PAST NOTES
To mark 50 years since the Fab Four’s last live performance, explores the history of Beatlemania Julian Humphrys
Who came up with the term Beatlemania?
Scottish music promoter Andi Lothian is the most likely candidate. He recalled that when a Radio Scotland reporter, bemused at the pandemonium surrounding a Beatles gig in October 1963, asked him what was going on, he replied: “Don’t worry, it’s only Beatlemania.” The term appeared in print a few weeks later, after the Beatles had played the prestigious Sunday Night at the London Palladium TV show.
What caused it?
The baby boom meant there were more teenagers than ever before. Many looked for a shared identity and a way of expressing their taste and sexuality, and the Beatles, with their musical chops and carefully crafted image, were ideally placed to cash in. TV appearances were vital in spreading their popularity. When the band first appeared on the The Ed Sullivan Show at the start of their 1964 US tour, an estimated 73 million tuned in.
Was it the first ‘mania’ of its kind?
Although it was unprecedented in its scale, Beatlemania wasn’t the first. In 1844, German writer Heinrich Heine coined the term ‘Lisztomania’ to describe the fan frenzy inspired by Hungarian composer Franz Liszt. A century later, when Frank Sinatra began his residency at New York’s Paramount Theatre in October 1944, thousands of teenage girls rampaged through Times Square.
What killed off Beatlemania?
The Beatles killed it off themselves. Frustrated at being unable to reproduce their complex studio sound, and by the fact that they were barely audible above the screaming, the Beatles fell out of love with performing. Their 1966 US tour was the final straw. It took place against a backdrop of death threats after an interview in which, commenting on the state of modern Christianity, John Lennon said the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus”. Their final show took place in front of 25,000 people at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park on 29 August 1966. They would only perform live once more: on the roof of the Apple Building in London’s Savile Row on 30 January 1969.