Pod Insights The Rest Is History The Beatles: The Band that Changed the World, with Conan O’Brien (Part 1) About this episode How did four Liverpool teenagers become the most influential band on earth? What made their music and charisma irresistible to a generation? And, how did their ambition and timing spark a cultural revolution that still resonates today?
In the first of two special episodes, Tom is joined by Conan O’Brien to explore the Beatles’ meteoric rise: the personalities, the breakthroughs, and the explosive cultural impact that turned a local act into the defining band of the 20th century.
The Beatles’ nine-part “Anthology” documentary series has been restored and is now available to watch on Disney+. Thank you to Apple Corps and Disney for the opportunity to use archive from the Anthology in these special Beatles episodes.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:03 Dominic Sandbrook? This episode is brought to you by TikTok. We obviously love history here. It's always a treat to make a new discovery, especially in unexpected ways.
0:12 Tom Holland? Which is exactly what happens on TikTok. Like, you know coffee? You make it, add milk, drink it. Nothing more, except...
0:23 Dominic Sandbrook? Except, when you hop on TikTok, you don't just learn how to make an authentic cappuccino. You can also discover videos about how in the 1700s, people would pour their coffee into saucers to let it cool before drinking it.
0:39 Tom Holland? And suddenly, you're imagining how people lived, drank, socialised. Makes you wonder what will baffle historians about us. And that's the joy of TikTok. You look for one thing and find yourself somewhere completely different.
0:53 Dominic Sandbrook? Your next discovery is waiting on TikTok.
0:57 Tom Holland? Visit tiktok.com/discovermore.
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2:10 Tom Holland? This episode is supported by Anthropic, the team behind Claude. Now, history's biggest leaps started as hard questions that people didn't want asked.
2:22 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah, there's a classic example of that at the end of the 15th century. And the hard question in particular was, what is out there beyond the Atlantic Ocean to the west? And as you will know, the man who found the answer to that question was the explorer Christopher Columbus. And he realises, or rather, everybody else realises, that there is a vast continent out there, and it is, of course, the Americas. So Anthropic knows the importance of questions, and it's why Anthropic is founded on one hard question above all. How can we ensure that the AI revolution really goes well for ordinary people?
2:52 Tom Holland? So they asked over 100,000 people, and what came back wasn't just fear, there was hope as well. People wanted to know, will cancer ever be cured? Can kids have a better future? It turns out that there is hope in hard questions.
3:07 Dominic Sandbrook? Ask yours at claude.ai/RestIsHistory and keep thinking.
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4:42 Tom Holland? Hello everyone and welcome to Abbey Road Studios for a Rest Is History Beatles special. Now, I am afraid that Dominic isn't here because as regular listeners will know, he disgraces himself by not liking John Lennon and also being fed up with talking about the Beatles. And we were recently, the pair of us, on Conan O'Brien's podcast. And Conan asked us, were we Beatles or Stones? I of course said Beatles, Dominic said Stones. And then said, I am never going to talk about the Beatles again. So when I got the opportunity to do a Beatles podcast here in Abbey Road, I thought, well, who can I get to replace Dominic?
5:26 Tom Holland? Who can be Denny Lane to my Paul McCartney? And so I thought, well, Conan O'Brien! And Conan, here you are, in Abbey Road!
5:36 Speaker 02 Lucky me. I just flew 35,000 miles to be called Denny Lane to your Paul McCartney. And I accept it. It's a high honour.
5:44 Tom Holland? Thank you so much for joining us.
5:46 Speaker 02 Very happy to be here.
5:47 Tom Holland? Because when we met in LA, you were talking about how you two are a massive Beatles fan. But more than that, you talked about how you've actually met George and Paul and Ringo.
5:57 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah. I was lucky enough to meet three of the four Beatles. John died when I was in high school, but I was a Beatles fan in the 70s, to the exclusion of music that was coming out at the time. I was stubbornly just listening to Beatles records throughout the 70s. But later on, once I had a TV show and became known, I was lucky to meet three of them, which was really special. I met George when I was a writer at Saturday Night Live. And he was meeting with Lorne Michaels, who's a producer. They had gone out for drinks. And then there's a writer's room at Saturday Night Live and George came in. I'll never forget.
6:42 Speaker 02 He apologised initially because he had been drinking some quantity of liquor. So he said, I'm sorry, I'm pissed as a newt. And he was kind of bobbing from shoe to shoe. He asked why we were all staring at him. Me being a Beatles geek, I had in my office, same make model year, Country Gentleman that George played in the 64 tour. And I thought about going and getting it and showing it to him, but I thought, no, he's not in a condition to appreciate that. So he'll probably hit me with it. And then George sat down at a piano and started to play, which was lovely.
7:21 Tom Holland? And what was he playing?
7:22 Speaker 02 He was just playing around chords. He wasn't playing a song.
7:25 Tom Holland? Right, so not My Guitar Gently Weeps?
7:27 Speaker 02 No, it wasn't what you think. And Hollywood would make it a full rendition of While My Guitar Gently Weeps. It was not.
7:34 Tom Holland? So you were listening to a Beatle play the piano?
7:36 Speaker 02 I was listening to a Beatle play the piano. And I've also been lucky enough to be in a room where Paul was playing guitar. And it was just a guitar that was in the room. So he's left-handed. He was just playing it upside down and backwards. And I said, I said, how do you do that? Where did you learn to do that? And he said to me, back in the day, when we were starting out, I had to, because the only other way to play it would be to retune John's guitar, and he would have crippled me.
