Oh please, say to me
You'll let me be your man
And please, say to me
You'll let me hold your hand
Now, let me hold your hand
I want to hold your hand
And when I touch you
I feel happy inside
It's such a feeling that my love
I can't hide
I can't hide
I can't hide
Yeah, you got that something
I think you'll understand
When I say that something
I want to hold your hand
I want to hold your hand
I want to hold your hand
From “I Want To Hold Your Hand” by the Beatles
I first heard “I Want To Hold Your Hand” by the Beatles in the early months of 1964. and I remember the iconic song as a magic tune that literally changed my tastes in music. As a kid, I had collected 45s by Hit Parade Artists – songs like “The Battle of New Orleans” by Johnny Horton, “Banana Boat” by Harry Belafonte, and “How Much Is That Doggie In the Window” by Patti Page. Plus, I became a folk music fan when I was exposed to groups like the Kingston Trio by my older brother Phil. I was already a young music fan with an appetite that pretty much destroyed my 50 cents allowance with predictable regularity.
But, this song by the Beatles was so different to my 13-year-old brain. It really resonated as new territory. After I heard it, I remember trying to categorize this new sound. I couldn't really explain the appeal – it didn't sound remotely like Elvis Presley rockabilly or Platters' vocal doo-wop or any other genre I had ever heard. Granted, the song featured great harmony and traditional rock instrumentation, but it sounded fresh, exciting, groundbreaking. It was rock 'n' roll and rhythm and blues and folk in one package – all in all, the groove was simply irresistible to me … and today I want to explore why it was likewise to millions of other American teens.
American youth like me discovered the Beatles incredible versatility almost immediately. At first, it was their music that drew us in. Later, the group influenced almost every phase of our lives – fashion, politics, social issues – but first, it was their music that hit us like an intoxicating drug. We heard the change, the difference, and we felt the beautiful reflection of our culture and, damn, it just sounded great.
An American girl, Sandra Stewart, 15 years old in spring 1964 (according to Hunter Davies – the only ever authorized biographer of the group – in his book Beatles) said: "I was one day in a shop with my mother when I suddenly heard 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' on the car radio. Such a special sound! I could never stop thinking about it. No song has affected me that way. Several other girls in school had reacted in the same way. We saw the Beatles on photos and thought they were ugly. But their music was fantastic."
I know exactly what Sandra meant. The song was a new connection with rock music and youth culture. The melodic lines followed the harmonic patterns in a way that made the song remarkably melodious. And, most importantly, the music had “the beat” – the quality often described by adoring teens on Dick Clark's “Rate-A-Record” segment of American Bandstand.
The Beatles' sound was tight and extraordinary for good reason. They had honed their craft in the clubs of Hamburg and Liverpool out of necessity. In Hamburg, they were in debt in the bars, the police detained them for causing a public nuisance. Fame and wealth were still a long way off, according to Paul McCartney: "We lived backstage in the Bambi movie theater, right next to the toilets. That's true!"
The birth of the legendary Beatles sound was hard work, and they paid their musical dues with a passion unrivaled. They each made 30 Deutsche marks per night for a seven-hour gig that would last until the early morning hours; on the weekend they would play an extra hour. They lived on meatballs, beer and amphetamines. Their repertoire grew with every set. "800 hours in the rehearsal room," Paul McCartney once jokingly called the Hamburg years. It was a time that welded the band together, and that togetherness – the birth of the rock “group” – allowed the legendary Beatles sound to develop.
(“How The Beatles found their sound in Hamburg, 60 years ago.” https://www.dw.com/en/how-the-beatles-found-their-sound-in-hamburg-60-years-ago/a-54541949. Deutsche Welle. 2022.)
What we in the States didn't really know at the time was that the Beatles were already becoming a phenomenon in Europe. We were “behind” in a matter of speaking. Let me explain.
History-Making Single
In the UK, "She Loves You" had been released in August 1963 and shot back to the number-one position in November following blanket media coverage of the Beatles (aptly described as “Beatlemania”).
