"Hard Days Night" amped it up to whole 'nother level. For now we could see The Beatles cartoon toy come to life as real people. Now we had four mop-topped Bugs Bunnies stirring up joyous shit and having big-time Fun everywhere they went.
The Beatles!!
The Beatles had an enormous effect on the culture in general. But you can't over-estimate the even greater effect the Beatles had on the Art and Music culture. Jerry Garcia saw "Hard Days Night" and concluded that day: "The hell with this jug band stuff. Lets get electric guitars and start a rocknroll band!" And thus began the Warlocks. (Garcia would later re-pay the favor by inspiring the Beatles to do their Magical Mystery bus ride at the peak of the Beatles public-LSD trip).
To countless musicians and artists, as well as many, many nerdy intellectual types who wore glasses (because the Beatles got them, too) the Beatles were an inspiration; a role model; a guiding light. You could look at the Arts as the Heart of humanity, so their impact was profound. Later, still, the Beatles would amp it up into the world of Religion, which is the Soul of humanity, and their influence would deepen further. While at the same time, the Beatles came of age right alongside the burgeoning phenemenon that would be known as the World Wide Mass Media explosion. And the Beatles would ride the multi-media wave of television, movies, records, books, magazines, etc. To this day the Beatles are worshipped by the vast majority of the movers and shakers of the media biz. Just witness the almost universal-media scorn heaped on Albert Goldman and his bio of Lennon, even as subsequent Lennon books have revealed Goldman's book to be the definitive statement thus far on Lennon's prickly personality.
My last real "innocent" memory of the Beatles toy was the song "Penny Lane." In 6th grade that was my personal soundtrack. I would listen to it before my basketball league games. I played for the Warriors -- named after the Rick Barry/Nate Thurmond San Francisco Warriors, who battled Wilt Chamberlain and the 76ers in the '67 Finals. Like so many of the Beatles songs, "Penny Lane" had a special emotional touch with me. Love even. "Here, There, and Everywhere." Somehow, the Beatles songs captured this weird, ethereal mood that stuck with me; that had extra resonance.
In the summer before 7the grade, 1968, my family moved from the laid-back cow-town in the sticks of New Jersey, to this ultra-trendy suburb, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey (accent on UPPER). Richard Nixon would later buy a mansion in a neighboring town. It was a triple-cultural shock for me, having lived most of my life in this little "Mayberry, RFD" kind of burg. On top of that, puberty was changing everything for me. On top of that, all of American society was going through a profound change. Though I had no way of knowing that at the time, the fish-not-being-aware-of-the-water syndrome.
At any rate, all the under-currents that had been festering for decades, were now exploding into the Mass Culture by way of the phenomenon of The Beatles. Who, at the very least, were at the flashpoint of that exact cultural shift.
One afternoon, that summer of '68, my Mother drove me and my brothers and sisters to this discount mall on Rt. 17 in Paramus. With my allowance money I bought some candy, some comics, some baseball cards, and a 95-cent paperback: "THE BEATLES: With 20 Pages of Exclusive Photos!" It was one of those quickie, pop-culture bios of celebrities.
When I got home and read it, the first thing that struck me was: The Beatles toy had changed. The Fab lads were now hairy men with glasses and colorful, outlandish costumes. Which was really no different than adding the latest fashion accesories to the Barbie doll, or a fake beard for the GI Joe doll. But in the text, the Beatles were talking about a whole new thing that they were very excited about, that seemed to be causing some kind of controversy. "LSD has opened my mind and made me a better person," said Paul McCartney.
And there was a new Beatles song they were talking about, that I hadn't yet heard. "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." Images of "tangerine trees" and "marmalade skies." It was like an invitation to an Alice in Wonderland fantasyland. And, somehow, it was implied that you could go there, too, that you could experience it, this wonderful new playland. By taking the LSD. Evidently, the Beatles had gone there themselves, and now they had come back to tell us about it. About this wonderful new fantasy-land. About their trip to this land of marmalade skies...
And it seemed like a perfectly natural progression. The latest colorful accesory to the Beatles toy. The Beatles were just finding newer and cooler ways to have fun. Leading the way. And the LOVE LOVE LOVE had now been amped up into a vaguely-defined kind of UNIVERSAL LOVE LOVE LOVE. You don't just have all these girls loving you. You're now filled with love for all humanity. Something like that.
The effect on me, and probably on thousands if not millions of other Beatles kids, was as if I had pulled the string on my talking Raggedy Ann doll and she had said:
"TAKE DRUGS!"
'sqawk'
"TAKE DRUGS!"
And then you press Raggedy Ann's belly and her tongue pops out like a Pez dispenser, with a hit of acid on the end of it.
"TRY IT, KIDS!"
"ITS FUN!!"
Of course, no self-respecting toy manufacturer would produce and market such a toy for kids. The Raggedy Ann Acid Dispenser doll. It would be unthinkable.
"Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream..."