8:12 Tom Holland? I can't believe that you've, you've, you've had these experiences. Because the closest that I have come to meeting Beatles was via my wife Sadie, when she was three, was in a queue with her parents for a visa to America. And Paul was standing behind her, picked her up.
8:29 Speaker 02 I was in that queue as well. So I've got you beat at every turn.
8:33 Tom Holland? Oh, God. So you're a huge Beatles fan?
8:36 Speaker 02 Yeah.
8:37 Tom Holland? As am I. But there are, of course, skeptics out there, Dominic being one of them.
8:41 Speaker 02 Yes.
8:42 Tom Holland? So I guess the question, we're a history podcast rather than a music podcast, so we need to make the case that the Beatles are historically significant.
8:49 Speaker 02 Yes.
8:50 Tom Holland? Is that a case you think that can be made?
8:52 Speaker 02 Easily. The Beatles are a complete break with what happened before. They are singer-songwriters. They wrote their own music. There are so many ways that they depart. So many groups at the time. You know, there's the lead and then there's the rest of the group. It's, you know, Dion and the Belmonts. There was a lot of pressure for them to have a leader. I think briefly they were Johnny and the Moon Dogs. Very briefly. But they always knew, no, it's, it's, we're a group.
9:24 Tom Holland? It's this kind of synergy of it.
9:25 Speaker 02 Yeah, and that was unusual at the time. So they're a break with pretty much everything that comes before them. And they're as relevant today as they were in 1964.
9:37 Tom Holland? Because obviously there have been acts that have been massive in their own time and then slightly have started to fade. But I guess you could say that the Beatles have endured long enough and remain massive enough.
9:49 Speaker 02 Yeah.
9:50 Tom Holland? That you can say that people will probably be listening to them in decades' times, maybe in centuries' time.
9:56 Speaker 02 Yeah. There's a great clip. I think it's in the anthology where they're talking to a young guy, basically a teenager, a kid, at Shea Stadium. And they're trying to kind of, the interviewer's trying to run them down a little bit.
10:10 Tom Holland? Hmm.
10:11 Speaker 02 And, and this kid says.
10:14 Tom Holland? I love them.
10:15 Speaker 02 Yeah, and he just says they're incredible musicians. And he more or less makes the case there in 1965 or '60s that we're going to be listening to their music forever.
10:27 Tom Holland? They are, I think, the best-selling musical act of all time. I mean, every statistic that they generate is off the scale. I guess the case I would make and why I think they're historically significant is because in a way, they are lightning rods for so much that makes the '60s a revolutionary decade.
10:46 Speaker 02 Yeah.
10:47 Tom Holland? And I think that in all kinds of ways, in the 21st century, we're living in the aftermath of what happened in the '60s.
10:54 Speaker 02 Right.
10:55 Tom Holland? Rather like people in the 16th century were living in the aftermath of what had happened in the 1520s. It's, I think, the transformation, the cultural, the ethical transformation is on that scale.
11:06 Speaker 02 Yes.
11:06 Tom Holland? And the Beatles are both kind of symbols of it, but they're also vectors of it.
11:12 Speaker 02 Yeah, I mean, the Beatles themselves knew. That they weren't creating all this change. Sometimes they were just the avatar.
11:20 Tom Holland? Yeah.
11:20 Speaker 02 That could represent the change. And I think they were pretty sane. I mean, another group with that kind of fame would have said, we did all this. We changed humankind forever. They knew that, of course, that wasn't the case. But they were the perfect representation of what was happening. And they did drive and give credence to a lot of amazing changes that were happening.
11:42 Tom Holland? And I think also, I mean, just, just to begin. They do have their roots in kind of quite the decades that before they were born. So that which would include the war years, but going back into the 30s and even back into the 20s. So John was a big fan of Just William. I don't know if that's a thing in America, probably not. But it's kind of stories of, of this kind of raggedy schoolboy. And he has a gang of outlaws and John was obsessed by it. And Paul's dad, you know, he, he, he kind of played all kinds of old traditional English music.
12:16 Speaker 02 Yes.
12:16 Tom Holland? And the influence of that in the, on the Beatles tracks is kind of really evident. And also I think it's interesting that they meet, John and Paul meet at a church fete. Neither of them were in any way religious. But it's a reminder that the, the world of England in the 50s is still one where, you know, you want to be a skiffle band, you still have to go and do it at a church fete. Because there isn't really anywhere else to have that kind of fun.
12:43 Speaker 02 That's the only gig.
12:44 Tom Holland? That's the only gig in town, really, yeah.
12:46 Speaker 02 So, no, they come from, a friend of mine said once, Jimmy Vivino, my, my, my bandleader said, "The Beatles single-handedly brought us from black and white to color." Which I thought was an interesting way to look at it, which is they come from this very old tradition.
13:05 Tom Holland? Yeah.
13:05 Speaker 02 And they're well schooled in English music hall, big band there.
13:11 Tom Holland? Yeah, swing and all that.
13:13 Speaker 02 They have big ears. They're listening and hearing everything and soaking it all up. And later on, it all comes out in the music.
13:22 Tom Holland? But obviously, one of the things that they are listening to and are able to listen to, perhaps in a way that lots of people elsewhere in England can't, is the sounds of America.
13:32 Speaker 02 Yeah.
13:32 Tom Holland? Because Liverpool is a port that is open to the Atlantic and ships. There's still transport, records are being brought over in ships. And so they come to the port and the Beatles can access them.
13:43 Speaker 02 Yeah, they can get Elvis, Gene Vincent, Buddy Holly.
13:48 Tom Holland? And black music.
