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Author Topic: through the eyes of The Times  (Read 4960 times)

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Kevin

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through the eyes of The Times
« on: February 06, 2008, 03:35:56 PM »
Been trawling through The London Times archive. Thought it would be fun to look at The Beatles through contempory eyes. Most of the articles concern their hair, personalities and cost to the police force, with little about the music. I've lifted bits from articles that are a bit more interesting than most.
(The Times, being seen as a "posh" paper, is wrongly labelled as right wing. But it published the first "serious" critique of Beatle music - the ridiculous Aoyellian Cadances story - and it was The Times "Butterfly on a wheel" editorial that got the Jagger/Richards drug-bust sentences reduced in 1967. It also published full page petitions in 1968 (including Lennon and McCartney's signatures) calling for the legalisation of dope.)

5th November 1963.
"The Beatles exercise the combination of musical naievity with electronic sophistication which suits their engaging, irrelevant cheerfulness and the loudest common chords since the ending of Ein Heldeneben."
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Kevin

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Re: through the eyes of The Times
« Reply #1 on: February 06, 2008, 03:40:18 PM »
18th November 1963

Grammar School Bans Beatle Haircuts.

Boys at Charles Grammar School, Guildford Surrey, face a threat of suspension unless they get rid of their Beatle haircuts. The headmaster, John Weightman, said "this ridiculous style brings out the worst in boys physically. It makes them look like morons."
A senior boy said "the ban will not go down well with most of the boys. I think it is stupid. The Beatles are great and I see nothing wrong with their style of haircut."
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Kevin

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Re: through the eyes of The Times
« Reply #2 on: February 06, 2008, 03:42:34 PM »
19/11/63

From an article about the competion between cruise ships.

P&O would not be giving away green stamps on their cruises and they had not hired The Beatles to entertain passengers, Sir Donald (Anderson) said.
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Kevin

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Re: through the eyes of The Times
« Reply #3 on: February 06, 2008, 03:53:52 PM »
10/12/1963
Article about a Performing Rights Tribunal case.
Is the noise that the Beatles produce at their concert performances irrelevant to the projection of their personalities? This was one of the questions laid before the P.R.T. in London yesterday when they met to hear the case for and against the increased rate of payment being sought by the P.R.T. for "pop" music at concerts.
Introducing the case, Mr Ranking was carefully apologetic....(he defined) the two kinds of pop music as "beat" and "jazz." Beat music was an entirely modern phenomena he said.

11/12/63.
(after the P.R.T. listened to a tape of a Beatle concert.)
It would be an overstatement to say that the sound heard yesterday was The Beatles. It was more the sound of 2000 shrieking teenagers with a rhythmic, pulsating thud somewhere in the background.
Mr Brian Weaver, the sound engineer who made the recording, attested morosely (sp) that the sound in the auditorium was worse than on the tape. "They don't sit in their seats, they stand up and just go bezerk."
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Bobber

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Re: through the eyes of The Times
« Reply #4 on: February 06, 2008, 03:55:55 PM »
Excellent. Please go on.
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Kevin

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Re: through the eyes of The Times
« Reply #5 on: February 06, 2008, 03:57:12 PM »
12/12/63

Promotor Claims He Started Pop Concert Hysteria.

Mr Harold Fielding, the entertainment promotor, took responsibility for the hysteria at pop concerts.
"It all started" he said "in 1956 with the advent of Tommy Steele. Mr Fielding thought that Tommy Steele in his day as a beat entertainer was as popular as The Beatles are now.
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Kevin

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Re: through the eyes of The Times
« Reply #6 on: February 06, 2008, 04:01:49 PM »
16/12/63

In Defence of Pantomine (Christmas plays)
...."not that I've got anything against The Beatles. I think they're delightful young men and such brilliant comedians when they give interviews."

Circus That Respects It's Animals
Rudi Lenzig's agile chimpanzees stump about the ring on stilts in black wigs (foreheads even more villinous low) as The Beatles, their own shrill cries being drowned out by the audience.
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Kevin

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Re: through the eyes of The Times
« Reply #7 on: February 06, 2008, 04:07:36 PM »
27/12/63
While other stars are deliberately and powerfully "different", The Beatles apply skill, shrewdness and liveliness of personality to the task of eptomising relaxed, carefree, everyday adolescence.
What they do counts for little, but no one listens to it. Their secret is that they, rather than their work, express the adolescents' idea of themselves.

