Crazed girls, loose bladders, and JFK: How The Beatles defied the odds to break America
Word of the encroaching invasion rang out across the airwaves of New York City. “The Beatles are coming!” yelled DJs and newscasters, echoing the slogan that had been emblazoned across badges, posters, car stickers and newspaper ads for weeks prior. Hundreds of reporters and cameramen descended, police formed cordons, and merchandise companies handed out sweatshirts. Screaming teenagers lined the balconies and walkways of JFK airport hoping for a glimpse of the mop-topped pop sensation from across the Atlantic who, 60 years ago today, broke America – before they’d even set foot on it.
“There were millions of kids at the airport, which nobody had expected,” Paul McCartney said in 1995’s Anthology documentary. “We heard about it in mid-air. There were journalists on the plane, and the pilot had rung ahead and said, ‘Tell the boys there’s a big crowd waiting for them.’ We thought, ‘Wow! God, we have really made it’… I remember the great moment of getting into the limo and putting on the radio and hearing a running commentary on us. ‘They have just left the airport and are coming towards New York City…’ It was like a dream. The greatest fantasy ever.”
“What got the kids to the airport were the radio stations promoting it,” says US Beatles expert Bruce Spizer, author of The Beatles are Coming: The Birth of Beatlemania in America. “When The Beatles’ plane took off in London, the New York radio stations were [narrating it] and kids are thinking ‘I’m gonna cut school.’” More than 3,000 kids skipped class to see The Beatles touch down that afternoon.
The image of John,
