It would be hard for somebody five or ten years younger than us to realize it, bur Ed Sullivan was a big deal, a rilly rilly (foreshadowing the valley girls) big deal, bigger than the Beagles back in his day, the days when there were basically only three channels, and almost the whole nation tuned in on Sunday night (I think it was Sunday night) to watch Ed Sullivan.
And it was still that way when the blokes crossed the pond. It was big exposure for the Beatles and big ratings for Ed. But it was kind of an uneasy thing. The older generation made fun of the Beatles because they were odd, and well, shaggy, and the Beatles looked at him the way they looked at that grandfather character in Help. When the Rolling Stones, a grittier group, went on they were told to change the lyrics from Let's spend the night together to Let's spend some time together. My memory is that they double-crossed him and sang the original lyrics, but internet research reveals that it was the Doors who agreed to substitute Girl we couldn't get much better for Girl we couldn't get much higher and it was Mad Jim Morrison who double-crossed by singing the original lyrics. Well those were the days my friend.
That party I go to every fourth has been going on for close to forty years now. It used to be huge and wild. At first we used to go through two kegs with the first one blowing after about fifteen minutes, and then it was one, and then we didn't even empty that one, and now a guy brings a half keg of his craft beer and we never empty it. The crowd is much smaller, nobody gets dead drunk and makes a spectacle of himself. There was a walker, several canes, a lot of limping, a bunch old guys and girls flapping their jaws about the good old days, most everybody leaves before sunset. These are the days my friend.
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