The Beatles are here!: 50 years after the band arrived in America, writers, musicians, and other fans remember

The arrival of the Beatles was one of those unforgettable cultural touchstones. Through the voices of those who witnessed it or were swept up in it indirectly, The Beatles Are Here! explores the emotional impact-some might call it hysteria-of the Fab Four's February 1964 dramatic landing on our shores. Contributors, including Lisa See, Gay Talese, Renée Fleming, Roy Blount, Jr., and many others, describe in essays and interviews how they were inspired by the Beatles. This intimate and entertaining collection arose from writer Penelope Rowlands's own Beatlemaniac phase: she was one of the screaming girls captured in an iconic photograph that has since been published around the world-and is displayed on the cover of this book. The stories of these girls, who found each other again almost 50 years later, are part of this volume as well. The Beatles Are Here! gets to the heart of why, half a century later, the Beatles still matter to us so deeply. PENELOPE ROWLANDS has written about culture and the arts for Architectural Digest, the Daily Beast, Vogue, WSJ. Magazine, and other publications. Her books include the anthology Paris Was Ours and A Dash of Daring: Carmel Snow and Her Life in Fashion, Art, and Letters, a biography of the legendary editor-in-chief of Harper's Bazaar. Find her at www.peneloperowlands.com. A celebration of the myth, the reality, the phenomenon, the era. Where did the Beatles take us, what did they deliver us from, and what do they mean to us now? From Billy Joel: "The single biggest moment that I can remember of being galvanized into wanting to be a musician for life was seeing the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. They played their own instruments and they wrote their own songs and they looked like these working-class kids, like kids we all knew." From Amanda Vaill: "We were caught up in something bigger than ourselves, a kind of movement, and this music was our anthem." From Fran Lebowitz: "Parents didn't like the Beatles, but basically parents didn't like us. People forget that. Our parents were mad at us all the time." From "Cousin Brucie" Morrow: "We weren't smiling too much. We had assassinations. The nation was really divided. The Beatles sort of helped to bring everybody together." From Noelle Oxenhandler: "To this day, I could still probably give the correct answer if someone were to ask: 'What is John's shirt size?' 'How does he like to take his eggs and tea?' 'How old was he when he went to live with his Aunt Mimi?'?" From Pico Iyer: "The day the Beatles landed in New York City was the day the United Kingdom could finally see that it wasn't just yesterday's power, on the decline, but part of what would form tomorrow's trans-Atlantic axis." From Cyndi Lauper: "When I was eleven and the Beatles were coming to New York, my mother drove my sister, her friend Diane, and me to where the Hilton Hotel is, by the airport, so we could see the Beatles drive by. All of a sudden we saw cars coming and it was them. So I started screaming and I shut my eyes, and by the time I realized I should open my eyes, I'd missed it." From David Dye: "My daughter is now a junior in high school. You can't play a Beatles song that she doesn't know. I think to have that kind of cultural staying power is truly amazing." "A goody bag of tributes and recollections." -Vanity Fair "One of the more fascinating new books on the Fab Four's impact." -The Boston Globe "A great crop of recollections of the first wave of Beatlemania. There are reminiscences by fans from big cities and tiny towns, some sweet, some hilarious." -Tampa Bay Times "This winsome book is overwhelmingly infused with affection both for the Beatles and for the opportunity to revisit childhood and adolescent memories . . . Readers seeking a nostalgia-tinged p...