The Night That Changed American Music: The Beatles On Ed Sullivan

We gathered round to hear the sound comin’ on the little screen
The grief had passed, the old men laughed, and all the girls screamed
’Cause four guys from England took us all by the hand
It was time to laugh, time to sing, time to join the band.

I Saw It on T.V. by John Fogerty


CBS called it 'the Night That Changed America' as 73 million Americans tuned in to watch the Beatles perform on The Ed Sullivan Show. Among those impacted were children and young adults who would go on to define music throughout the rest of the 60s, 70s and 80s. From working musicians like David Crosby, gleaning tips on 'how to hold an electric guitar' to five year old Richie Sambora receiving his life's calling.

Session ace Will Lee who wound up working four nights a week in the same studio the Beatles appeared in as part of his 'day job' on Late Night With Letterman thought

maybe music is gonna be my life from now on

For Rick Nielsen (Cheap Trick) and Robert Cray it was the most potent guitar advert possible

[It] was the beginning. That got me to learn how to play the guitar. 

The girls were screaming at The Beatles, as an 11/12 year old kid, by the time I got the guitar, I wanted that, too.

Worship songwriter Mark Altrogge says

It was electrifying - like watching fireworks for the first time - I'd never seen or heard anything like them.

Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh

I took one look and it was, ‘F**k school. I memorized every Beatles song and went to Shea Stadium and screamed right along with all those chicks

What Greg Kihn calls “the single most important moment in Rock history” had a visceral effect

When it ended the sudden void sucked the air out of my parent’s living room

Chrissie Hynde (The Pretenders) says

I remember exactly where I was sitting. It was amazing. It was like the axis shifted ... It was kind of like an alien invasion.

For Joe Perry (Aerosmith) the experience was

... akin to a national holiday … I wasn’t prepared by how powerful and totally mesmerizing they were to watch. It changed me completely. I knew something was different in the world that night. Next day at school, the Beatles were all anybody could talk about.

Nancy Wilson (Heart) 'heard the call' to become musician

The lightning bolt came out of the heavens and struck Ann and me the first time we saw the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. … it was a huge event, like the lunar landing: that was the moment Ann and I heard the call to become rock musicians … we didn’t want to marry them … we wanted to be them.

As did 14 year old Billy Joel

the single biggest moment that I can remember being galvanized into wanting to be a musician for life ... all of a sudden there’s this band, and they played their own instruments and they wrote their own songs, they looked like working class kids and I said, ‘That’s what I want to do. I want to be like those guys.’ That one performance changed my life. Up to that moment I'd never considered playing rock as a career. 

And Richie Sambora (Bon Jovi)

One of my earliest memories was sitting cross-legged on the floor … and watching The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. I was five years old and I remember thinking, 'Wow! That's what I want to do.' I always knew I wanted to be a rock star, and The Beatles set that in motion. 

They were the most incredible thing I ever saw. I couldn't put it into any kind of historical context at the time … but I knew, even at that young age … that I was witnessing something truly life-changing. And not just for me, but for everybody as well.

For Tom Petty it represented escape

The minute I saw The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show – and it's true of thousands of guys - there was the way out. There was the way to do it. You get your friends and you're a self-contained unit. And you make the music. … I really saw in The Beatles that here's something I could do.

Bruce Springsteen says

It shifted the lay of the land ... Rock 'n' roll came to my house where there seemed to be no way out … and opened up a whole world of possibilities.

And for 13 year old Steven Van Zandt (The E Street Band) it was a glimmer of hope

February 9th, 1964, it all began for me. Suddenly, maybe there's hope for my life. Because I didn't fit in anywhere. And I was starting to get concerned! I didn't know that I could actually try and make a living out of doing this, make a career out of it.

This was the main event of my life. It was certainly the major event for many others, whether or not they knew it at the time. For me, it was no less dramatic than aliens landing on the planet.

Steven also points to the instant effect it had

On the day before The Beatles played The Ed Sullivan Show, there wasn't a single rock and roll band in America. And February 10th, everyone had one.

Greg Kihn recalls

In a single weekend everything had changed. … Every kid in school went through the same metamorphosis. … Brylcreem lost a whole generation in a single hour. The direction of our lives shifted as radically as the direction of our hair. It was magic.

Tom Petty remembers

Within weeks, you could drive through literally any neighbourhood in Gainesville and you would hear the strains of garage bands playing ... I mean everywhere. And I'd say by a year from that time, Gainesville probably had 50 bands.

Gary Rossington (Lynyrd Skynyrd) simply states

Like everybody else in our generation [we] freaked out and wanted to start a rock ’n’ roll band.

Gene Simmons (Kiss) acknowledges the debt of many

There is no way I’d be doing what I do now if it wasn’t for the Beatles … It blew me away that these four boys [from] the middle of nowhere could make that music.

