Paul McCartney believes The Beatles “lifted” the US following JFK assassination
Paul McCartney has suggested The Beatles “lifted” the collective spirits of the United States following the assassination of President John F Kennedy.
Kennedy was killed in November 1963 while in Dallas, Texas. Three months later, The Beatles introduced themselves to America and cooked up a storm. Speaking with actor Stanley Tucci at the National Portrait Gallery in London after the opening of his new exhibition, Paul McCartney, 1964: Eyes of the Storm, McCartney reflected upon how America was still in a state of shock when his band arrived.
He explained: “That was one of the big things for us … we felt it like the whole world had felt it. We had really felt it, but then, it was a few months after that we went to America. We, without meaning to, lifted people.”
The new exhibition display 250 unseen photographs taken by McCartney of his bandmates and the cities they travelled to during their 1963-64 tour. The images were taken on his personal Pentax camera, and are also available in an accompanying photobook titled 1964: Eyes of the Storm.
McCartney explained to Tucci why he documented the tour: “The four of us got cameras and just started to enjoy taking pictures of what was going on around us. The nice thing was, I realised they were all quite intimate because the press photographers couldn’t get here.”
He also said during the conversation: “Looking at them, they were from a time that I also sort of remembered, but not in detail… So suddenly, here were all these details of these times we had together. It was particularly poignant. It wasn’t sad.”
The event with McCartney and Tucci was part of the National Portrait Gallery’s First Look Festival, which also includes similar conversations with Tracey Emin, Alex Pascall and Jamie Fobert.
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