One band saved America, according to Billy Joel
While Billy Joel has used songwriting to navigate dealings within his own life, he’s also used it to explore wider societal topics that transcend the individual.
Occasionally, events transpire that cause us all to be emotionally affected, such as the assassination of John F Kennedy in 1963, which left a gaping hole in the heart of America. Just as televisions were becoming widespread in the States, the broadcast footage of the event was unprecedented.
Kennedy had only been in The White House for two years, but he’d already caused optimism to swell across the entire country. Following a challenging period after the end of World War II, Kennedy was tasked with bringing America forward and carving out a bright future. Heartbreakingly, his plans were quashed on November 22nd, 1963, and a grey cloud gathered across the nation.
At the time, Joel was a teenager, but like everybody else in the US, he was grieving the devastating loss of Kennedy and what the assassination represented for the nation. For a few months, the bleakness seemed like it would last forever, and the optimism would never return. Then, out of nowhere, four mop-haired young men from Liverpool arrived to revive the cultural heartbeat of America.
Both the assassination of JFK and Beatlemania are events which defined the 1960s for contrasting reasons. On the surface, there is no correlation between Kennedy’s death and the emergence of the Fab Four. However, Joel believes their success was partially due to America’s desire to revive their collective happiness.
Yet, that was far from foregone. Their arrival could have just as easily been subsumed by the madness of it all. “President Kennedy had been murdered only a little over two months before our arrival in the United States, and his assassination had ricocheted throughout the world, so we figured the atmosphere in the States might still be subdued,” McCartney recalled.
He added, “But the minute we landed in New York, we knew instantly that we were not in store for any kind of funereal time.” It was pandemonium. And it was the antidote to despair that America was in dire need of.
During an interview with CNN in 2022, Joel said of himself: “I’m part of the world also, aside from being a musician, I’m affected by events. If you think about it, right before The Beatles hit, which was on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 4th, 1964, what major event happened right prior to that?”
Like may before him, it changed his life. As Joel continued, “The assassination of John F Kennedy, who was the young, vital, vigorous man who was the president, and kind of represented youth and the future. He was taken away from us. The country had the blues, big time. Everybody was depressed over the Kennedy assassination, and it lasted for a long time. Who took us out of that depression? The Beatles.”
Hope arrived along with these young kids from Liverpool. They’re vaguely “alien” nature felt like a gift from afar. “They represented youth, the future. They represented vitality. Something new, something which was of us, our age group, the baby boomers, and they took off like superstars,” the ‘Piano Man’ singer added.
Joel then elaborated on his relationship with The Beatles, which began before their debut on The Ed Sullivan Show when he heard their songs on the radio. “It changed my life. That’s why I do what I do now because of what The Beatles did,” he added. While he might have criticised the likes of The White Album further down the line, there is no doubting the sincere place the bad have always held in his heart, and how universally important he sees them in a wider sense.
Furthermore, The Beatles’ authenticity was another factor that made them appeal greatly to Joel. He was impressed by their lack of Hollywood looks and ability to write their own songs, instilling a belief that he could also make it within the music industry.
While The Beatles would have been a hit in America even if Kennedy had survived, his death placed an extra weight of importance on their shoulders to rescue people from the doldrums, and they rose to the challenge with aplomb. Can you imagine the dreary state of the world without them?
