21. All My Loving

 

 

"All My Loving" is a song by The Beatles, written by Paul McCartney, but credited to Lennon/McCartney, from the 1963 album With the Beatles.

 

It was the first of only a few occasions where McCartney wrote the lyrics before the music, as it was allegedly conceived as a poem while the Beatle was shaving. McCartney envisioned it originally as a country & western song–hence Harrison’s Nashville influenced-guitar solo–and the music was written backstage on a piano during The Beatles’ Roy Orbison tour. Another "letter" song, like "P.S. I Love You", "All My Loving" promptly drew much critical acclaim. It was the band's opening number on their famous US debut performance on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964.

 

According to Alan Weiss, a TV producer who happened to be there, "All My Loving" was playing on the sound system at Roosevelt Hospital emergency room when John Lennon was brought in after being shot by Mark David Chapman on 8 December 1980.

 

 

Recording

The Beatles recorded the song on July 30, 1963 in 11 takes with 3 overdubs. The master take was take 14 overdubbed on take 11. It was remixed on August 21 and October 29.

 

 

Other releases and covers

It is also included on other Beatles albums: Anthology 1, Live at the BBC, and The Beatles 1962-1966. The song has been covered by Helloween, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, Los Manolos (for the 1992 Summer Olympics), and Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass, on their 1964 album South of the Border, among others. An acoustic cover of this song performed as a warm-up by The Bravery can be seen on the Journal section of their website.

 

An instrumental version of this song appears in the movie Magical Mystery Tour

22. Don't Bother Me

 

 

"Don't Bother Me" is the first song written by George Harrison to appear on a Beatles album. It originally appeared on the group's With the Beatles album in the UK and on their Meet the Beatles! album in the U.S.

 

Harrison wrote the song while sick in bed at a hotel room in Bournemouth, England (where The Beatles were playing some shows during the summer of 1963). Harrison never regarded it highly, stating on one occasion, "'It was a fairly crappy song. I forgot all about it completely once it was on the album." He considered it an exercise in whether he could write a song, later saying, "At least it showed me that all I needed to do was keep on writing and then maybe eventually I would write something good." Harrison receives a writing credit for two earlier songs, "In Spite of All the Danger" (Paul McCartney/Harrison) and "Cry for a Shadow" (Harrison/John Lennon). Both were recorded by The Beatles but neither was released officially by the band until 1995's Anthology 1 compilation. Because the former was largely a McCartney composition and the latter was an instrumental pastiche of The Shadows, "Don't Bother Me" is considered Harrison's first song by most (including the author himself).

 

The sullen mood and desolate lyrics--"So go away, leave me alone, don't bother me"--were unusual for The Beatles at the time but would become characteristic for Harrison. The song mostly stays in a minor key and achieves a thick sound through its double-tracked vocal, reverbed guitars, and busy drumming. The elaborate percussion lends the song a Latin rhythm accentuated by its stop-time structure.

 

"Don't Bother Me" is one of several songs featured in A Hard's Day's Night, during a scene where The Beatles dance at a nightclub while Paul's grandfather gambles elsewhere.

 

 

23. Little Child

 

 

"Little Child" is song by The Beatles from their album With the Beatles. It was written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney for Ringo Starr, but instead he was given "I Wanna Be Your Man" as his album song.

 

McCartney describes "Little Child" as being a "work song", an "album filler". He admits to stealing the line: "I’m so sad and lonely" from Elton Hayes (a British balladeer and actor) but which song it’s taken from is unclear. The phrase "sad and lonely" also appears in the song Act Naturally, which Starr covered for the album Help!. McCartney overdubs piano, and Lennon plays harmonica (Lennon’s harmonica playing on this track is very much inspired by Cyril Davies, who was part of Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated.)

 

 

24. Till There Was You

 

 

"Till There Was You" is a song written by Meredith Willson for his 1957 musical play The Music Man, and which also appeared in the 1962 movie version. The song is sung by librarian Marian Paroo (Barbara Cook on Broadway, Shirley Jones in the film) to Professor Harold Hill (portrayed by Robert Preston) toward the end of Act Two.

 

In 1959, Anita Bryant recorded a single which reached #30 on the Billboard Hot 100; a 1962 instrumental version by Valjean was also popular.

 

 

The Beatles' version

Perhaps the best-known cover version was recorded by The Beatles. It was included on their albums With the Beatles (UK Release, 1963), Meet the Beatles (US Release, 1964). The song was the only Broadway tune the Beatles ever recorded.