13:49 Speaker 02 Yeah.
13:50 Tom Holland? Which is all, you know, they, they love all that.
13:53 Speaker 02 Yes.
13:53 Tom Holland? So when John and Paul meet at this, this church fete.
13:59 Speaker 02 The Walton Fete.
14:00 Tom Holland? The Walton Fete. John is singing a D WAP song, Come Go With Me.
14:06 Speaker 02 Yeah.
14:07 Tom Holland? And he doesn't know the lyrics. And Paul doesn't know the lyrics either, but he knows the lyrics well enough to know that John can't remember them.
14:15 Speaker 02 Yeah.
14:15 Tom Holland? But the fact that they both know the song is like a kind of Masonic handshake between them. It's a sign that they have access to a kind of secret information. They are familiar with American music. And so the kind of the potential, the excitement, the drama of what is happening in America. You know, you said that the Beatles introduced colour, but I think for the future Beatles, 1950s England is a monochrome country.
14:39 Speaker 02 Yes.
14:40 Tom Holland? And America is vibrant technicolor.
14:42 Speaker 02 Well, also, the war has been a very different experience. I don't need to tell you for, for people living in England. They've been bombed, they've seen their cities destroyed. They've paid a terrible price. They're still rationing, they're still war rationing. So they're growing up in a world where people are coming out of a daze. And there's been a lot of privation, there's been a lot of difficulty.
15:11 Tom Holland? I also got into the Beatles in the 70s. And when I look back at the sixties, the sixties seemed an impossible distance from the Second World War.
15:20 Speaker 02 Yeah.
15:20 Tom Holland? But now you think, I mean, it's only, no, it's only twenty years.
15:24 Speaker 02 Yeah.
15:24 Tom Holland? I mean, it's so close. And when the Beatles are growing up, they are in a city that is cratered with kind of bomb damage. And as you say, you know, the Beatles are born in the war years. John is born during the Blitz.
15:37 Speaker 02 During a Blitz, yeah.
15:37 Tom Holland? On Liverpool. So George joins John and Paul, and they get joined by Stu Sutcliffe.
15:43 Speaker 02 Paul's the one who knows George.
15:45 Tom Holland? Introduces George, doesn't he?
15:46 Speaker 02 Introduces him and he plays raunchy.
15:49 Tom Holland? Yeah.
15:49 Speaker 02 On the top of a double decker bus.
15:51 Tom Holland? Yeah, and that's enough.
15:52 Speaker 02 That's enough.
15:52 Tom Holland? You're in.
15:53 Speaker 02 Yeah.
15:53 Tom Holland? And then John's art school friend, Stu Sutcliffe, wins a prize for his art and spends it on a guitar.
16:00 Speaker 02 Well, John bullies him.
16:01 Tom Holland? Yeah.
16:01 Speaker 02 Into, I don't know what he, it was eighty pounds or a hundred pounds or something. He bullies him into buying a bass, which Stu never really learns to play. But he's a cool looking guy.
16:12 Tom Holland? He is.
16:13 Speaker 02 And I think that's an early sign that, yes, the music's important, but.
16:19 Tom Holland? The image is gonna matter too.
16:20 Speaker 02 Who we are.
16:21 Tom Holland? Yeah.
16:21 Speaker 02 What we represent. And Stu is an artist. And Paul doesn't love this.
16:26 Tom Holland? Hmm.
16:27 Speaker 02 He really doesn't like Stu coming in. Because he can't play and, and I think he's very close to John, which may have been a problem for Paul.
16:35 Tom Holland? Yes. And also there's Pete Best.
16:38 Speaker 02 Yeah.
16:38 Tom Holland? A top hairdresser in later life. But at the time, the drummer. And so they all go off to Hamburg.
16:45 Speaker 02 Mm hmm.
16:45 Tom Holland? And Hamburg, equally, I mean, maybe even more than Liverpool, is obviously a city marked by the experience of the Second World War. The British had flattened it. And of course, there were people there who had lived through the Nazi period. And it's always struck me that one of the things that is interesting about Hamburg in the Nazi period. Is that it's kind of notorious among the Nazi leadership for the enthusiasm of the young people who live there for American and English jazz and swing. And it's a kind of rebellion against the ideals of the Hitler Youth and all of that. And they grow their hair and they listen to jazz and they're particularly into black music.
17:28 Tom Holland? And this is a kind, you know, obviously, I mean, it's the anathema to everything that Nazism represents.
17:34 Speaker 02 Yeah.
17:34 Tom Holland? And when, um, when the Beatles meet Astrid Kircher and Klaus Forman, who are kind of middle-class intellectual Germans who are ashamed of the Nazi legacy and therefore are heirs to that tradition of seeing British and American music as something that is expressive of freedom and of opposition to Nazism. That's kind of one of the reasons why, why they all end up getting on so well.
18:05 Speaker 02 Well, they're also, they're Bohemians. They're artists and outsiders looking in, and I think that's very attractive.
18:15 Tom Holland? Yeah.
18:15 Speaker 02 To John and Paul, especially, and George, they, they really like these people. They become good friends and they're very much influenced by them.
18:24 Tom Holland? John calls them, um, exes, doesn't he? After existentialists and kind of France is the great influence. And in due course, it's Astrid Kircher who will give the Beatles their kind of signature mop top cuts.
18:38 Speaker 02 Yeah.
18:38 Tom Holland? Which is influenced by these kind of Bohemian, European Bohemian ideals. But just to reiterate, I mean, this is ultimately a kind of reaction against what the Nazis had represented and that kind of tradition. So there is a case for saying that the mop top is a kind of anti-Nazi haircut. Do you think that's maybe going too far?
