"It pleases them, I think."

~ Ringo Starr, responding to the question "What do you think your music does for these people?" at the Beatles' first American press conference, Feb. 7, 1964, held amidst a raucous crowd of reporters and fans shortly after the band disembarked from their plane at New York's Kennedy airport (scroll down for the full transcript of the press conference)...

Press conference transcript...

Q: "What do you think of Beethoven?"

RINGO: "Great. Especially his poems."

(laughter)

EMCEE: "There's a question here."

Q: (yelling over the crowd noise) "Would you tell Murray the K (legendary disc jockey who befriended the band) to cut that crap out?"

BEATLES: (yelling, jokingly) "CUT THAT CRAP OUT!"

PAUL: "Hey, Murray!"

(laughter)

REPORTER: "Is that a question?"

EMCEE: (attempting to calm the chaos) "Will you be quiet, please."

Q: "In Detroit, there's people handing out car stickers saying, 'Stamp Out The Beatles.'"

 PAUL: "Yeah well, we're bringing out a Stamp Out Detroit campaign."

(crowd noise in the room increases)

Q: "What about the Stamp Out The Beatles campaign?"

JOHN: "What about it?"

RINGO: "How big are they?"

Q: "What do you think of the comment that you're nothing but a bunch of British Elvis Presleys?"

JOHN: "He must be blind."

RINGO: (shaking like Elvis) "It's not true!! It's not true!!"

JOHN: (dances like Elvis)

(laughter)

FEMALE FAN: "Would you please sing something?"

BEATLES: "NO!"

(laughter)

RINGO: "Sorry."

EMCEE: "Next question."

Q: "There's some doubt that you CAN sing."

JOHN: "No, we need money first."

(laughter)

Q: "Does all that hair help you sing?"

PAUL: "What?"

Q: "Does all that hair help you sing?"

JOHN: "Definitely. Yeah."

Q: "You feel like Sampson? If you lost your hair, you'd lose what you have? 'It'?"

JOHN: "Don't know. I don't know."

PAUL: "Don't know."

EMCEE: "There's a question here."

Q: "How many of you are bald, that you have to wear those wigs?"

RINGO: "All of us."

PAUL: "I'm bald."

Q: "You're bald?"

JOHN: "Oh, we're all bald, yeah."

PAUL: "Don't tell anyone, please."

JOHN: "And deaf and dumb, too."

(laughter)

EMCEE: "Quiet, please."

Q: "Are you for real?"

PAUL: "For real."

JOHN: "Come and have a feel."

RINGO: (laughs)

Q: "Listen, I got a question here. Are you going to get a haircut at all while you're here?"

BEATLES: "NO!"

RINGO: "Nope."

PAUL: "No, thanks."

GEORGE: "I had one yesterday."

(laughter)

RINGO: "And that's no lie, it's the truth."

PAUL: "It's the truth."

Q: "You know, I think he missed some."

JOHN: "Nope."

GEORGE: "No, he didn't. No."

RINGO: "You should have seen him the day before."

Q: "What do you think your music does for these people?"

PAUL: "Uhh..."

JOHN: "Hmmm, well..."

RINGO: "I don't know. It pleases them, I think. Well, it must do, 'cuz they're buying it."

Q: "Why does it excite them so much?"

PAUL: "We don't know. Really."

JOHN: "If we knew, we'd form another group and be managers."

(laughter)

On Feb. 7, 1964, The Beatles were greeted by thousands of screaming fans at New York's Kennedy airport... On Feb. 9, they made their now-legendary appearance on television's "The Ed Sullivan Show"... On Feb. 11, they played their first U.S. concert, at Washington Colosseum... And on Feb. 12, they played New York's Carnegie Hall... The British invasion had begun, and the American musical landscape was never the same again.