 

“Till There Was You” was a minor hit in the UK for Peggy Lee in March 1961. McCartney was introduced to her music by his older cousin, Bett Robbins, who would occasionally baby-sit the two McCartney brothers. McCartney said: “I had no idea until much later that it was from The Music Man”. "Till There Was You" was part of The Beatles repertoire in 1962 and performed at the Star Club in Hamburg. It became illustrative of The Beatles versatility, proving they could appeal to all sections of an audience, moving easily from ballads to rock and roll, as in their Royal Command Performance when they followed this song with "Twist and Shout".

 

Live versions of the song turned up on Live at the BBC (released in 1994) and Anthology 1 (released in 1995). The latter version was recorded when The Beatles played at the Royal Command (Variety) Performance in November 1963.

 

The Beatles also performed "Till There Was You" as part of their failed audition for Decca Records in London on January 1st, 1962.

 

The song was the second of six the group sang during their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show on February 9th, 1964.

 

 

25. Please Mister Postman

 

 

Please Mr. Postman" was the debut single by The Marvelettes for the Tamla (Motown) label, notable as the first Motown song to reach the number-one position on the Billboard Hot 100 pop singles chart. The single achieved this position in late 1961; it hit number-one on the R&B chart as well. "Please Mr. Postman" became a number-one hit again in early 1975, when the Carpenters' cover of the song also reached the top position of the Billboard Hot 100.

 

"Please Mr. Postman" has been covered frequently, including a version by The Beatles on their With the Beatles album. Sung by John Lennon, their version reverses the genders. Later, a second hit version was recorded by The Carpenters, whose version took the song again to number-one on the Hot 100 in early 1975. The song has also been sampled by rapper Juelz Santana for his single "Oh Yes," and is used by the Rob, Arnie and Dawn Show to introduce their Listener Mail segment.

 

 

The Beatles' version

The Beatles included "Please Mister Postman" as part of their live act in 1962, performing it regularly at the Cavern Club. By the time it was recorded for their second album, With the Beatles, it had been dropped from their set, and required some work in the studio to bring it up to an acceptable standard. Ian MacDonald criticised their version for having a "wall of sound" and for a "general airlessness."

 

 

 

26. Roll Over Beethoven

 

 

"Roll Over Beethoven" is a 1956 hit single by Chuck Berry originally released on Chess Records, with "Drifting Heart" as the b-side. The lyrics of the song call mention rock and roll and the desire for rhythm and blues to replace classical music. The song has been covered by many other artists and Rolling Stone ranked it #97 on their list the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

 

Cover versions

It is one of the most widely covered songs in popular music—"a staple of rock & roll bands" according to Koda—with notable versions by Jerry Lee Lewis, The Beatles and the Electric Light Orchestra. Other covers were performed by Status Quo, The Byrds, The 13th Floor Elevators, The Sonics, Gene Vincent, Uriah Heep on Uriah Heep Live and the Australian band Buster Brown on their 1974 album Something to Say. In 1992, the English Heavy Metal band, Iron Maiden covered it as a B-side to its "From Here to Eternity" single.

 

 

The Beatles

"Roll Over Beethoven" was a favourite of John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison even before they had chosen "The Beatles" as their name, and they continued to play it live right into their American tours of 1964. Their version of "Roll Over Beethoven" was recorded on 30 July 1963 for their second British LP, With the Beatles, and features George Harrison on vocals and guitar. In the United States, it was released 10 April 1964 as the opening track of The Beatles' Second Album.

 

In 1994, the Beatles released a live version of "Roll Over Beethoven" on Live at the BBC. This live version was recorded on 28 February 1964 and broadcast on 30 March 1964 as part of a BBC series starring the Beatles called From Us To You.

27. Hold Me Tight

 

 

"Hold Me Tight" is a Beatles song from their 1963 album With the Beatles. It was first recorded during the Please Please Me album session, but not selected for inclusion and re-recorded for their second album. It was the first of only two occasions when a song was held over from one Beatles album to appear on the next, "Wait" (left off Help! then included on Rubber Soul) being the other.

 

"Hold Me Tight" was composed principally by McCartney in 1961, and was part of The Beatles stage act until 1963. It is generally considered one of the Beatles' weakest efforts. In their best-selling The Beatles: An Illustrated Record, Roy Carr and Tony Tyler call it the album's poorest track, saying it "fails because McCartney's vision of the complete tune obviously sagged somewhat, and his distressingly out-of-tune singing became quite embarrassing after only a few bars."