SOURCES

CBS News here and here
Greg Kihn 
Rock Cellar Magazine
Ultimate Classic Rock
Music Radar
Austin Chronicle 
Beatles Songwriting Academy 

Would you like to receive exclusive bonus Beatles Songwriting Tips? Join the mailing list right here!

70+ Songwriting Tips From The Beatles
The BeAtletudes
About Beatles Songwriting Academy
Let's Build An Airport EP

What Mark Altrogge Saw

The twittersphere has gone nuts with the two part interview I did with Mark Altrogge. I've had more visits in the last few days than I have in the entire life of the blog so far! If you're a first time visitor (and let's be honest, that's most of you) and you've enjoyed these posts why not subscribe by email or RSS and join me as I ransack Lennon & McCartney's back catalogue for songwriting ideas and Be-atletudes on a regular basis?
If you're into songwriting, why not learn from the best? (And that'll be Lennon & McCartney not me!).

Anyway...

I thought it might be interesting to put together the clips that made such a long lasting (46 years and counting!) impression on Mark.

Mark Altrogge: I first saw the Beatles for about 30 seconds on a show called The Jack Paar Show...



...then a couple months later in February 1964, I watched their debut on the Ed Sullivan Show.



...It was electrifying - like watching fireworks for the first time - I'd never seen or heard anything like them. As soon as I saw them, I wanted to be like them, performing to throngs of screaming girls who'd chase me down the street like they chased the Beatles in the movie A Hard Day's Night.



I loved to hear from any of you who had a similar life changing evening on Feb 9th, 1964. (Or any other date!).


You might like this post: Blessed are the Co-writers

What Can Worship Songwriters Learn From The Beatles? (pt 2)

Welcome back to the second part of my interview with praise & worship songwriter Mark Altrogge.

Rhymin' an' Chimin'

Matt: How have the Beatles influenced your songwriting?

Mark: One strength of the Beatles was their rhyming and chiming of words.  For example:

He's a real nowhere man,

Sitting in his nowhere land, 

Making all his nowhere plans for nobody.

The Beatles used the word "NOwhere" 3 times then chimed it at the end with "NObody."

They rhymed (false rhymed or chimed) "man," "land," and "plans."

Later they rhymed "Nowhere man, please LISTEN, you don't know what you're MISSIN'" and chiming the "No" in "Nowhere" with "know."

All I Really Need

I work hard to rhyme and chime.  For example, in All I Really Need [free download here] from the CD In A Little While the verse is

In the darkest hour I must face

I'm counting on your grace

To give me all I need 

Sunless days and cheerless nights will pass 

And work their work at last 

To form your joy in me

I rhymed "face" and "grace" in lines 1 and 2,

"pass" and "last" in lines 4 and 5,

but also "need" and "me" in lines 3 and 6.

"Sunless" and "Cheerless" have a subtle echo in line 4, and "Work their work" in line 5 has a chiming effect.

Many contemporary Christian songwriters don't rhyme much.  Rhyming can make a song stronger and more memorable. It takes more work, but it makes for stronger and longer-lasting songs.

Hooked

The Beatles' melodies are probably their greatest strength.  They are easily remembered (called a melodic "hook") - you hear them a couple times and next thing you know you're walking down the street humming them.

Their melodies are creative yet singable.  Sometimes you can develop creative musical hooks by employing "repetition and variation," in other words, repeating a musical phrase, then repeating it again with slight variation.

The Beatles did this a lot.  In the verse of Nowhere Man, the 3 phrases, "nowhere man," "nowhere land," and "nowhere plans" all repeat a similar descending 3-note pattern (repetition) yet each phrase is lower melodically than the preceding one - (variation). Genius.

In the chorus of my song Forever Grateful I repeat the phrase "I'm forever grateful" 3 times - each time melodically the same, but the melody of the words that follow each phrase ("to you," "for the cross", "to you") are slightly varied.  I think about repetition and variation a lot when I'm working on melodies.

We who write worship songs should work hard at coming up with creative, fresh melodies that are both memorable and - this is challenging - congregational.

Photo: Founders Ministry Blog

Matt: In what ways (both positive and negative) has contemporary Christian music been influenced by the Beatles?

Mark: Positively the Beatles and others have deepened contemporary worship musically.  Our worship songs today are much more interesting musically than This Is The Day.

Negatively (and I don't know if this is the Beatles' influence), much contemporary worship has feel-good music, yet lacks lyrically.  For the Beatles, the lyrical content was usually secondary to the music.  The lyrics in She Came in Through the Bathroom Window, Octopus's Garden and Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da are fun, but meaningless (at least to me).