18:58 Speaker 02 I think you've pushed it way too far.
18:59 Tom Holland? Possibly.
19:00 Speaker 02 Now I'm listening to all the early Beatles hits as anti-Hitler anthems. I do agree with you that there is.
19:09 Speaker 02 Clearly, and John said this, Hamburg made them. You know, going to Hamburg made them because, as Malcolm Gladwell pointed out, they had to do their
19:19 Tom Holland? 100,000 hours.
19:20 Speaker 02 10 billion hours. It always changes. I needed a billion hours myself, but it changes them. The volume of work they have to do is incredible. They also need to entertain those crowds and they get very good at that. They get very good at winning, getting people from peeking in the door to coming in to buying drinks. They do it all.
19:40 Tom Holland? Macao.
19:41 Speaker 02 Yeah, Macao. They do it with the strength of their personalities and with their music. And they, they get honed into a diamond.
19:49 Tom Holland? And they're absolutely off their faces on amphetamines.
19:52 Speaker 02 Prellies.
19:52 Tom Holland? Yeah.
19:53 Speaker 02 Yeah, they're on these pills that enable them to play and play and play and play.
20:18 Speaker 02 They're living in, I think they share a wall with the theater. So they're, they're living in conditions that aren't safe.
20:27 Tom Holland? Isn't that where George loses his virginity? And all the Beatles are kind of on bunks watching him or whatever. I mean, it's all very.
20:32 Speaker 02 Yeah.
20:33 Tom Holland? Um, yeah. Quite squalid, but kind of quite, but properly rock and roll at a time when, in America and England still more so, the music is kind of stopping being quite so rock and roll.
20:46 Speaker 02 Yeah. I mean, there's this period, you know, I think Chuck Berry is, is violates the man act and has to be, I think he goes to jail or is, it's a scandal.
21:01 Tom Holland? Yeah.
21:02 Speaker 02 Jerry Lee Lewis has his scandal.
21:03 Tom Holland? He definitely has a scandal.
21:05 Speaker 02 Buddy Holly dies and then you have.
21:07 Tom Holland? The big bopper.
21:08 Speaker 02 The big bopper and, um, and Ritchie Valens.
21:12 Tom Holland? And Elvis gets drafted, of course.
21:14 Speaker 02 Elvis gets drafted.
21:15 Tom Holland? Which the Beatles very narrowly avoid because national service, which is a thing here in England in the 50s, and it gets stopped just before they, you know, they would have become eligible for it.
21:26 Speaker 02 And we would all agree that the Beatles would not have done well in national service.
21:30 Tom Holland? It would not have been good. Well, because, because they. It's kind of interesting that when they're driving out to Hamburg for the first time, they go past Arnhem, which is a bridge too far, kind of disastrous, British lose lots of people there. And the story is that John refuses to get out of the van and go and look at the graves. And already perhaps a sense there that war in its totality is something to be rejected. And that, of course, will become a massive theme for John's music and ideals later in life. But I mean, it might be there right from the beginning. Although apparently when he's on the stage in Hamburg, he's always shouting out in English, you
22:10 Tom Holland? know, krauts, we beat you in the war, kind of stuff. So as always with The Beatles, it's never, there's always a kind of creative tension.
22:18 Speaker 02 Yeah, John, even then, is walking that line between he's goading thugs in a Hamburg crowd to attack him, and then relying on security to handle it, or a bouncer, or someone. Walking that line between I dare you to hit me and.
22:36 Tom Holland? Also, I think the, quite a few of the bouncers only kind of had one arm, or one leg, or whatever, because they were kind of maimed in the war. So, yeah, quite, I mean, quite a crucible, I guess, and explains a lot about the kind of band that The Beatles in due course became. You know, the comeback from Hamburg, they go back to Hamburg, then they come back to Liverpool again. And by this point, so 1961, 1962, they're starting to establish themselves as the biggest name in Liverpool.
23:07 Speaker 02 When they come back to Liverpool, there are people who think that they're a German band, because they hear that they've come from Hamburg. So, and they're so polished. I mean, they're, they're a completely different act. I think on the scene in Liverpool, there were bands that didn't take them seriously. Then they come back from Hamburg, and they've had this education, and they've been transmuted.
23:32 Tom Holland? They've got their leather. A madam in the cavern, and the, the ceiling is dripping sweat from excited girls who were there in their lunch hour. And it's very fetid and exciting and rock and roll. And it is on the 9th of November, 1961.
23:53 Tom Holland? That a key figure in the story of the Beatles finds his way down the steps into the cavern, and that, of course, is Brian Epstein.
24:03 Speaker 02 Yeah, you know, when the Colonel finds Elvis, the Colonel is very well established as a guy who could take over Elvis's contract. It should be pointed out that Brian Epstein is not that figure. He's working at, I believe, his family's
24:23 Tom Holland? Yeah, his record shop.
24:24 Speaker 02 Record shop. He's never managed anybody.
24:27 Tom Holland? No.
24:28 Speaker 02 And he sees this group that really just fascinates him.
24:33 Tom Holland? Particularly John.
24:35 Speaker 02 Particularly John.
24:36 Tom Holland? Because Brian is gay.
24:37 Speaker 02 Yep.
24:38 Tom Holland? And he definitely, I think, has a thing for John, doesn't he?
24:41 Speaker 02 Yeah.
24:42 Tom Holland? But he kind of immediately picks up on the fact that this band is amazing.
24:47 Speaker 02 Yeah.
