Just three more to go on the top 20 BIGGEST BEATLES’ YEARS countdown!

It’s getting near crunch time…

(no.3) 1963 - Word of the year: Beatlemania!

It was commonly accepted that they had a daft name. The Beatles. Yet, by the end of 1963, you couldn’t avoid it. With screaming girls ringing in their ears, the phrase ‘Beatle-mania’ first appeared in the national press after the chaos surrounding their arrival at the London Palladium for a TV spectacular. It was teen fan-worship on an unprecedented scale and every police force across the nation had good reason to fear them, forming elaborate schemes to ferry the group to safety after every concert.

The Beatles began the year with Please Please Me, an LP mostly recorded in the space of one day, and closed with their second, With The Beatles, made with significantly more care and attention over the course of three months. Both albums were a knockout mix of originals and songs by their American idols, from girl groups and early Motown and black R&B. They defied convention as a group who wrote their own hit songs (courtesy of Lennon & McCartney), a self-contained unit who sang and played everything in unison and four guys who spoke as naturally as the place they were born in (none of your clipped BBC tones, thank you).

Liverpool became the nation’s second city with every record company A&R man alighting at Lime St station, making a bee-line for the Cavern, Casbah or Iron Door clubs, desperate to catch the next Beatles before anyone else. A friendly ‘Merseybeat’ rivalry with fellow Epstein-managed Gerry & The Pacemakers ensued, timing their releases to avoid the Beatles and hitting number one on three occasions. Were they really equals? Not likely. The Beatles’ sales numbers were seismic, dwarfing all competition. Their fourth single, ‘She Loves You’, became Britain’s biggest-selling single thus far and remained so for the next 14 years. The Beatles’ take on the Isley Brothers’ ‘Twist And Shout’ was the year’s most coveted song and chosen by the group to close their prestigious appearance at 1963’s Royal Variety Performance - but not before John addressed the well-to-do audience with those immortal words, “Will the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands. And the rest of you, if you just rattle your jewellery…”.

Now everyone knew who the Beatles were: four young, irreverent, mischievous, charming working-class men, deftly overcoming any obstacles placed in front of them with determination and good humour. In 1963, the Beatles were a welcome, heady dose of good cheer that lifted and illuminated a grateful nation.

Listen to this: Twist And Shout

What a way to finish recording their first LP, a sheer blast of joyous sound and happy faces everywhere.