What was beatlemania like

It was absolute pandemonium. Girls fainting, screaming, wet seats. The whole hall went into some kind of state, almost like collective hypnotism. I'd never seen anything like it. The coinage is usually attributed to a Daily Mirror story about the Beatles' London Palladium concert eight days later but Lothian insists it came from him, via Radio Scotland.

Either way, the phenomenon predated the label. Throughout there had been reports of teenage girls screaming, crying, fainting and chasing the band down the street; police escorts were already required.

But catchy new words have a magical power in the media. Once it caught on, it seemed to cement the phenomenon in the collective imagination. Although pop fandom has since become more complex and more self-documenting few Beatles fans had cameras , the tropes of Beatlemania have recurred in fan crazes from the Bay City Rollers to Bros, East 17 to One Direction: the screaming, the queuing, the waiting, the longing, the trophy-collecting, the craving for even the briefest contact.

Mostly all I see is a sea of screaming faces," he could have been any boy-band star from the past 50 years. I still feel that Cliff and Elvis fans were from an earlier generation even though there was only a couple of years in it. The Beatles belonged to every teenage girl. I feel like I was there at the birth of pop music. The Beatles are the Book of Genesis. The media's attempts to explain this wild new development to bewildered adults were at best comically square "Beatles Reaction Puzzles Even Psychologists," reported one science journal , and at worst viciously snobbish and misogynistic.

In an infamous New Statesman essay Paul Johnson sneered: "Those who flock round the Beatles, who scream themselves into hysteria, whose vacant faces flicker over the TV screen, are the least fortunate of their generation, the dull, the idle, the failures. Teenage girl fans are still patronised by the press today. As Grant says, "Teenage girls are perceived as a mindless horde: one huge, undifferentiated emerging hormone.

Some of it has to do with gender. There's a whole range of cultural prejudices. One thing our society seems to value is moderation. Fandom represents excess and is therefore seen as negative. Lothian can't remember why he chose the suffix "mania" but it carried a lot of historical baggage.

It was first applied to fandom in when German poet and essayist Heinrich Heine coined the word Lisztomania to describe the "true madness, unheard of in the annals of furore" that broke out at concerts by the piano virtuoso Franz Liszt. The word had medical resonances and Heine considered various possible causes of the uproar, from the biological to the political, before deciding, prosaically, that it was probably just down to Liszt's exceptional talent, charisma and showmanship.

One Parisian concert review, quoted by Liszt scholar Dana Gooley, suggests the first stirrings of modern pop fandom: "The ecstatic audience, breathing deeply in its rapt enthusiasm, can no longer hold back its shouts of acclaim: they stamp unceasingly with their feet, producing a dull and persistent sound that is punctuated by isolated, involuntary screams.

One writer in Berlin, where the phenomenon began in , bemoaned the frenzy as "a depressing sign of the stupidity, the insensitivity, and the aesthetic emptiness of the public".

There were other celebrity "manias" in subsequent decades but no musical performer inspired the same intensity and media soul-searching as Liszt until Frank Sinatra began his residency at New York's Paramount theatre in October The so-called Columbus Day Riot, when thousands of teenage "bobby-soxers" rampaged through Times Square, inspired reporter Bruce Bliven to call it "a phenomenon of mass hysteria that is only seen two or three times in a century.

You need to go back not merely to Lindbergh and Valentino to understand it, but to the dance madness that overtook some German villages in the middle ages, or to the Children's Crusade". Again, the behaviour sounds very familiar to the modern reader. One of Sinatra's publicists described how fans "squealed, howled, kissed his pictures with their lipsticked lips and kept him prisoner in his dressing room.

It was wild, crazy, completely out of control. So girls screamed at Sinatra, they screamed at Elvis, they even screamed at Cliff Richard. What made Beatlemania a fan frenzy of a different order? Of course, as with Liszt, the band's talent, charisma and showmanship were key, but two crucial extrinsic factors were timing and television. The baby boom meant there were more teenagers than there had been for Elvis or Sinatra, with more money in their pockets, filled with a powerful sense that society was changing.

To love the Beatles in was to embrace modernity. We knew he was 5'8 inches tall barely and weighed about pounds - soaking wet. As for John Lennon? He was a creative child, and an angry one. He had step sisters: Jackie and Julia and another sibling named Victoria. His Aunt Mimi took it upon herself to give John a more stable upbringing and she did so with a heavy hand. His mother died in a tragic accident when John was just 15, leaving him feeling even more lost, alone, and bitter. John was near-sighted, rough around the edges, he had a soft spot for animals, chocolate cake, and tremendous appreciation for music and people who were "different.

When he had overindulged a bit too much he could easily pack on the pounds and an additional set of stage clothing was made for those "heavier times.

His wife was named Cynthia and they had a son, a darling little boy named, Julian. Paul McCartney's first name was really James, after his father , but he was always known as Paul. Paul's mum, like John's, died when he was a young boy - breast cancer took her life. Paul and sibling Mike were raised by their dad who was also - after a regular work day - a musician.

Paul's father was a good-hearted soul with strong Irish roots and a great sense of humor. Paul was left-handed, creative, and felt the rock-and roll buzz as soon as that first 45 rpm was spinning on a turntable. The Searchers, Elvis Buddy Holly Paul was as tall as John and weighed about a pound less. He was always known as 'The Cute Beatle. His Mom, Louise, and Dad, Harry were easy-going, hard working souls.

George's father drove the 81 bus so he knew all of the other lads Paul, Ringo, and John from their travels on his popular Liverpool bus route. George had two brothers, Harry and Peter, and an older sister named Louise. George was the youngest Beatle - and my personal favorite.

He was the same height as John and Paul but weighed in at almost 20 pounds less. His sense of humor and softer ways made him a perfect fit just about anywhere.

To know him was to love him, they'd say. So, see? Look at all that! We could relate. They weren't just musicians, they were regular people like us who became musicians! We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Close Privacy Overview This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website.

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