The nineteen sixties were a time of great upheaval in American culture. The decade saw a revolution in fashion, art, and moral attitudes. The biggest revolution by far, though, took place in popular music.

Before 1964, pop music in the USA still replicated the style of the previous decade [a notable exception to this is The Everly Brothers].

The best-selling albums of the early 60s were soundtracks for musicals such as The Sound of Music, Hello Dolly!, West Side Story, Camelot, and Mary Poppins: not exactly a reflection of the turbulent times they were created in!

But then, In February 1964, The Beatles came along and changed the face of popular music forever. Their influence gave birth to the incredible diversity of music we experience today.

The assassination of President Kennedy, the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement all had a huge impact on American culture, and the music began to reflect that change. The “British Invasion” began with the arrival of The Beatles on American soil, and the manner of rabid support that followed them would change the way people viewed and interacted with music – and musicians – up to the present day.

The Beatles’ influence was profound for many reasons. They were known for their sardonic wit and for the way they looked nearly as much as for their music. They inspired social change and challenged established boundaries with the influences of black music combined with European ideas through the power of music alone. The Beatles and their boyish charm made it acceptable for almost everyone to like them and their music.

Thanks to the Fabs, by the end of the decade an incredible range of popular music had struck a chord with diverse audiences.

The 60s are characterized by deep social tensions everywhere, not just in America: Europe was a hotbed of student militancy; The Vietnam War consumed most of Asia. There were significant racial, ideological, and gender disparities, too, among both the audiences and the performers of the era.

 Artists like Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Buffalo Springfield, Janis Joplin, The Doors and CSNY were all producing great music with a real message. 

Probably the best book about the Beatles is Can’t Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain, and America by Jonathan Gould. 

Gould points out that that Liverpool was a relatively progressive city – being a major port of call – and after the war the region was still recognized for being culturally diverse. He points out that multi-racial integration was an outward sign of tolerance, particularly during and after the war, although tensions still existed. Many white soldiers were appalled at the sight of black GI’s in the company of such fine, lily-white English girls.

Needless to say, things were quite different for the brothers back home in the USA…

Liverpudlians were known for their sardonic, caustic sense of humor and biting wit. Many writers, celebrities and radio personalities came from the area. Even though Liverpool was totally bombed out in WW2, by the time John, Paul, George and Ringo were growing up the quality of life in the city was actually on the upswing and things were beginning to return to normal. Britain’s generous welfare state played a big part in allowing free spirits like John and many others to attend art school.

lots of famous musicians of the era went to art College during this time: future guitar gods Pete Townshend, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards and Jimmy Page among them.

The fact that John, Paul, George and Ringo grew up amongst such adversity certainly helped to shape their personalities as adults. They acquired the inevitable “chip on the shoulder” attitude which helped inform their world view and gave them the strength to stick together – for the most part – through the good times and the bad.

It can be argued that The Beatles were better equipped than most people to deal with the outrageous fame and fortune that came later because of all the hardships they had to endure as children.

German sociologist Max Weber was the foremost social theorist of the twentieth century. He is recognized as one of the principal architects of modern sociology along with Karl Marx and Emil Durkheim. Weber believed that societies have an inherently conservative drift: they favor the development of ‘institutions of daily routine’ beginning with the family and extending to religion, occupation, bureaucratic institutions and other social hierarchies. These groups all seek to ensure the stability and continuity of social life by upholding the status quo.

During periods of significant psychological, physical, economic, ethical, religious or political upheaval however, the authority of these stabilizing institutions may be called into question. Over time, through a process Weber termed “routinization,” the innovations produced by charismatic leaders may become the basis of a new institutional order. Such was the case with the Beatles, who arrived on the global scene just in time – late 1963 – to help alleviate the massive psychological trauma induced by the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Weber considered the dynamic tension between institutionalized routinization and charismatic innovation to exist universally throughout all cultures; akin to a biological mutation in evolutionary theory. Following Weber’s death in 1920, Sigmund Freud picked up where he left off in regards to ‘devotion born of distress and enthusiasm.’

Sigmund Freud was the famous Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis. Freud called this state “ambivalence.” He defined ambivalence as the simultaneous presence of powerfully conflicting emotions such as love and hate, hope and fear, attraction and aversion. “Idealization” was the term he associated with the response of groups of people to leaders – such as The Beatles – in which the ambivalence is resolved by attributing all of one’s positive feelings of love, hope or attraction to a suitable person, while either repressing negative feelings, or else projecting them onto someone else. For example: “I love Paul; but I hate George.”

Idealization is similar to falling in love. In charismatic groups, these romantic idealizations are further organized and intensified by the process of “identification,” where a person selects another more powerful figure as a role model or “ego ideal.” The Beatles were a band of brothers. The members of the group shared in the resulting aura of power by patterning their personalities on the idealized qualities of their nominal leader – John – and copying his characteristics.

In the 1950s and early 60s, young women were sexually repressed. They were forced by society to live up to certain, quite rigid behavioral expectations, including finding a husband, raising a family, and becoming a mother. These girls had a very fine line to walk as they progressed through their adolescent years at the dawn of this new era. The Beatles presented an opportunity for the young women of the 1960s to “stick it to the man” in a way that was difficult for society to condemn outright – or even comprehend.

Sociologists used the word ‘hysteria’ to explain the involuntary conversion of psychological stress, or specific frustrated impulses into putative action. The hysterical frenzy demonstrated by the young girls at Beatles concerts was described as a “simulation of orgasm.”

Gould summarizes it this way:

“Taken together, the theories of Weber and Freud provide the sociological and psychological background for a serious understanding of how and why the Beatles phenomenon first took hold in Britain in 1963, spread to America the following year, and then went on to serve as the personification of a spirit of social and cultural upheaval that reached throughout the industrialized world in the second half of the 1960s.”

Heady stuff indeed. Yeah, yeah, yeah!