Not Getting It

I wasn't there.

I missed the mania of it all, even though the first album I ever got was by them.

But it seems plain to me that the Beatles were not that much of a sensation until their appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show 40 years ago this week. They did a three-week tour of America, and from everything I've heard, it was only after those appearances that "Beatlemania" took off.

I've heard the songs.

I've seen the guys. I've read the articles.

The Beatles were a good pop band with a bunch of catchy tunes. Nothing more. Nothing less.

I don't get the reverence. Maybe I'm too young.

Maybe it's because I missed the heyday, and my cultural context puts me growing up in the post-Vietnam/Watergate/Woodstock era, but I still don't see what's so amazing about the Beatles. I've tried to, too.

It is possible that they might be the most overrated artists of all time.