 

Indeed, both Paul McCartney and John Lennon had, at one time or another, shared their distaste for the song, and in a 1980s interview with Mark Lewisohn in The Beatles Recording Sessions, McCartney says, "I can't remember much about that one. Certain songs were just 'work' songs, you haven't got much memory of them. That's one of them." In Barry Miles' Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now, the songwriter calls it "a failed attempt at a single which then became an acceptable album filler."

 

Ian MacDonald redeems it however, in his book Revolution in the Head, he writes: "Play it loud with the bass boosted, and you have an overwhelming motoric [sic] rocker strongly redolent of the band’s live sound."

 

McCartney wrote a different song called "Hold Me Tight" for a medley included on his 1973 solo album Red Rose Speedway.

 

28. You Really Got A Hold On Me

 

(1969 "Get Back" sessions messing about version = very funny!)

 

"You've Really Got a Hold on Me" is a 1962 hit single by The Miracles for the Tamla (Motown) label. Written by Smokey Robinson and featuring Robinson on lead vocals, the song explores the feelings of a man so in love with a woman that he can't leave her despite the fact that she treats him badly. The song was a major hit for the Miracles, peaking at number-eight on the Billboard Hot 100 and at number-one on the R&B chart. The Miracles' version is a 1998 Grammy Hall of Fame inductee. It was also the groups' second million seller. ("Shop Around" was the first).

 

The song, one of the most famous of the early Motown era, has been covered extensively since its release, including a famous cover by The Beatles on their With the Beatles in the UK and on The Beatles' Second Album in the US. The song was also covered by Percy Sledge, The Zombies, and The Supremes,among many others.

 

The Beatles' version

"You Really Got A Hold On Me" was the first track recorded for The Beatles second LP With the Beatles, and features John Lennon on lead vocal with George Harrison on close harmony. The Beatles acquired an imported copy and included it in their repertoire early in 1963. This session for the new LP began with "Please Please Me" still at number one in the album charts four months after its release, and in the midst of a rigorous touring schedule that also had to include BBC sessions for radio and television.

29. I Wanna Be Your Man

 

 

"I Wanna Be Your Man" is a rock song written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and recorded separately by The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Although The Beatles' version is better-known today, the Rolling Stones' version was released earlier.

 

The Beatles' version was sung by Ringo Starr and appeared on the album With the Beatles. It was driven by a heavily tremoloed, open E chord on a guitar played through a VOX AC30 amplifier with the "tremolo" setting turned up.

 

The Rolling Stones' version, an early hit single for them, was very "bluesy" and featured Brian Jones's distinctive slide guitar. It also is one of the few Stones songs to feature backing vocals by Jones.

 

According to various accounts, either the Rolling Stones' manager/producer Andrew Loog Oldham or the Rolling Stones themselves ran into Lennon and McCartney on the street as the two were returning from an awards luncheon. Listening to the Rolling Stones' camp plea for a single, the pair travelled back to rehearsal and finished off the song—whose verse they had already been working on—in the corner of the room while the impressed Rolling Stones watched. Lennon later commented, "That shows how much importance we put on it. We weren't going to give them anything great, right?"

 

30. Devil In Her Heart

 

(audio only)

 

"Devil In Her Heart" was a George Harrison stage number during 1962 - 1963, originally recorded in Detroit by the Donays (for Correc-tone, but later picked up by the New York label Brent and re-released in August 1962), as "(There’s A) Devil In His Heart" (on Brent 7033, with the B-side "Bad Boy"). It was written by Richard P. Drapkin, who recorded under the name Ricky Dee, and it appeared in the UK on the Oriole label. The Donays only made one record but their lead singer Yvonne Allen recorded solo and later joined The Elgins at Motown.

 

The Beatles rushed through this cover needing only three takes plus overdubs to complete it for their second LP, With The Beatles. This haste that John Lennon and Paul McCartney adopted towards recording Harrison and Ringo Starr material would gradually become the norm over time, the exception being Lennon/McCartney compositions written specifically for them.

31. Not A Second Time

 

No Video / Audio

 

"Not a Second Time" is a song by John Lennon (credited to McCartney/Lennon) performed by The Beatles on their album With the Beatles. Lennon said he was "trying to write a Smokey Robinson or something at the time."