24:47 Tom Holland? And decides that he is going to try and get them a record contract.
24:50 Speaker 02 Yeah.
24:50 Tom Holland? And although he's never managed anyone, he does kind of have links with the music industry. And he's middle class as opposed to the Beatles, so working class. And in England in the early 60s, that is massively important. And it means that he can make contact with other middle class people, among whom is a producer here in Abbey Road called George Martin.
25:14 Speaker 02 Mm hmm.
25:15 Tom Holland? And so famously, Brian Epstein hawks the Beatles around all kinds of record companies, and, you know, they turn him down.
25:24 Speaker 02 Yeah.
25:25 Tom Holland? Decca famously, you know, guitar groups are on their way out.
25:28 Speaker 02 Yeah.
25:29 Tom Holland? But George Martin basically is the last port of calls, parlophone, EMI. And he says, yeah, okay, I'll give them a go. But it's, George Martin is still not entirely convinced, is he?
25:40 Speaker 02 No, he's not. One point I would make, I think, should be made, is that in addition to all of their amazing qualities.
25:49 Speaker 02 The Beatles have insane luck. They have incredible luck because many people might have approached them and said, I think I could represent you. Brian Epstein is unusual. He's someone who really loves them for them.
26:05 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah.
26:06 Speaker 02 He's someone who really respects them as artists and he wants to take care of them. Now, remember, this is the music business. That doesn't happen. Then who does he take them to? Who do they hook up with? George Martin. The people they meet early on are the essential people. And it's some kind of hobbit tale where they meet the exact right person at the exact right time.
26:30 Dominic Sandbrook? It's all hotting up and I don't think I can take the tension right now. I need a bit of a breather, so let's have a quick break.
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27:58 Tom Holland? With support from the Gates Foundation.
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28:57 Tom Holland? Hello, welcome back to The Rest Is History. I am with Conan O'Brien and we are talking Beatles. So George Martin hadn't really been a music producer. He'd been a producer of comedy shows.
29:09 Dominic Sandbrook? The Goon Show.
29:10 Tom Holland? Of The Goon Show. And the Beatles really appreciate that, but it also means that George Martin can appreciate their zany mop top humour. So George Harrison famously saying he didn't like George Martin's tie.
29:21 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah.
29:22 Tom Holland? And George Martin not being duly offended by that. And so he decides actually that the Beatles have got something, that they've got personality as well as musical ability. But there is one member of the Beatles he doesn't rate. And Steve Sutcliffe, by this point, has died of a brain hemorrhage. Pete Best is still on the scene.
29:41 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah.
29:42 Tom Holland? And George Martin says to Brian, he's got to go.
29:45 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah.
29:46 Tom Holland? And so the final piece in the jigsaw puzzle now slots into place, namely Ringo.
29:52 Dominic Sandbrook? Yeah.
29:52 Speaker 02 Yeah.
29:53 Tom Holland? Um, who you've also met and you said that you gave him a hug once and he's his body is now made of teak.
29:59 Speaker 02 Yes, I've met Ringo a number of times and I one time I gave him a hug and I thought he's carved out of a very dense tropical wood. Uh, this man works out, I think obsessively, he just hit his 85th birthday and I think he could take both of us in a fight. He's in incredible shape.
30:19 Tom Holland? Which is amazing because Ringo was born in absolutely, you know, the poorest part, the most bombed damaged part of Liverpool and grew up repeatedly being ill. He was always in hospital, kind of missed out on school and all kinds of things. But by the time the Beatles approached him, has established himself as the best drummer in Liverpool. And again, it's the kind of, it's the humor and the personality, Ringo completely gels with them. And George Martin's actually brought a session drummer in for their, to record their first single.
30:54 Speaker 02 And his name is?
30:56 Tom Holland? Andy White.
30:57 Speaker 02 Andy White, yes. What's interesting is that people have always wondered or theorized that Pete Best is too good looking and maybe Paul is jealous and they edge him out, but it's been pretty much conclusively proved that.
31:12 Tom Holland? He wasn't good.
31:13 Speaker 02 Yeah, he was not a good timekeeper. He couldn't really keep time and Ringo could play all these different beats, these Latin beats that later on show up in so many Beatles records. So he was the right guy at the right time.
31:26 Tom Holland? And so how would you rate Ringo as a drummer?
31:28 Speaker 02 Oh, I think he's spectacular.
31:38 Speaker 02 And a lot of top drummers now give it up.
31:41 Tom Holland? Yeah.
31:41 Speaker 02 To Ringo, his feel, he's minimal and there's a great thing you can see on YouTube, which is if Keith Moon had been the Beatles drummer, if John Bonham had been the Beatles drummer, and you listen to them and you're like, yeah, that wouldn't be the same, it wouldn't work. So is he Gene Krupa or Buddy Rich? No, he's not. He's the best possible drummer for The Beatles.
32:05 Tom Holland? Yeah, and actually, so there's the footage that you can see in the background is from a new version of the Anthology documentary series out on Disney. And in these episodes, there's amazing footage of Ringo drumming. You can completely see what he is giving The Beatles. So, as I say, the final piece in the jigsaw puzzle is there.
32:28 Speaker 02 Yeah.
32:29 Tom Holland? And so their first single, Love Me Do, comes out in Britain, reaches seventeen.
32:48 Tom Holland? Brian's shop has bought in box loads of it, crates of the stuff, flogged it, you know, across Liverpool. But it's not, it's still not obvious that they are going to completely change everything.
33:01 Speaker 02 Yeah.
33:02 Tom Holland? And it's when they then turn up to record their first album, Please, Please Me.
