Washington D.C., February 11, 1964

Question: Do any of you have any formal musical training?

John: You're joking.

Question: What do you think of President Johnson?

Paul: Does he buy our records?

Question: What do you think of American girls and American audiences?

John: Marvelous.

Question: Here I am, surrounded by the Beatles, and I don't feel a thing. Fellas, how does it feel to be in the United States?

John: It's great.

Question: What do you like best about our country?

John: You!

Question: I'll take that under advisement. Do you have any plans to meet the Johnson girls?

John: No. We heard they don't like our concerts.

Question: Are they coming to your performance?

Paul: If they do, we'd like to meet them.

Question: You and the snow both came to Washington today. Which do you think will have the greater impact?

John: The snow will probably last longer.

Question: One final question. Have you heard of Walter Cronkite?

Paul: Nope.

John: NBC News, is he? Yeah, we know him.

Question: Thanks, fellas. By the way, it's CBS News.

George: I know, but I didn't want to say it as now we're on ABC.

Question: This is NBC, believe it or not.

John: And you're Walter?

Question: No, Im Ed.

John: What's going on around here?

Question: What do you think of your reception in America so far?

John: It's been great.

Question: What struck you the most?

John: You!

Ringo: We already did that joke when we came in.

George: Well, we're doing it again, squire!

Question: Why do you think your so popular?

John: It must be the weather.

Question: Do you think it's your singing?

Paul: I doubt it. We don't know which it could be.

Question: Where'd you get the idea for the haircuts?

John: Where'd you get the idea for yours?

Paul: We enjoy wearing our hair this way, so it's developed this way.

Question: Well you save on haircutting at least.

Paul: Roar...

John: I think it costs more to keep our hair short than long, don't you?

Paul: Yeah, we're saving money.

Question: Are you still number one in Europe?

George: We're number one in America.

Question: Where else are you number one then?

John: Hong Kong and Sweden...

Paul: Australia, Denmark, Finland.

Question: And you haven't any idea why?

Ringo: We just lay down and do it.

John: In Hong Kong and these other places, suddenly your number one years after putting out your records. Even here, we've got records we've probably forgotten.

Question: You call your records "funny records"?

John: "Funny," yeah, the ones we've forgotten.

George: It's unnsual because they've been out in England for over a year. Like "Please, Please Me" it's a big hit over here now, but it's over a year old.

Question: Do you think they're musical?

John: Obviously they're musical because it's music isn't it! We make music. Instrument play music. It's a record.

Question: What do you call it, Rock and Roll?

Paul: We try not define our music because we get so many wrong classifications of it. We call it music, even if you don't.

Question: With a question mark?

George: Pardon?

John: We leave that to the critics.

Question: Okay, that's it. Have a good time in America.

John: Thank you. Keep buying them records and look after yourself.

Next Interview


Interview Index Page


Get Back Home