 

The song was recorded on August 21, 1963 at Abbey Road Studios.

 

Robert Palmer covered the song in 1980 on his album Clues.

 

 

 

32. Money

 

 

"Money (That's What I Want)" is a 1959 hit single by Barrett Strong for the Tamla label, distributed by Anna Records. The song was written by Tamla founder Berry Gordy and Janie Bradford, and would become the first hit record for Gordy's Motown flagship label. The single became Motown's first hit in June, 1960, making it to #2 on the US R&B charts and #23 on the US pop charts.

 

The song has been covered by a plethora of artists, including Buddy Guy, The Beatles, John Lennon during his solo career, The Kingsmen, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Doors, Pearl Jam, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Flying Lizards, Shonen Knife, Secret Machines, The Sonics, The Smashing Pumpkins, Hanson, Cheap Trick, Josie and the Pussycats, Great White, The Blues Brothers, The Avengers (band), and Motown labelmates The Supremes, Jr. Walker & the All Stars and The Miracles.

 

The song was also featured in the movie Animal House in which it was performed by John Belushi. When the Blues Brothers band covered the song 18 years later on their Blues Brothers & Friends: LIVE! From Chicago's H.O.B album it was performed by John's brother Jim Belushi in the role of Brother Zee Blues along with Elwood Blues and Sam Moore.

 

Also, the song was used in the Beatles biopic Backbeat performed by a band composed of alt-rock musicians (including REM's Mike Mills, and Nirvana's Dave Grohl. It was mimed in the film by the actors playing the Beatles.

 

 

 

 

 

33. I Want To Hold Your Hand

 

 

I Want to Hold Your Hand" is a 1963 Beatles song that was written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and started the British Invasion of the United States music charts. It was the first Beatles record to be made using four-track equipment and the Beatles' first number-one song on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, heralding nineteen more number-one singles by the Beatles in the United States. It also held the top spot in the United Kingdom charts, a million copies of the single had already been ordered on its release. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" became The Beatles' best-selling single worldwide.

 

McCartney and Lennon did not have any particular inspiration for the song, unlike some of their later hits such as "Yesterday", "Hey Jude" and "Strawberry Fields Forever". Instead, they had received specific instructions from manager Brian Epstein to write a song with the American market in mind. The song was also recorded in German as "Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand" ("Come, give me your hand"), one of only two times the Beatles recorded a song entirely in a language other than English (the other being "She Loves You").

 

 

Writing in a basement

Lennon and McCartney were encouraged by manager Brian Epstein to write something intended to cater to the interests of American listeners. The two Beatles sat at a piano in the basement of a house and began jamming with it. However, whose house it was is in contention. Most sources indicate that "I Want to Hold Your Hand" was composed in the cellar of Jane Asher's home in Wimpole Street, London; she was McCartney's girlfriend at the time. This story was supported by Lennon; in September 1980, he told Playboy magazine (in an interview published in December, the month in which he died):

 

“ 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 noses. ”

 

McCartney, however, disagreed, saying only a year after writing the song:

 

“ Let's see, we were told we had to get down to it. So we found this house when we were walking along one day. We knew we had to really get this song going, so we got down in the basement of this disused house and there was an old piano. It wasn't really disused, it was rooms to let. We found this old piano and started banging away. There was a little old organ too. So we were having this informal jam and we started banging away. Suddenly a little bit came to us, the catch line. So we started working on it from there. We got our pens and paper out and just wrote down the lyrics. Eventually, we had some sort of a song, so we played it for our recording manager and he seemed to like it. We recorded it the next day. ”

 

In 1994, McCartney said that he agreed with Lennon's description of the circumstances surrounding the composition of "I Want to Hold Your Hand", but did not specifically mention Lennon's claim that it had been written in Asher's home: "'Eyeball to eyeball' is a very good description of it. That's exactly how it was. 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' was very co-written."[2]

 

McCartney and Lennon did not have a specific inspiration for the song. However, they were considerably impressed by the song, and so was Epstein, who had been in a state of worry after several of the Beatles' earlier singles had flopped in the U.S. charts. Upon hearing the song, according to the legend, Epstein confidently booked several venues in America for Beatles performances, a full two months before the song was released as a single. The Beatles took the story further when they arrived in America, declaring that they refused to go to America until they had a number-one hit there. However, in reality, Epstein first booked a venue for a Beatles performance in America before "I Want to Hold Your Hand" was even recorded.

