[John and I] would frequently drive down to the Pier Head... and stand at the railings, eating one of those terrible meat pies that they used to sell there and looking out over the narrow expanse of the River Mersey and the vaster margins of the Irish Sea. John was forever dreaming of America. It was as if his spiritual home was across the Atlantic; he ached to play in the USA, the great source of his inspiration...: “I want to be over there; I can almost taste it now... With Brian it feels like it might just happen.” — Joe Flannery1
Two years later, John’s dream came true. On February 7, 1964, The Beatles landed at the newly-named JFK Airport to be greeted by thousands of ecstatic teenagers, much of America’s press and the world’s adoration.
John, Paul, George and Ringo were the war babies of the generation that had defeated Hitler and turned back the rising tide of European fascism. It was unquestionably Britain’s finest hour, but the children of the British war effort paid a high price for their parents’ heroism, and kids from Liverpool even more so. Because of its strategic importance as the closest Allied port to America, Liverpool was the second-most bombed city in England. And after the war, because of the disdain the southern half of the country held for the northern half, Liverpool was the last to receive government funding to rebuild.2 Liverpool kids of the 1950s grew up in the grim, stoic aftermath of the Blitz, playing in the rubble of bomb sites and dreaming — as John did — of America, its promise, its prosperity, and its music.
John, Paul, George and Ringo are also the descendants of Irish immigrants, as is half of Liverpool. The Irish are generally considered “white” now — you know, what certain people consider the “good” kind of immigrant. But had the Fab Four arrived in New York a hundred years earlier, they would have been greeted not by swooning teenagers and eager reporters, but by resentful signs in shop windows warning that “No Irish Need Apply” and newspaper cartoons depicting the Irish as drunken apes. And The Beatles would have encountered the hatred of a new political party, not for nothing named the Know-Nothings. The Know-Nothings took as their mandate that the American dream was available only to white male Protestants who had been born in America. No one else need apply.3
Writer Jack Kerouac once called America “the ragged promised land,” and we are both of these things, always and at the same time. We get it wrong and then we work to make it right, we get it wrong again and work to make it right again. That’s just how it works in a democracy.
The Know-Nothings were soundly defeated at the ballot box, and a hundred years later, America welcomed with open arms four Irish boys filled to bursting with dreams of the toppermost of the poppermost, “so young then, so in love with one another, and so swept up in the joyful noise that came so easily to them.”4 That joyful noise would catch the wind on that cold February day and spark a revolution of music and freedom and cultural awakening, and in that shining moment, bend the arc of our history towards love.
I guess this is just the sort of thing that happens when we let immigrants into the country.
Vote.
PODCAST UPDATE: Release date for part 1 is Jan/Feb 2025, after we’ve done our civic duty and protected our democracy from the know-nothing, bigoted clown show and its whiny and delusional ringmaster. We are so very fucked. But the podcast will still be out in January.
full quote: “[John and I] would frequently drive down to the Pier Head in my Vauxhall (as, indeed, Brian and I would do)and stand at the railings, eating one of those terrible meat pies that they used to sell there and looking out over the narrow expanse of the River Mersey and the vaster margins of the Irish Sea. John was forever dreaming of America. It was as if his spiritual home was across the Atlantic; he ached to play in the USA, the great source of his inspiration. On this occasion, he told me that he was not going to let Mona Best get in the way: “I want to be over there; I can almost taste it now, Joe. Brian’s going to be good for us It works. He ight be a bit of a snob and all that, but we click. With Mona around it’ll always stay just a dream. With Brian it feels like it might just happen.” Joe Flannery, Standing In The Wings, p186
The last of the war damage in Liverpool wasn’t cleared away until the early 2000s.
For a soberingly familiar account of the Know-Nothings and the nativist movement against the Irish — https://www.history.com/news/when-america-despised-the-irish-the-19th-centurys-refugee-crisis
This is possibly the passage that turned me into a Beatles writer. I haven’t yet found anyone who’s written anything that captures the magic of this story better than Peter Carlin did in his description of Paul’s 2008 Liverpool concert—
“A-one-two-three-fah!
It's time for the show to end, so we're going back to the very beginning, back to the four working-class kids with nothing but a few chords, cheap instruments, and a dream about not getting real jobs. How could I dance with another? Paul's got a new band now, the latest in a succession of them but the massive video screens behind them show the Beatles again, back in their prime, running and leaping and dancing together, spinning madly in and out of one another's arms. They were so young then, so in love with one another, and so swept up in the joyful noise that came so easily to them.
“Paul's wailing as hard as he can, the place is rocking, the walls literally shaking with the beat. But it's that old film that everyone is staring at, and Paul can't resist a glance over his shoulder, either. The way he looked then, the way they sounded — well, it was way beyond compare.” Peter Carlin, McCartney: A Life, p4
NOTE: I am not recommending the Carlin book. This is just a beautiful passage is all.