Mark Lewisohn later wrote:
“'She Loves You' had already sold an industry-boggling three quarters of a million before these fresh converts were pushing it into seven figures. And at this very moment, just four weeks before Christmas, with everyone connected to the music and relevant retail industries already lying prone in paroxysms of unimaginable delight, EMI pulled the trigger and released 'I Want To Hold Your Hand.' And then it was bloody pandemonium.”
(Mark Lewisohn. The Complete Beatles Chronicle. London: Chancellor Press. 1996.)
On November 29, 1963, Parlophone Records released "I Want to Hold Your Hand" in the UK, with "This Boy" joining it on the single's B-side. Demand had been building for quite a while, as evidenced by the one million advance orders for the single. When it was finally released, the response was historical.
A week after the song entered the British charts, on December 14, 1963, it knocked "She Loves You" off the top spot, the first instance of an act taking over from itself at number one in British history, and it clung to the top spot for five weeks. It stayed in the charts for another fifteen weeks and made a one-week return to the charts on May 16, 1964. During the same period, the Beatles set a record by occupying the top two positions on both the album and single charts in the UK.
EMI and Brian Epstein finally convinced American label Capitol Records, a subsidiary of EMI, that the Beatles could make an impact in the US, leading to the release of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" with "I Saw Her Standing There" on the B-side as a single on December 26, 1963.
Capitol had previously resisted issuing Beatle recordings in the U.S. This resulted in the relatively modest Vee-Jay and Swan labels releasing the group's earlier Parlophone counterparts in the US. Seizing the opportunity, Epstein demanded $40,000 from Capitol to promote the single (the most the Beatles had ever previously spent on an advertising campaign was U.S. $5,000). The single had actually been intended for release in mid-January 1964, coinciding with the planned appearance of the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. However, a 14-year-old fan of the Beatles, Marsha Albert, was determined to get hold of the single earlier. Later she said:
“It wasn't so much what I had seen, it's what I had heard. They had a scene where they played a clip of 'She Loves You' and I thought it was a great song ... I wrote that I thought the Beatles would be really popular here, and if [deejay Carroll James] could get one of their records, that would really be great.”
(Richard Harrington. "The Beatles' Helping 'Hand.'"The Washington Post. August 16, 2004.)
James was the DJ for WWDC, a radio station in Washington, DC. He eventually decided to pursue Albert's suggestion to him and asked the station's promotion director to get British Overseas Airways Corporation to ship in a copy of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" from Britain. Albert related what happened next:
"Carroll James called me up the day he got the record and said 'If you can get down here by 5 o'clock, we'll let you introduce it.'" Albert managed to get to the station in time, and introduced the record with: "Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time on the air in the United States, here are the Beatles singing 'I Want to Hold Your Hand.'"
(Lloyd de Vries. "Beatles' 'Helping Hand' Shuns Fame: Fab Four Fan Want To Find Teen Who Helped Launched Beatlemania.” CBS News. January 16, 2004.)
James played the song repeatedly on the station, often turning down the song in the middle to make the declaration, "This is a Carroll James exclusive” to avoid theft of the song by other stations. Still, Capitol threatened to seek a court order banning airplay of "I Want to Hold Your Hand,” which, by then, was already being spread by James to a couple of DJs in Chicago and St. Louis. James and WWDC ignored the threat, and Capitol came to the conclusion that they could well take advantage of the publicity, releasing the single two weeks ahead of schedule on December 26.
The history of the release is well-documented. The demand for the song can best be described as “insatiable.” In the first three days alone, a quarter million copies had already been sold (10,000 copies In New York City every hour). Capitol was so overloaded by the demand, it contracted part of the job of pressing copies off to Columbia Records and RCA. By January 18, the song had started its fifteen-week chart run, and on 1 February, the Beatles finally achieved their first number-one in America, emulating the success of another British group, the Tornados with "Telstar", which was number one on the Billboard charts for three weeks over Christmas and New Year 1962/63.
