“Are you going to get a haircut at all while you’re here?” a reporter asked The Beatles during their first U.S. press conference at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City on February 7, 1964. “Nope,” said Ringo Starr, followed by a “No, thanks” by Paul McCartney. George Harrison shared “No, I had one yesterday,” and John Lennon added a curt “Nope.”
The Beatles’ long hair caused bewilderment amongst the media and some public backlash by the early 1960s with kids often emulating the mop-top hairdo and facing the consequences at school and how long boys could wear their hair before being reprimanded.
When the Beatles first arrived in America in February of 1964, TIME magazine called their top halves “mushroom haircuts,” while Newsweek referred to them as “sheep-dog bangs.”
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1964
It was the thick of Beatlemania. After touring Europe, Hong Kong, Australia, and the UK throughout the earlier part of 1964, the Beatles were back in America by the end of summer and went on to play 32 shows in the U.S. and Canada between August 19 and September 20.
Before they kicked off the North American leg of their tour, the band had another press conference in New York City at the Crystal Ballroom in the Delmonico Hotel on August 28 before the first of two shows at Forest Hills Stadium in Queens, New York.
A “Threat to Public Safety“
After witnessing throngs of overzealous, screaming fans that would chase down the band, reporters asked the Beatles what they thought about being considered a “threat to public safety.” Lennon responded “Well, we’re no worse than bombs, really” before he and McCartney both added “Rubbish.” When reporters asked them to speak up, Starr added in one more “Rubbish.”
Shortly after more rapid-fire questions, it didn’t take long for the group’s famous mop-top hairdos to get called out again.
“If your fame subsides, will you cut your hair?” asked a reporter.
“Well, we had our hair like this before the fame,” said McCartney. “What’s the opposite of subside? Upsided? You know, so we won’t bother changing it.”
[RELATED: The Beatles Release ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ in 1967]
Origins of the Mop Tops
In their earlier years in the late 1950s through early ’60s, The Beatles were typically sporting more greased-back dos, much like Elvis and most young men gravitating toward the greaser look in the ’50s.
Original Beatles bassist Stu Sutcliffe, who left the band to pursue painting in 1960 and later died in 1962 at age 21, may have been the first official band member to sport the mop top after his girlfriend, the late photographer Astrid Kirchherr, replicated the do she had seen young men sporting at school in Germany.
By October 1961, Lennon wanted to celebrate his 21st birthday and took a trip to Paris with McCartney and met up with their friend Jürgen Vollmer, whom they had known during their earlier Hamburg days. Vollmer moved to France to focus on photography would give the two Beatles their first comb-over, bowl look.
“He (Jürgen) had his hair mod style,” said McCartney in the 2000 book The Beatles Anthology. “We said, ‘Would you do our hair like yours? We’re on holiday, what the hell, we’re buying capes and pantaloons, throwing caution to the wind.’ He said ‘No, boys, I like you as rockers. You look great.’ But we begged him enough. … We sat down in his hotel and we just got it—the Beatle cut.”
The Invasion
The Beatles’ arrival in America set off another seismic shift, a tidal wave of British bands soon made waves on the other side of the pond, and globally. Some even imitated the Fab Four’s fashion, and yes, hairstyles.
The British Invasion was on soon after the Beatles landed in the U.S. and more Americans would know who the Yardbirds, the Animals, Dave Clark Five, the Kinks, the Zombies, Small Faces, the Searchers, and the Hollies, along with solo artists like Tom Jones, Dusty Springfield, Donovan, and more, were soon enough.
Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
