While My Guitar Gently Weeps

ANNETTE ON THE ROAD The First Beatle in America Gives a Small Town a Story. Sort of. (plus Voiceover by Annette!)

Yes, it’s George Harrison in early Beatle mode. Yes, it’s two screaming fans. But what is this doing next to an American freeway in the middle of nowhere? Image: Annette Laing, 2025

Dear Nonnie Friend,

The Beatles never played rural Southern Illinois.

Brits and anyone else who is wondering where Southern Illinois is, look on a map! We’re talking hundreds of miles from New York, where the Beatles’ plane landed in February, 1964, for their first hugely successful American tour.

I’m not going to claim that today’s story is an important moment in US history, or Anglo-American relations.

TBH, I’m not sure what this is.

This is not even a big episode in the story of the Beatles.

But I had to ask: What the heck is George Harrison doing alongside the freeway in rural southern Illinois, coal country?