"I Want to Hold Your Hand" finally relinquished the number-one spot after seven weeks, passing the baton to the very song they had knocked off the top in Britain: "She Loves You". "I Want to Hold Your Hand" sold close to five million copies in the US alone.
(Ron Tepper. "Alan Livingston, Capitol's Former President When The Beatles Came Calling, Recalls The 'British Invasion.'" Billboard. May 04, 1974.)
The replacement of themselves at the summit of the US charts was the first time since Elvis Presley in 1956, with "Love Me Tender" beating out "Don't Be Cruel,” that an act had dropped off the top of the American charts only to be replaced by another of their releases. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" also finished as the No. 1 song for 1964, according to Billboard. In 2013, Billboard listed it as the forty-fourth most successful song of all-time on the Hot 100.
(Fred Bronson. “Hot 100 55th Anniversary: The All-Time Top 100 Songs" Billboard. August 02, 2012.)
With that, in 1964, the first shots of the "British Invasion" hit America. The Beatles led the way and opened the door for unprecedented success on the U.S. charts by other British pop and rock artists like the Rolling Stones, the Zombies, the Kinks, the Dave Clark Five, Herman's Hermits, the Hollies, the Animals, Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Searchers, the Yardbirds, the Who, Dusty Springfield, Cilla Black, Petula Clark, Tom Jones, Donovan, on and on and on.
Did I mention, “I Want To Hold Your Hand” was a magic song? Of course, when the Beatles came to America for the first time on February 7, 1964, they were greeted at the airport by a mob of screaming fans, and "I Want To Hold Your Hand" was the #1 song in the country at that time. Beatlemania was in full swing.
In this this Feb. 7, 1964 file photo, Britain’s Beatles arrive at John F. Kennedy Airport, in New York, after their flight from London. From left to right, Ringo Starr, John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison. The Beatles would go on to take America by storm, and rock 'n' roll was never the same. (AP Photo/File)
Origins Of the Song
The song was written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney in the basement of Jane Asher’s parents’ house in Wimpole Street, London. McCartney had recently moved into the house as a guest of Dr Richard and Margaret Asher,
“We wrote a lot of stuff together, one-on-one, eyeball to eyeball. Like in ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand.' I remember when we got the chord that made the song. We were in Jane Asher’s house, downstairs in the cellar playing on the piano at the same time. And we had, ‘Oh you-u-u… got that something…’ And Paul hits this chord and I turn to him and say, ‘That’s it!’ I said, ‘Do that again!’ In those days, we really used to absolutely write like that – both playing into each other’s nose.”
(John Lennon. From David Sheff. All We Are Saying. 1980.)
Online Songfacts relates that Jane Asher was an actress who became Paul's first high-profile girlfriend. After appearing in several movies, TV shows and stage productions, Asher became an authority on baking, and has her own business selling party cakes and supplying baking and decorating equipment. She and Paul broke up in 1968.
Jane had a brother named Pete Asher who teamed up with Gordon Waller to form the duo Peter & Gordon; McCartney wrote their hit single "A World Without Love." Pete recalled in a 2010 interview with Gibson.com the two Beatles penning this song at his home:
"My mother had a practice room that she used to give private oboe lessons when she wasn't teaching at The Royal Academy, where she was a professor. There was just a piano, and an upright chair and a sofa. Paul used that room to write in, from time to time. One afternoon John came over, while I was upstairs in my room. The two of them were in the basement for an hour or so, and Paul called me down to listen to a song they had just finished. I went downstairs and sat on the sofa, and they sat side by side, on the piano bench. That's where they played 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' for the first anywhere. They asked me what I thought. I said, 'I think it's very good.'" [laughs]
“I Want To Hold Your Hand’ was recorded at Abbey Road’s studio two. It was the first song The Beatles recorded using four-track technology; their previous releases had been completed using just two tracks.
One early idea – take two – was to hush the vocal line “And when I touch you.” Another – take four – saw Paul introduce the not uncommon 1963 Beatle ‘h’ into words (“Shay that shomething”).