That's all for now folks. I'll look at 64 next time I'm there.
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BlueMeanie

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Re: through the eyes of The Times
« Reply #8 on: February 06, 2008, 05:11:19 PM »
Quote from: 185
10/12/1963
Introducing the case, Mr Ranking was carefully apologetic....(he defined) the two kinds of pop music as "beat" and "jazz." Beat music was an entirely modern phenomena he said.

If I was at a tribunal, and there was a Mr. Ranking in charge, I don't think I'd be able to hold it together!

Quote from: 185
12/12/63

Promotor Claims He Started Pop Concert Hysteria.

Mr Harold Fielding, the entertainment promotor, took responsibility for the hysteria at pop concerts.
"It all started" he said "in 1956 with the advent of Tommy Steele. Mr Fielding thought that Tommy Steele in his day as a beat entertainer was as popular as The Beatles are now.

It beggars belief why Tony Sheridan didn't make it.

Good stuff Kev. Carry on old chap.
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Kevin

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Re: through the eyes of The Times
« Reply #9 on: February 12, 2008, 01:02:12 PM »
25/1/64
The Beatles said tonight they hoped to sing for the 1st Battalion The Kings Regiment in Berlin in May. They enthusiasticaly recieved a petition signed by 700 officers and men.

5/2/64
WELSH WAY OF LIFE UNDER ATTACK FROM THE BEATLES AND ALL.
Behind me, down the lane, a welsh boy was singing. Not a folk song...at the top of his voice this wretchedly anglised youth was bawling out "She loves you yeah yeah yeah.
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Kevin

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Re: through the eyes of The Times
« Reply #10 on: February 12, 2008, 01:07:04 PM »
15/2/64
AMERICANS DECIDE THE BEATLES ARE HARMLESS.
Quite what the americans had expected from The Beatles quartet was never very clear. Rumour had it that it (they) were a combination of Elvis Presley and an anglised Davy Crockett to the power of four, and american adult imagination frankly boggled at the prospect. They feared that, because it had been some years since their teenagers adopted a universal craze, when one came it would be uncontrollable.

6/3/64
A Blackpool sweets firm has recieved an american order for 10 million Beatle records made of toffee. It is providing work for an extra 100 people.
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Kevin

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Re: through the eyes of The Times
« Reply #11 on: February 12, 2008, 01:13:31 PM »
24/4/64
LESS DRUNKENESS AMONG THE YOUTH.
It would appear reasonable to suppose that it is associated with the remarkable growth in popularity of the movement typified by The Beatles, though of course, much more broadly based.

14/5/64
LORD WILLIS SPEAKS OUT ON THE BEATLES CULT.
He would join in all the good things said about The Beatles. They were lively, youthful and relatively harmless. But was that enough? This was not a culture; it was a cult - a cheap, plastic, candyfloss substitute for culture, and somebody should have the courage to say so. It fulfilled some basic psychological function as primitive as the war dances of savage and backward peoples.
(bless those pre-pc days. K )
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Kevin

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Re: through the eyes of The Times
« Reply #12 on: February 12, 2008, 01:20:23 PM »
20/6/64
Mr Curran (Conservative MP, Uxbridge) on education.
John Lennon, one of The Beatles, has written a book, In His Own Write, a collection of poems and fairy stories that seem to show a great deal about the education Lennon had received in Liverpool.
The poems revealed Lennon's feeling for words and that he was in a state of pathetic near illiteracy. It appeared that he had picked up pieces of Tennyson, Browning and Stevenson while listening with one ear  to the football results.

3/7/64
About 100 admirers, fewer than usual, gathered at the roof of number three building at London airport to welcome back The Beatles from Australia. Mr Brian Epstein, The Beatles manager, said the day of airport demonstrations was over. The group was as popular as ever.
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Kevin

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Re: through the eyes of The Times
« Reply #13 on: February 12, 2008, 01:27:21 PM »
7/8/64
CALL TO MODERNISE BIBLICAL LANGUAGE.
Meanwhile, the philosopher of religion found unexpected significance in the girl who screamed at The Beatles because she said they seemed so much bigger than herself and for whom quite consistently Liverpool was heaven. Beatle language for that girl was basically theological language.