 

 

In the studio

The Beatles started recording "I Want to Hold Your Hand" at Abbey Road Studios in Studio 2 on 17 October 1963. Notably, this marked the end of the Beatles using two-track recording; from then until 1968, all Beatles releases were recorded on four-track machines. A studio montage in The Beatles Anthology includes an audio clip of McCartney instructing Ringo Starr on the dynamics of the drums in the song's intro.

 

"I Want to Hold Your Hand" was one of the few Beatles songs to be recorded in German. The German arm of EMI (the parent company of the Beatles' record label, Parlophone Records) was convinced that The Beatles' releases would not sell unless they were in German. The Beatles detested the idea, but George Martin managed to persuade them to give it a try. However, when they were due to record the German version on 27 January 1964, they did not arrive for the session.

 

Martin later recounted his anger at the Beatles' rudeness:

 

“ The boys were enjoying their new life. They were very busy and they were tasting their first fruits of success. I had asked them to appear at the EMI studios one afternoon and I got there with this German fellow, who came to coach them with this language and when the time came, I think it was four o'clock, there was no sign of them, at all! I was a bit puzzled by this, and thought, 'I wonder what has happened to them?' So I rang their hotel and I spoke to Neil Aspinall, who said, 'Oh, they are having tea. They're not going to come.' And so I said, 'But, why?' And he said, 'Well, they don't want to. They've decided they don't want to make a record in German, after all.' I was absolutely livid! So, I hopped in a cab, together with the German, and I tore to the George V Hotel and I burst in on the scene and they were all having tea there, the four Beatles, the two road managers, and the only woman present was Jane Asher. It was rather like the Mad Hatter's tea party in Alice In Wonderland because Jane was pouring tea from a China tea pot with her long gold hair and the others sitting around, rather like the March Hare. And as I burst into the room, and yelled at them, they all fled to corners of the room. The place disintegrated. There wasn't anyone left at the table except Jane Asher pouring tea. The four mop-tops were in each corner of the room, just looking over a cushion, or a chair, pretending to hide, and laughing. I said, 'Look, you really owe this fellow a great apology. He's come all this way, over from Germany, so, say you're sorry.' And they, in their cheeky Liverpool way, said, 'Oh, sorry, so sorry!' After that, they came and did the German record in the studio. They still didn't like doing it very much, but they did it. That was the very first time I had a row with them, and probably the only time. ”

 

Two days later, the Beatles recorded "Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand" at the Pathe Marconi Studios in Paris, one of the few times in their career that they recorded outside of London.

 

 

Launching the invasion

 

The British single of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" received a million orders before it was even shipped.On 29 November 1963, Parlophone Records released "I Want to Hold Your Hand" in the United Kingdom, 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 phenomenal. A week after it entered the British charts, on 14 December 1963, it knocked "She Loves You", another Beatles song, off the top spot, the first such instance of the same act taking over from itself at number one in British history, clinging to the top spot for five full weeks. It stayed in the charts for another fifteen weeks afterwards, and incredibly made a one-week return to the charts on 16 May 1964. Beatlemania was peaking at that time; during the same period, the Beatles set a record by occupying the top two positions on both the album and single charts in the United Kingdom.

 

EMI and Brian Epstein finally convinced American label Capitol Records, a subsidiary of EMI, that the Beatles could make an impact in the United States, 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 U.S. Seizing the opportunity, Epstein demanded US$40,000 from Capitol to promote the single (the most the Beatles had ever previously spent on an advertising campaign was US$5,000). The single had actually been intended for release in mid-January of 1964, coinciding with the planned appearance of the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. However, a 15-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. ”

 

James was the deejay for WWDC, a radio station in Washington, D.C. Eventually he 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.'"

 

The song proved to be a huge hit, a surprise for the station, as they catered mainly to a more staid audience, which would normally be expecting songs from singers such as Andy Williams or Bobby Vinton instead of rock and roll. James took to playing 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.

 

Capitol threatened to seek a court order banning airplay of "I Want to Hold Your Hand", which was already being spread by James to a couple of deejays 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 26 December.

 

 

The American single of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" had shipped 250,000 copies just three days after its release, heralding the British Invasion of AmericaThe demand was insatiable; in the first three days alone, a quarter million copies had already been sold. In New York City, 10,000 copies flew off the shelves 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 February 1, 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. The Beatles 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". Hunter Davies's biography of the band states that "I Want to Hold Your Hand" received certification for sales of 5 million copies in the US alone. The replacement of themselves at the summit of the U.S. 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.