33:36 Tom Holland? George Martin famously says, gentlemen, you've just made your first number one.
33:40 Speaker 02 Yeah.
33:40 Tom Holland? The sense that this is something special. And one of the key things is that they're, they're not just recording covers. So we should probably just talk about that.
33:47 Speaker 02 Yeah.
33:48 Tom Holland? Because you said earlier, this is something that marks them out as distinctive.
33:51 Speaker 02 Yeah.
33:51 Tom Holland? But it is really unusual, isn't it?
33:53 Speaker 02 It's revolutionary. It's unheard of. So what?
33:59 Speaker 02 John and Paul were always interested in almost the brill building tradition of being songwriters. And Paul used to think about being a songwriter, even if it meant he wasn't the one performing the song. They just thought about songwriting. They were working on it for a long time. They're writing things, but not of the quality that they'd later have. But then, this moment comes, when they've done Love Me Do.
34:31 Tom Holland? So-so.
34:32 Speaker 02 It's so-so. You listen to it now and you think, I don't know what all the excitement was. And the truth is, it was number 17.
34:38 Tom Holland? Yeah.
34:39 Speaker 02 Brian probably helped them, boosted them up the charts by buying records himself. So they really need to make it. John has a song that's in the vein of, he's thinking of a Roy Orbison song. And it's written, it's a very slow kind of Roy Orbison ballad. Come on, come on, come on, come on.
35:02 Speaker 04 Please, please, please, oh yeah, my God, please do.
35:09 Speaker 02 And they're working on it, it's not coming together, and then they decide, let's pick up the tempo. And they have it. And that's their first number one. The Stones, Dominic's not here, but I wish I could say this to his face, The Stones are doing covers down in London. They hear that there's this group up in Liverpool that's making records, which The Stones are not doing, and they're writing them themselves. And they're flabbergasted. And I think skeptical.
35:40 Tom Holland? And inspired, in the long run.
35:42 Speaker 02 In the long run. Yeah, it took them a while. Dominic, it took them a while.
35:46 Tom Holland? But they don't do badly either.
35:48 Speaker 02 No, they do just fine.
35:50 Tom Holland? But the quickening up the pace, the harmonies, the shaking of the hair, the twisting and the shouting. When the album goes out, and then She Loves You, and succession of singles.
36:05 Tom Holland? And the live performances and girls start screaming.
36:11 Speaker 02 Yeah.
36:11 Tom Holland? And they start kind of pushing at cordons of policemen. And the Beatles have mentioned they like jelly beans and so they start hurling jelly beans.
36:19 Speaker 02 Yeah, George had said in an interview, I like these, whatever they're called, jelly beans. And from then on, he's pelted with them.
36:27 Tom Holland? And so quite dangerous because they, you know, they could take out an eye or two.
36:31 Speaker 02 Yeah, he should have mentioned, George should have mentioned a softer treat, maybe a marshmallow.
36:35 Tom Holland? Jelly babies, perhaps.
36:36 Speaker 02 Yeah.
36:37 Tom Holland? But this is a kind of explosion of public teenage female joy of a kind that no one has ever seen before.
36:50 Speaker 02 Mm hmm.
36:51 Tom Holland? And I guess it's explained in part by the charisma and the music of the Beatles. But it's also explained by, you know, to put it in Marxist terms, the fact that for the first time teenage girls have spending money and leisure time.
37:06 Speaker 02 Yeah.
37:06 Tom Holland? And so you see there, again, you talked about how lucky the Beatles are that they are riding this crest of this wave of growing material prosperity that is kind of giving birth to the idea of the teenager as a consumer.
37:20 Speaker 02 Yeah, so another way in which they get incredibly lucky, the timing is spectacular. Because, as you say, if this had been 10 years earlier, I don't think this maybe could have happened. But they're at the right time, perfect time, where a whole group of teenagers can express a different opinion than their parents, which teenagers want to do. They want to make something theirs and here are these four perfect people with great music. And they can elect to spend their money on these records. And they can have their favorite Beatle and it starts to fuel this mania.
37:55 Tom Holland? And do you think the fact that all the bands and the singers that we've talked about up till now, who influenced the Beatles have been male, but actually the Beatles are really, really into female groups as well?
38:07 Speaker 02 Yes.
38:08 Tom Holland? Do you think that that's kind of contributory factor to their popularity with specifically female audience?
38:13 Speaker 02 In his book, Ian Leslie. Wrote this fantastic book that I absolutely love. I think it's the best Beatles book that's been written in quite a while.
38:21 Tom Holland? So John and Paul, isn't it?
38:22 Speaker 02 John and Paul. And in it, he points out something I hadn't really thought of, which is a lot of early Beatles music is influenced by doo-wop groups. If someone just told me that without me thinking about it, I'd say, well, that's stupid. But no, it's not. It's true. They are performing a lot of stuff by male doo-wop groups and also female groups. And I think they are just going for what's the best music. And they are also very interested in getting the vocals right. So they play their own instruments, but I think their secret weapon is their vocal ability.
38:56 Tom Holland? Yeah, and the harmonies.
38:57 Speaker 02 The harmonies and Everly Brothers, I think, were a huge influence on them. But yes, they will play, I mean, Ringo sings "Boys" and doesn't, they don't-
39:07 Tom Holland? Yeah, so the Shirelles number.
39:09 Speaker 02 Shirelles number. They don't change, it'd be so easy to say "Girls", it would be so easy to change it, and they don't.
39:16 Tom Holland? Yeah.
