(Credits: Far Out / Sky Arts / Apple Corps)
Tue 6 January 2026 7:00, UK
The concept of breaking America is a heavy one for musicians. Artists are promised a lifelong career of glamour and riches, so long as they make it big in the promised land of the United States. But who blazed this trail of commercial success that meant anything but domination was a career of inadequacy? Well, of course, it was The Beatles.
From the very beginning of their careers, with their brand of doo-wop, cross blues rock sound, they won the hearts of a post-war America, thirsty for sonic rebellion. To the simple fan, they were Elvis Presley multiplied by four, but to the music aficionados, they were a breath of fresh air. While the odd cover could be found, it was largely about their fleet of original songs that came with them across the pond, ready to open the eyes of a generation of music fans desperate for creativity.
It wasn’t gradual either. Beatlemania was a fire that was sparked from their famous appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964. There, an entire group of music fans were inspired by what could be possible were they to form a band. In that group was Blondie’s Clem Burke, whose life changed upon viewing that episode.
Burke explained, “People of my generation in the States all cite The Beatles’ first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show as a lightbulb moment. Everyone mentions it. I’ve since come to realise that for you guys in the UK, The Beatles were more like boys next door, not particularly unusual. But for people in the States, the way they used English colloquialisms in their songs seemed so exotic. When the film A Hard Day’s Night came out, you actually heard them speak, their personalities came to the fore, another major insight for people in America.”
Burke then got his hands on Introducing… The Beatles, the album that preceded Please Please Me, but still showcased the majority of the iconic album’s greatest hits. It was there that Burke would determine a songwriting approach of his own, using all but one of their songs, to craft an understanding.
He continued, “It kicks off with ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ and ends with ‘Twist And Shout’. It’s mostly covers of stuff by Arthur Alexander, Buddy Holly and girl-group songs like ‘Boys, Chains and Baby’, ‘It’s You’. I always thought it a bit weird having Ringo singing ‘Boys’.”
Adding, “Even to this day, it seems odd. It was very unusual then for any guy groups to do girl-group stuff. ‘A Taste Of Honey’ would make me cringe, but the whole album’s so eclectic. And that eclecticism was a role model for everything we did with Blondie.”
There’s a whole lot of cringe that exists outside the boundaries of ‘A Taste Of Honey’. In those early days, the band were at times corny, and at their worst, lyrically tasteless, and so it’s not unusual to hear music fans casting some of their early work aside like that.
But it was the foundation that built a decade of sonic innovation, where their later, more experimental music became crucial in the development of bands like Blondie.
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