Robert Colson and Michael Hicks discussed the British Invasion of the 1960s and its cultural impact, including and going beyond music in the second Café CSE (Center for the Study of Europe) of the semester.
PROVO, Utah (Nov 5, 2014)—This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Beatles in America. In February of 1964, the band appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show. Many point to this event as the beginning of the British Invasion, a social phenomenon in which British culture flooded the United States in the 1960s, affecting everything from music to the way men cut their hair.
The Center for the Study of Europe (CSE) had its second Café CSE of the semester, with Michael Hicks (professor of musical composition and theory) and Robert Colson (assistant professor of interdisciplinary humanities) discussing the invasion and its cultural impact. David Kirkham (associate professor of political science and senior fellow at the BYU law school) served as moderator.
When discussing the invasion, it is most common to focus on the Beatles. However, as Kirkham pointed out, it went beyond them and included such other bands as the Who, the Rolling Stones, Herman’s Hermits, and the Dave Clark Five. Not only that, but the invasion reached outside of the United States. Colson remarked, “It seems as if this music was as pervasive in Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands as it was in the United States.”
Kirkham asked what it was about the 1960s that made the invasion possible. Colson explained that for the British, the invasion was a way of reaffirming their cultural identity. Postwar, the empire had been collapsing for a while, and the question of what it meant to be British was being challenged and remolded. The invasion became a means by which British culture could once again be spread.
In the United States, the invasion came at a time of social crisis. The assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 had left the nation devastated. Hicks said, “We were looking for something, because everything that seemed to be normative was suddenly ruptured by that one event.” He added, “Culturally, there was just a hollowness that was scooped out of the American soul.” The Beatles, and the subculture they brought with them, were part of a greater something that had to flood in after that event.
The invasion spawned societal shift within the United States that still holds today. Colson said, “This marks a place where youth culture becomes the dominant, popular culture in so many ways. Today it’s unthinkable to imagine that everyone would try and capture an older adult demographic with their films. Everyone wants the teenagers, the 18-year-olds, the 20-year-olds to buy their products. That’s the coveted demographic.” Other factors of the times, including the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War, contribute to the widening generation gap. “And it is profoundly threatening to some people,” Colson continued. “And this is why you have huge arguments about how long your hair is.”
Inspired by the various artists and bands of the times, it became common for young men to grow their hair out longer. “You don’t cut it, and that becomes a sort of radical act or a statement of one’s generation,” Hicks said. “That was a huge part of the British Invasion.”
At the start of the discussion, Kirkham asked why the British Invasion was worth studying at all, let alone dedicating a Café CSE to. In answer, Hicks said, “This invasion tells us a lot about who we are and where we came from, both individually and culturally. I don’t want to minimalize it, and I don’t want to equate it to some of the heavier topics you might indulge here [in the Café].” Colson agreed, adding, “I don’t think that anything should be considered unserious or unworthy of investigation.” They both closed the discussion on a similar note and encouraged the students present to pursue their curiosity in their studies, whatever avenues those actions might entail.
Café CSE takes place on the first Wednesday of every month. For more information on upcoming discussions and topics, visit the Center for the Study of Europe’s website. To watch a recording of the lecture and presentation, visit the Kennedy Center’s lecture archive.
—Samuel Wright (B.A. American Studies ’16)
Image courtesy of Kennedy Center for International Studies