Beatles.com

I was four years old.

The Ed Sullivan Show, one of the few TV programs my father watched, was presenting the first television appearance of an English band known as the Beatles.

It was one of my first coherent memories.

By the time I was a teenager, the Beatles were long gone. The airwaves were being clogged with dreck by bands like Styx, Foreigner, and Loverboy. I rebelled. I bought every Beatles album I could get my hands on and played them till they wore out.

Today's FamilyFirst site is the official one of the Fab Four. It's called simply beatles.com.

John would have been blown away by the power of the internet. He would have been pleased to see that enough fans still love the mopheads that sites like this thrive. I'm not so sure what he would have thought about their music being incorporated into Cirque de Soleil.

My biggest treat from the site? A high-quality color image of that first Ed Sullivan appearance.

The Beatles made huge news. Casual comments by their members were interpreted as gospel by their followers, for better or worse. And they had a way of hooking everyone from grandparents to preschoolers with their music.

The world will never again see a phenomenon like the Beatles. I'm glad I can remember it personally.

http://www.beatles.com

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