a certain time or place. Too sophisticated for "I want to hold your hand" in my mid-teens, "Norwegian Wood" was a favorite topic of conversation as we tried to analyze the hidden meanings. The images evoked in Sgt. Pepper were of beautiful people and places that we wanted to be - young men and women with flowing hair, with clothes to die for from exotic boutiques on the Kings Road in London. "She' LeavingHome" carried such powerful meaning that a college roommate was to remark years later that it reminded her of me whenever she heard it. While Fixing a Hole" wasn't one of the most well-known on the album, just thinking of the words has always helped me get through times when I feel hassled. The best way to spend an evening in spring of my freshman year at college was to listen to the White Album in someone's dorm room. I remember driving down the road listening to Birthday, right before I turned eighteen. And what would my third year at college have been without waking up in the morning and putting on Abbey Road and Let it Be before we did anything else, just turning the albums over and over again all day and night. Every note was so burned into our memory that after a while there was really no need to play the albums at all.
I was afraid that when the Beatles split up, we'd never hear of them again. They weren't such a large part of my life as when I was younger, but they were always with me in spirit nevertheless and I'd miss them terribly if they were to disappear completely. Then came a few images that cheered me enormously - Paul with little Mary tucked into his jacket, Paul becoming a family man, settling down on a farm in Scotland with his new wife. The picture of Paul and Mary wasn't my image of the typical father - stiffly holding a baby while posing for a picture and probably putting the baby down as soon as the picture was snapped. Young women of the early 70's were trying to make a new role for themselves in society - we hoped for partnerships in which the men in our lives wanted to have an equal role in raising families. Now, perhaps the Beatles would provide us with role models of the husbands and fathers we were looking for. But most importantly, we knew the Beatles were alive and well and would continue to be a part of our lives. And we realized that they needed to live their own lives just as we were about to fully live ours. We were grateful for their solo efforts, though we wouldn't blame them if they'd had enough of the public eye after the rigors of Beatlemania. As the years went by we were glad to hear of their happy moments and saddened to hear of their troubled times. And John's death made us face the ultimate - our own mortality. Death of an "older" person was one thing, but he was one of us. With only ten more years to go, forty didn't seem so old anymore. I could only hope he had finally found true happiness in life with Yoko and Sean, even if for only a few years. I can never thank them enough for what they have given me, for I wouldn't be the same without them.