39:16 Speaker 02 And it's a little strange, but it's fantastic. And so, yes, there is, they're not overly concerned with gender. They're not overly concerned with, you know, no, no, we've got to stick to this image or that image. They're just going where the best music is.
39:32 Tom Holland? Now, I know what Dominic would say about the secrets of their popularity is also the fact that they are just edgy enough.
39:48 Tom Holland? So they say "She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah", rather than, as Paul's father thought they should have sung, "She loves you, yes, yes, yes".
39:56 Speaker 02 Yeah.
39:56 Tom Holland? But they're not going too far. So the kind of the pre利 popping and the, you know, all the kind of Hamburg stuff has been kind of slightly pushed to one side. And Brian has put them in suits by this point. And in the long run, it's the Stones who will play the part of the kind of the bad boys of rock and roll. The Beatles are just edgy enough, but no more so.
40:18 Speaker 02 Right.
40:18 Tom Holland? And they, you know, they famously, they play at the Royal Variety Show, and John has his witty quip.
40:25 Speaker 05 For our last number, I'd like to ask your help. The people in the cheaper seats, clap your hands. And the rest of you, if you just rattle your jewellery.
40:41 Speaker 02 Which Noel Coward hated that. That's a, I don't know why I remember that, but Noel Coward thought that was atrocious.
40:48 Tom Holland? Did he?
40:48 Speaker 02 And this brings up, that performance brings up something really interesting, which is The Beatles represent this new thing, which is class is irrelevant. And they are playing in front of the Queen in a royal performance and John makes this joke that is very much about class and Noel Coward, I think, got upset. People thought, well, this is, how could he? I mean, some people were really taken aback by that. But they are four working class guys who don't change their accents. They don't adopt James Mason accents when they make it big. They have thick Liverpudlian accents and they never try to change it. They don't work on their diction or anything.
41:33 Speaker 02 Yes, they wear the suits because they are ambitious. They're extremely ambitious and they will do what it takes to get to the top.
41:44 Tom Holland? So, I mean, it's great to be number one in Britain, to be going around all these kind of market towns and selling out concerts and headlining and having repeated number ones and all kinds of things. But they have been massively influenced by American music and for people in Britain to break it in America is the ultimate dream. And British artists have not succeeded in making it in America at all. And Brian is kind of trying to boost their career in America, but it's not really working. And America is distracted, apart from anything else, by, you know, they, America has its trauma because when The Beatles' second album with The Beatles comes out in Britain,
42:30 Tom Holland? it's the same day that Kennedy is shot in Dallas. And it is often said that that plunges America into a state of kind of mourning and bereavement that leaves them kind of wanting almost to be cheered up. Do you think there's anything in that?
42:50 Speaker 02 Yeah, again, I mean, it's heresy to use the word luck with an assassination and a day that that's awful, but I will say. You know, I do these history experiments in my head sometimes. What if the Beatles had been booked November 30th on the Ed Sullivan Show? What if they had been booked in December? It's too soon.
43:13 Tom Holland? So they end up going to the US.
43:16 Speaker 02 In February.
43:16 Tom Holland? In February, by which point "I Want to Hold Your Hand" is number one.
43:38 Tom Holland? And it's crucial that they go there with that single already number one, so that they're not going as, you know, supplicants.
43:45 Speaker 02 Yeah.
43:46 Tom Holland? They're going as stars.
43:47 Speaker 02 This is one of those moments where Paul has subsequently said, "We knew to wait until we had number one hits in the US to go over." And if you look into it, I don't think it holds up. I think that Ed Sullivan had been flying in Europe. His plane has a stopover, I think, in, I don't know if he's in Sweden or he's someplace, and he sees screaming fans and he says, "What's that all about?" And he says, "It's this group from England, The Beatles."
44:17 Tom Holland? These youngsters from Liverpool who call themselves The Beatles.
44:20 Speaker 02 Yeah. And so the booking is made before The Beatles have hit number one in America. Again, the timing is perfect.
44:34 Tom Holland? Perfect, isn't it?
44:34 Speaker 02 But again, it's not just luck, but luck plays a big part in it.
44:40 Tom Holland? So they land in JFK and there's huge press attention and there are crowds of screaming girls.
44:46 Speaker 02 Which surprises them.
44:48 Tom Holland? It does. And it obviously surprises the US media as well. There's kind of incredible footage in the anthology documentary of them arriving outside the hotel with girls just hurling themselves at the window. And it's like they're in a zombie film. And it's like the kind of zombie plague has crossed the Atlantic from Britain and now it's arrived in New York. And the screaming and the hysteria becomes part of the story, doesn't it?
45:14 Speaker 02 Yeah.
45:14 Tom Holland? And it is present when The Beatles appear on the Ed Sullivan Show.
45:19 Speaker 02 Yeah.
45:20 Tom Holland? And that show, I think, is still the second most viewed. Program in US history.
45:26 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think some reality show has the number one spot, I believe. Someone eating cockroaches. About two years ago, Paul McCartney released pictures that he took because all of them had cameras. They had been given cameras, so Paul called it the eyes of the storm because it's all of them. But he took pictures constantly and I had a chance to interview him about it. And he was talking about being in the center of all that and how surprised they were.
45:56 Tom Holland? Eyes of the storm.
45:57 Speaker 02 Yeah, and he was just taking all these photos of, a lot of them are just people losing their minds and staring at them. And, you know, I think it was George who later said, we just became an excuse for people to lose their minds.
46:10 Tom Holland? Yeah.
46:11 Speaker 02 People wanted to lose their minds.
46:12 Tom Holland? Yeah.