For Christians, the lyrics are the most critical part of a song - we want to sing truth, for we are singing about eternal realities.  God commands us to worship him in spirit and truth, not just sing feel good songs.

You can hear Mark's songs on the album In A Little While. His most recent songs appear on the album Sons And Daughters. Mark blogs regularly at The Blazing Center

 If you've enjoyed this interview why not subscribe by email or RSS and join me as I ransack Lennon & McCartney's back catalogue for songwriting ideas and Be-atletudes on a regular basis?

 

Mark Altrogge: What Can Worship Songwriters Learn From The Beatles? (pt 1)

The Beatles have influenced thousands of songwriters across all kinds of genres. One such writer is Mark Altrogge.

As well as being the Pastor of Sovereign Grace Church of Indiana, PA, in the last 30 years Mark has written hundreds of songs, that are being sung in thousands of Churches. His song I Stand In Awe is still one of the 100 most played Church songs 26 years after it was written.

Today though I'm honoured to have him standing in as the first guest lecturer at The Beatles Songwriting Academy. In part one of a two part interview I asked Mark where he'd originally encountered the Beatles.

Meet The Beatles

Mark Altrogge: I first saw the Beatles for about 30 seconds on a show called The Jack Paar Show, then a couple months later in February 1964, I watched their debut on the Ed Sullivan Show. It was electrifying - like watching fireworks for the first time - I'd never seen or heard anything like them.  As soon as I saw them, I wanted to be like them, performing to throngs of screaming girls who'd chase me down the street like they chased the Beatles in the movie "A Hard Day's Night."

Later my parents gave me a cheap record player, and my first album - Meet The Beatles (their first US album). I played it approximately 10,000 times.  Soon I was taking guitar lessons and formed a band with 3 friends called "The Blades."  My job in the band was to listen to a record, learn all the parts (guitar and bass) of a song and teach them to the other guys.  That's how I learned about chords and song structure.

My Generation - Altrogge 1972

I continued playing in bands until Jesus apprehended me at age 24 when I encountered one of my first praise choruses - "This Is The Day":

This is the day, this is the day,

That the Lord has made, that the Lord has made.

We will rejoice, we will rejoice

And be glad in it, and be glad in it.

(Repeat 300 times in a row over a 3-chord polka rhythm). 

God used the truth of that song to teach me much - he's sovereign over every day and everything - that's reason to rejoice and be glad!  But it was hard to sing for 20 minutes at a time.

In A Gadda Da Vinci

I started writing obscure "Christian" performing songs, the meaning of which could only be decifered if you analyzed them with the Da Vinci code.  Then one day God spoke to my heart to write a worship song.  I thought I'd try to write praise songs with music I'd like - like the Beatles or Traffic.  And I thought it would be easy.  Little did I know how hard it would be...

Anyway, that's how I got started.

Matt: What could someone writing Praise & Worship songs learn from the Beatles that they couldn't learn just as well (if not better) from Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman or Mark Altrogge?

Mark: Chris Tomlin and Matt Redman are great songwriters who have tons to offer. They write creative lyrics with memorable, fresh melodies.  There's much I have to learn from those guys.  But what can we learn from the Beatles?

One of the Beatles' incredible strengths was the variety of styles they wrote in - from rock songs like Get Back to vaudeville-esque songs like When I'm 64, accoustic-folk sounding songs like You've Got to Hide Your Love Away to ballads like She's Leaving Home, and classically influenced songs like Eleanor Rigby.

Escaping Your Own Musical History

One of the hardest things about songwriting is to escape the style of music you grew up with - I'm regularly accused of copying the Beatles (hey, if you're going to steal, steal from the best).  The Beatles pushed themselves creatively and branched out from their original style.  They tried different instruments like the mellotron in Strawberry Fields, the sitar in Within You Without You, and the harpsichord in In My Life.

The Beatles' creativity suggests they listened to a variety of music (and it didn't hurt that they had a great producer, George Martin).  Many Christian songwriters I know listen to very little music outside the Christian genre and thus limit themselves creatively.  Songwriters should listen to all kinds of music. Listen to jazz, movie scores, Irish music, and Broadway musicals.

Keep listening to current secular (use discernment with the lyrics) and Christian music.  However, DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT listen to country music.  HEY - JUST KIDDING!  Put down that pitchfork, cowboy.  Even the Beatles did some country-esque songs like, Act Naturally and Don't Pass Me By.  Ringo sang the country tunes - what does that tell you?

The Beatles encourage us to push ourselves creatively.  We often settle too quickly for our first draft of lyrics or for chords and rhythms we've used before.  We can learn from the Beatles to be more creative.

Read part two.

(If you've enjoyed this interview why not subscribe by email or RSS and join me as I ransack Lennon & McCartney's back catalogue for songwriting ideas and Beatle-tudes on a regular basis?)