(Mark Lewisohn. The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions. September 07, 2021.)
The recording was completed in 17 takes on the same day. The Beatles spent some time rehearsing the song before the tapes began rolling, and according to Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn, take one was largely the same as the final version.
Mono and stereo mixing was done by George Martin on October 21, 1963; further stereo mixes were done on June 8. 1965, for compilations released by EMI affiliates in Australia and the Netherlands, and on 7 November 1966.
Personnel:
John Lennon: vocals,
rhythm guitar, handclaps
Paul McCartney: vocals, bass guitar,
handclaps
George Harrison: lead guitar, handclaps
Ringo Starr:
drums, handclaps
Some critics insist the song was reminiscent of Tin Pan Alley and Brill Building techniques and an example of modified thirty-two-bar form, the song is written on a two-bridge model, with only an intervening verse to connect them.
(John Covach. "Form in Rock Music: A Primer.” In Stein, Deborah (ed.). Engaging Music: Essays in Music Analysis. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005.)
“I Want To Hold Your Hand” had no real "lead" singer, as Lennon and McCartney sang in harmony with each other. Lennon's vocals are more prominent on the recording and on the live bootleg BBC version; however, when the Beatles performed the song on The Ed Sullivan Show on 9 February 1964, McCartney's vocals could be heard more clearly (although this may have been due to the audio mix, as their microphones were not turned to the same sound level).
History Note:
Throughout their two appearances during the Sullivan show, the 721 members of the audience - mostly young girls - kept up a steady stream of squeals, sighs and yells.
The four British imports, appearing for a total of about 20 minutes on the hour-long show, may well have ended up with second billing.
Camera crews were lavish in their shots of the audience, showing young girls leaping from their seats, throwing their arms into the air and staring bug-eyed. Some appeared as if on the verge of coma, staring open-mouthed.
At one point before the program, there was some doubt that the four singers would be able to make their way into the studio through the masses of teenage fans trying for a glimpse of their idols.
But hundreds of Manhattan Police, including mounted officers, shoved back the eager fans and cleared a path for the four entertainers.
Fans also gathered outside the Plaza Hotel in sunny, freezing weather as the performers went back and forth earlier in the day to rehearse at the studio.
(“AP WAS THERE: The Beatles invade America in 1964. The Associated Press. February 9, 2014.)
The vocals were later re-recorded for the German market, as “Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand” for Electrola Gesellschaft, the German wing of EMI. This took place on January 29, 1964, at EMI’s Pathe Marconi Studios in Paris, along with “Sie Liebt Dich” (“She Loves You”) and “Can’t Buy Me Love.”
History Note:
The American single's front and back sleeves featured a photograph of the Beatles with Paul McCartney holding a cigarette. In 1984, Capitol Records airbrushed out the cigarette for the re-release of the single.
"I Want to Hold Your Hand" was also released in America on the album Meet the Beatles!, which altered the American charts by actually outselling the single. Beforehand, the American markets were more in favor of hit singles instead of whole albums; however, two months after the album's release, it had shipped 3,650,000 copies, over two hundred thousand ahead of the "I Want to Hold Your Hand" single at 3,400,000.
The song was included on the 1964 Canadian release The Beatles' Long Tall Sally. The November 1966 stereo remix appeared on 1966's A Collection of Beatles Oldies, and on several later Beatles compilation albums, including 1973's 1962–1966, 1982's 20 Greatest Hits, and 2000's 1. The 2009 CD rerelease of the Beatles' catalog included the 1966 stereo remix on Past Masters and the original mono mix on Mono Masters.
And, as they are apt to do, some critics at the time saw the composition as nothing more than another fad song that would not hold up to the test of time. Cynthia Lowery of the Associated Press expressed her exasperation with Beatlemania by saying of the Beatles:
"Heaven knows we've heard them enough. It has been impossible to get a radio weather bulletin or time signal without running into 'I Want to Hold Your Hand.'”
