Paul McCartney reflects on the rise of Beatlemania: “Experiencing a sexual awakening”
In a recently published extract, Paul McCartney has reflected on the rise of Beatlemania during his first visit to America with the ‘Fab Four’. “Millions of eyes were suddenly upon us, creating a picture I will never forget for the rest of my life,” McCartney writes.
This recollection was bought about by the discovery of photographs he took during the trip which he presumed may have been lost in the interim years. However, as the book – 1964: Eyes of the Storm – explains: “In 2020, a trove of nearly a thousand photographs taken by Paul McCartney on a 35mm camera was re-discovered in his archive.”
Alongside the images themselves, which are set to be displayed at the National Portrait Gallery from June 28th to October 1st, McCartney has reflected on the stories behind them. “It was a period of – what else can you call it? – pandemonium. We four guys from Liverpool couldn’t possibly realise then the implications of what we were doing,” McCartney writes in a recently published excerpt (via the Guardian).
“By the end of February 1964, after our visit to America and three appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, we finally had to admit that we would not, as we had originally feared, just fizzle out as many groups do. We were in the vanguard of something more momentous, a revolution in the culture,” he recalls.
Continuing: “Even though we wanted to transform from a little band to a big one, and even though we hoped for international acceptance when we went to France and then the US, no one could have predicted what I describe as the ‘Eyes of the Storm’.”
“At first, I was tempted to call it that, because the Beatles certainly were at the centre, or the eye, of a self-generated storm, but when I looked at all these photographs, I realised it really should be in the plural, the ‘Eyes of the Storm’, because of all the pictures that others were taking, the photographs I was taking and also the eyes of the fans that greeted us, the security that looked after us. Who is looking at who? The camera always seems to be shifting, with me photographing them, the press photographing us, and those thousands and thousands of people out there wanting to capture this storm.”
Elsewhere he comments: “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 might still be subdued.”
Recalling: “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 a Friday in early February when we touched down, and it felt like thousands – and later, through television and The Ed Sullivan Show – millions of eyes were suddenly upon us, creating a picture I will never forget.”
Philosophically, he muses: “Although we had no perspective at the time, we were, like the world, experiencing a sexual awakening. Our parents had fears of sexual diseases and all sorts of things like that, but by the middle of the 60s, we’d realised that we had a freedom that had never been available to their generation.”
As he concludes, the band were certainly not overawed by the experience. On the contrary, he says, “we were in Wonderland.”
From June 28th to October 1st, 2023, London’s National Portrait Gallery will display 250 unseen photographs taken by Paul of his bandmates and the cities they travelled to during their 1963-64 tour.
The photos, which were taken on Paul’s personal Pentax camera, will be available in an accompanying photobook titled 1964: Eyes of the Storm, slated for release on June 13th via Penguin.