25/10/64
HOOLIGANISM WILL BE STAMPED OUT
Commenting on the disturbances in Glascow on Wednesday night, when thousands of fans mobbed a cinema where The Beatles were appearing and smashed seven plate glass windows and overturned cars.....
(for the americans that's a normal quiet night out in Glascow. K)
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harihead

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Re: through the eyes of The Times
« Reply #14 on: February 12, 2008, 04:44:51 PM »
Quote from: 185
11/12/63.
(after the P.R.T. listened to a tape of a Beatle concert.)
It would be an overstatement to say that the sound heard yesterday was The Beatles. It was more the sound of 2000 shrieking teenagers with a rhythmic, pulsating thud somewhere in the background.
Mr Brian Weaver, the sound engineer who made the recording, attested morosely (sp) that the sound in the auditorium was worse than on the tape. "They don't sit in their seats, they stand up and just go bezerk."
This sounds like my mom talking about Amy Winehouse!  :o ;D

I'm far too humane to approve of chimps in circuses, but I did enjoy imagining them as moptops.

WELSH WAY OF LIFE UNDER ATTACK FROM THE BEATLES AND ALL. -- Sting said in one interview that he realized he'd "made it" when he was sleeping in his hotel room, and the window cleaner outside was singing "Roxanne". :)

I wonder why Beatlemania was associated with a reduction in drinking? A little help here?

These are great, Kevin! Thanks for posting.
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Kevin

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Re: through the eyes of The Times
« Reply #15 on: February 12, 2008, 04:53:52 PM »
Quote from: 551
". :)

I wonder why Beatlemania was associated with a reduction in drinking? A little help here?

 

I wasn't too sure either what they meant by "a movement typified by The Beatles." They seem to imply some kind of shift in Yoof attitude away from troublesome behaviour (maybe in contrast to the old teddy boy/rocker  image? ) to something more wholesome. I think the Mod/Rocker battles on Brighton seafront were still to come. Either way, they were wrong. Probably a journalist looking for a story line that wasn't there (you know these bloody journo's)
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Bobber

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Re: through the eyes of The Times
« Reply #16 on: February 13, 2008, 08:05:42 AM »
Quote from: 185
16/12/63

Circus That Respects It's Animals
Rudi Lenzig's agile chimpanzees stump about the ring on stilts in black wigs (foreheads even more villinous low) as The Beatles, their own shrill cries being drowned out by the audience.

So that's were the idea for The Monkees came from.
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harihead

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Re: through the eyes of The Times
« Reply #17 on: February 13, 2008, 03:41:18 PM »
^ *stops still*

Wouldn't that be wild if that were so?  :o ;D
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All you've got to do is choose love.  That's how I live it now.  I learned a long time ago, I can feed the birds in my garden.  I can't feed them all. -- Ringo Starr, Rolling Stone magazine, May 2007<br />

legthi

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Re: through the eyes of The Times
« Reply #18 on: February 13, 2008, 03:53:09 PM »
Cheers for these kevin - they're excellent. I especially liked the one on the Beatles haircuts which were popular. I've always been interested in what people thought of them 'back in the day' - so much so that I once even asked my grandather what he used to think of them!
Good stuff.
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Kevin

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Re: through the eyes of The Times
« Reply #19 on: February 23, 2008, 02:14:43 PM »
Lean pickings for 1965. it seems Beatlemania had lost its novelty news value. A good deal of angry letters about the MBE's, but they have passed into folklore anyway. Though it's interesting to note that the famous "Disgusted RAF Pilot" letter didn't just condemn the award being given to The Beatles, but to a TV actress (her who played Ena Sharples in Corrie) as well. One luke warm Help! review, which was called  "strained", but the reviewer admitted it wasn't his thing and that the kids seemed to really like it, which was the point really. In fact James Bond gets as many refs as The Beatles do. The two were THE big cultural icons of the year. Britain did rule the waves again

1/1/65 FILMS THAT MADE MONEY
The six films that took the most money at British cinemas in 1964 were Goldfinger, A Hard Days Night, Zulu, A Stitch In Time, Wonderful Life and The Pink Panther.
The most popular stars of 1964 were, in this order, Mr Sean Connery, Mr Cliff Richard, Mr Stanley Baker, Mr Elvis Presley, Mr Peter Sellers, Mr Norman Wisdom, Mr Harry H Corbett, The Beatles.

This one is really baffling:

3/2/65 BEATLES FILM FOR ADULTS ONLY
The Portugese Film Censorship has released The Beatles film, A Hard Days Night, for showing here, after several months of deliberation. It will, however, be for "adults only."
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