Lowery wrote in her review of the Sullivan show …
“And now, having seen the four performers on Ed Sullivan's CBS show last night, Beatlemania is even more of a mystery to an elderly viewer.They sing close harmony, stomp their feet and play electric guitars, but so do a lot of crew-cut American boys in slacks and sweaters, and they cause no riots.
“Beatle clothes look about two sizes too small, and I've seen Hungarian sheep dogs with more attractive hairdos. But thousands of squealing young girls get their message.
“Camera shots of panting youngsters in Sullivan's audience were disquieting, in fact.
Maybe after two more exposures to the Beatles on television, all of us elderly people will become Beatlenuts, yeah, yeah, yeah, but I doubt it.”
(“AP WAS THERE: The Beatles invade America in 1964. The Associated Press. February 9, 2014.)
But, Bob Dylan was impressed by the Beatles' innovation, saying, "They were doing things nobody was doing. Their chords were outrageous, just outrageous, and their harmonies made it all valid." For a time Dylan thought the Beatles were singing "I get high" instead of "I can't hide". He was surprised when he met them and found out that none of them had actually smoked marijuana.
(David Segal. "The Rock Journalist at a High Point in Music History." The Washington Post. August 3, 2005.)
Recognition
“I Want To Hold Your Hand” was nominated for the Grammy Award for Record of the Year, but the award went to Astrud Gilberto and Stan Getz for "The Girl from Ipanema.” However, in 1998, the song won the Grammy Hall of Fame Award.
It has also made the list in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. In addition, the Recording Industry Association of America, the National Endowment for the Arts and Scholastic Press have named "I Want to Hold Your Hand" as one of the Songs of the Century. Template:RS500S.
In 2010, Rolling Stone placed the song at number two on the 100 Greatest Beatles Songs after "A Day in the Life.” It was ranked number two in Mojo's list on the "100 Records That Changed the World", after Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti.”
The song was ranked number thirty-nine on Billboard's All Time Top 100.
As of August 2015, "I Want to Hold Your Hand" is ranked as the 45th best song of all time, as well as the number three song of 1963, in an aggregation of critics' lists at acclaimedmusic.net.
Time included the song on its list of the All-TIME 100 Songs.
The Bottom Line
I will end this entry with the same sentiment I used to open – “I Want To Hold Your Hand” was a magic song. You can read articles and even books about it; you can analyze its structure; and you can debate its rank as one of the greatest popular recordings of all time.
But …
To teen minds of 1964, the song ignited dreams that had never been imagined. It launched Beatlemania and the British Invasion, the cultural phenomenon that started an instant frenzy to form rock groups in every high school and town in America. Countless bands sprang up seemingly overnight both to celebrate the music and to meet the demand for its popular consumption. It really rocked … and its shock waves continued to change culture and usher in a musical revolution, the Love Generation, and the Peace Movement.
When I hear “I Want To Hold Your Hand” today, I marvel at how a simple song with a benign lyric could stimulate such interest and change. I've tried to give you a few ideas about how the times, the youth, the Beatles, and their incredible music did so, but I doubt those without a strong reference to America in 1964 can really understand. The fact that the magic song remains an enigma is testament to its unprecedented influence.
Beatles' Sonnet
You’re living in a
"Yellow Submarine."
"Helter Skelter," "Hold
Me Tight," "My Honey Pie."
The lyrics seemed so
lofty yet serene.
Like Lucy with her diamonds in the sky.
Their
music prompting screams of “Hold Me Tight,”
fit perfect with
the spirit of the age.
The generation of “A Hard Day’s
Night”
had found an outlet to express their rage.
"Junk"
littering the "Long and Winding Road"
led disillusioned
youngsters toward decay.
Yes,"Mother Nature’s Sons"
had found the code.
From "Hey Jude" to the austere "Blue
Jay Way."
The Beatles proved that music with
vibration
Could discombobulate a bitter nation.
Written September 29th, 2005 © Jennifer Clauson
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