46:13 Speaker 02 They needed some kind of fuse or trigger. And these, this group shows up. And yes, the music's great and yes, they have these incredible personalities. And but it's something completely new and everyone says it is time to go insane.
46:28 Tom Holland? Yeah, and so that's something that the Beatles are introducing to America. But obviously for the Beatles as well, going to America is a kind of pilgrimage. Because this is where the music that they have most loved and have been most inspired comes from.
46:41 Speaker 02 Yeah.
46:41 Tom Holland? And, you know, we've said they're particularly influenced by black American music. And so one of the issues that comes up in 1964, when they're going on tour around the US, is the question of will they play in segregated stadiums? Because that is still very much a thing. Civil rights movement is still ongoing. And the Beatles are absolutely forthright about this. They will not play. And they managed to force an odd stadium here or there to change the ticketing. Other ones, they just say, well, we're not going to play there. So what kind of impact do you think that has?
47:13 Speaker 02 I think it's massive. I mean, it, first of all, it shows that they are not going to bend the knee. They're, they are principled. There are things that they think are important, they care about. There's the fact that they will not play in front of segregated audiences. And then, almost maybe more important, in their press conferences where people hang on every word when asked, what groups do they like? They list all these black groups. And they talk about Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, and they talk about the Supremes. And they Mention so many black musicians and acts. And it's not calculated.
47:56 Tom Holland? That's what they love.
47:58 Speaker 02 That's what they love, but they're it certainly, I think, is a beautiful moment.
48:04 Tom Holland? When they when they're in New York, you know, the first days of their arrival, they get given the chance to kind of DJ on various radio stations, don't they? And they're just endlessly playing black female groups.
48:16 Speaker 02 Yeah.
48:17 Tom Holland? Because that's what they love. That's their kind of great influence. And so that sense of the fact that they're not just musicians, but that what they say might matter. I mean, that that lasts through 1964 and it lasts through 1965. And there is an assumption that the Beatles will always give interesting copy. But that maybe the potential for them to say something that might ultimately turn out to be inflammatory.
48:48 Speaker 02 Yes, there's a there's a constant expectation from the minute the Beatles arrive on the scene. And it's going so well and it keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. Success, success, success, smash hit, smash hit, smash hit. When is the bubble gonna burst? And so the pump is primed for something to go wrong.
49:09 Tom Holland? So in March 1966, there's a journalist called Maureen Cleve, who has known the Beatles very well, known them for about three years, has has has kind of friends with them. And she does she interviews each one of the Beatles. And it runs in the the press as and as to what it's like to, you know, to be a Beatle.
49:32 Speaker 02 Yeah.
49:33 Tom Holland? And one of the interviews is with John. And he has been reading quite a lot about religion. And he gives Maureen some some good copy. So he says, Christianity will go, it will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that. I'm right and I'll be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now. And so this runs in the British press and nobody in Britain could care less about it.
49:59 Speaker 02 Yeah.
50:00 Tom Holland? And these articles then get they get sold on to publication in America and they appear. And still, nobody really pays any attention to it. But then there are people in the Bible Belt in America who are not keen on The Beatles. See, the Beatles' long hair are satanic. Some of them are keen on the whole anti-segregation stage. And when some of these people read what John has said, they're less than enthused, aren't they?
50:32 Speaker 02 They're less than enthused. It's funny because it's a, we're in 1966, but it's kind of a, before the internet. It's an internet moment. Because today, John would have said that on Wednesday at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and there'd be outrage.
50:48 Tom Holland? Yeah.
50:48 Speaker 02 On Thursday. This is an interview he does with Maureen Cleve. It run, it takes a while.
50:55 Tom Holland? Yeah.
50:55 Speaker 02 It actually takes quite a while for it to finally surface and find the right person to hate it.
51:03 Tom Holland? Yeah.
51:03 Speaker 02 And then it becomes this explosion, this huge controversy. And the article comes out in England and then makes its way across to the States. It takes some time, but then it starts to pick up traction.
51:22 Tom Holland? And The Beatles are coming back to America for a tour.
51:28 Speaker 02 Yeah.
51:29 Tom Holland? And by the time they're ready to leave Britain to fly to New York, all hell is breaking loose. And the huge question for listeners is, will this finish The Beatles off? Is this the end of The Beatles? And there's literally only one way to find out, and that is to watch our second episode, where we will kind of be moving from the red album to the blue album.
51:54 Speaker 02 Okay, well, you just gave it away.
51:55 Tom Holland? Kind of, I did. But I kind of think.
51:57 Speaker 02 I've always thought.
51:58 Tom Holland? People probably know that.
51:59 Speaker 02 No, this is a bit of a spoiler, but it did end The Beatles. And their career ended in 66. And they all went into real estate.
52:05 Tom Holland? So find out how The Beatles got on as real estate developers in New York. Or alternatively, we'll stick to the timeline of what actually happened.
52:15 Speaker 02 And Tom, I'm just curious. Is there any way that fervent listeners like myself can have access to this episode without waiting?
52:24 Tom Holland? Well, Conan.
52:25 Speaker 02 Yes.
52:25 Tom Holland? It will blow you away, but there is.
52:28 Speaker 02 What do you mean?
52:30 Tom Holland? You can go to therestishistory.com and you can sign up there and you can get immediate access to it and a host, a host of other benefits. It is unbelievable value. This is incredible. It's, it's so exciting and I'm so glad to share it with you and to share it with you, the listener. We will be back. Thanks so much for watching us or listening, depending whether you're watching or listening to us. Bye bye. Goodbye.
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