Paul McCartney says one Beatles moment is still a ‘cultural marker’ for band

Paul McCartney believes one moment in The Beatles‘ early years is still a “cultural marker” for the band.

The Beatles’ influence cannot be overstated, but McCartney shared one particular moment as where he felt the band had finally been recognised for their talents. Writing in his book, The Lyrics, a compendium of lyrical details and analysis of his songwriting, McCartney shared that an appearance shortly after the release of Meet The Beatles! had been a difference maker for the band. But to a further extent, the performance and its reception became a cultural cornerstone and went on to influence all-time greats like Chrissie Hynde and Bruce Springsteen.

McCartney wrote: “A couple of weeks after the release of Meet The Beatles!, we played the Ed Sullivan Show. Ed Sullivan was a real gentleman to us, and he always wore these finely tailored suits. There were only three major channels in the US at the time, and his show defined what people talked about. You hadn’t made it in America until you’d been on it.

“We’d heard that some of our heroes, like Buddy Holly and The Crickets, had performed on the show, and there was that story about how they’d let Elvis Presley back on after performing Hound Dog, but he had to be shown from the waist up.

“Then there was the sound of the audience, which is still ringing in my ears. The show had received something like fifty thousand applications for the seven hundred studio tickets. When the show aired, seventy-three million people watched us, and it became a cultural marker.

“So many people have come up to me through the years to tell me they watched it. People like Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Chrissie Hynde, Billy Joel -they’d all seen it. It’s probably not true, but the story goes that the crime rate went down too; even the robbers were tuning in. It was such a great way for us to be introduced to the US.

“During our second song, Till There Was You, they cut to shots of each of us and put our names up on the screen. When they got to John, they added, ‘Sorry girls, he’s married’ – which had been a badly kept secret up until that point.”

All My Loving is a historic release from The Beatles, with it being the first song the band played on American television. Their performance on The Ed Sullivan Show saw the Fab Four play the McCartney-penned track. McCartney would suggest it was the song which catapulted The Beatles into their global success.

He added: “So to illustrate how quickly things were moving for us in those days, All My Loving helped us go from the Moss Empire circuit to conquering America in a little over six months. And a few months later I turned twenty-two.”

The Beatles had been on a “package tour” line-up when McCartney wrote the song. Package tours would feature five or six different acts on one show, though All My Loving made The Beatles big enough to host their own shows.