 

With that, the "British Invasion" of America had been launched, and the music scene there would never be the same. Throughout the whole of 1964, only British artists were flying high at the top of the American charts; besides the Beatles, other dominant British acts of that period included the Dave Clark Five, the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, the Hollies and Herman's Hermits.

 

The American single's front and back sleeves featured a photograph of the Beatles with Paul 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 Meet the Beatles!, which groundbreakingly altered the American charts by actually outselling the single. Beforehand, the American markets were more in favour of hit singles instead of whole albums; however, two months after the album's release, it had shipped more than three-and-a-half million copies, a little over a hundred thousand ahead of the "I Want to Hold Your Hand" single.

 

 

Aftermath

The song was greeted by raving fans on both sides of the Atlantic but was dismissed by some critics 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'." Another critic declared that the Beatles were "really pretty boring to listen to. Their act is absolutely nothing," and that "[t]heir greatest asset is that they look like rather likable, almost innocent young fellows who have merely hit a lucky thing."

 

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 understandably surprised when he met them and found out that none of them had actually smoked marijuana.

 

Although the song was nominated for the Grammy Award for Record of the Year, 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. In 2004, it was ranked number 16 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.

 

"I Want to Hold Your Hand" was not subject to numerous cover versions like other Beatles songs such as "Yesterday" or "Something", although Arthur Fiedler & the Boston Pops Orchestra did attempt an instrumental version in 1964, which actually rose as high as number 55 in the American charts. Another cover was by the Moving Sidewalks, who made a psychedelic version in the late 1960s. French parodic band Odeurs covered the song as a military march sung with a strong German accent. The pre-"Dirty Water" Standells performed the song in a guest appearance as themselves in the sitcom The Munsters, along with another song called "Do the Ringo." Most notably, bop-guitarist Grant Green included a stunning jazz recording of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" as the title track of a 1965 album. Interestingly, the other tunes were jazz standards, perhaps validating Green's prescient appreciation of the Beatles' burgeoning musicality. The American band Sparks also delivered an unusual Philadelphia Sound-style cover of the song in the mid-1970s. It was also covered by R&B band Lakeside. The Beatles/Metallica fusion group Beatallica performed an homage to the song, titled "I Want to Choke Your Band", on their 2004 eponymous second album. Neil Innes' the Rutles also memorably pastiched the song with laser-like accuracy as "Hold My Hand" in 1978. On Devo's debut album, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!, the song Uncontrollable Urge opens with a distorted version of I Want to Hold Your Hand's opening riff.

 

For the 2006 album Love, coinciding with the Cirque Du Soleil production of the same title, George Martin and his son, Giles, melded the original studio recording with a live performance at the Hollywood Bowl, complete with screaming hordes of teenage girls and the famous introduction from The Ed Sullivan Show, "Here they are ... the Beatles!!"

 

 

Melody and lyrics

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. The original song has no real "lead" singer or even a clearly defined melody, as Lennon and McCartney sing in harmony with each other. It could be argued that Lennon is leading McCartney, as Lennon's vocals are more prominent on the recording; however, when the Beatles performed the song on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964, McCartney's vocals could be heard more clearly (although this may have been due to a poor audio mix). The song opens with a few stuttering guitar chords, then, in true Beatles fashion, lunges upward, relying on a surprising minor chord, joined by George Harrison's guitar riffs. During each verse, the singers make a sudden jump a whole octave higher with the word "hand", harmonised with a jump of a fifth.

 

The song is about a man expressing his feelings for his lover, and at first, the singing is performed in a seemingly shy and bashful manner, with the singer pausing every few words: "Oh yeah, I (pause) tell you something (pause) I think you'll understand". However, when the chorus is reached and the singers make the octave-long jump, there is no hiding their feelings, with an uninterrupted "I want to hold your hand". The lyrics are straightforward and simple compared with later works of the Beatles.

 

During live performances of the song, Lennon often changed the words to "I want to hold your gland" (meaning breast/mammary gland), because no one could hear the vocals above the noise of the screaming audiences.

 

 

34. This Boy

 

 

This Boy" is a song by The Beatles. The song was first released in November 1963 as the B-side of the UK Parlophone single "I Want to Hold Your Hand". The Beatles performed it on 16 February 1964 for their second Ed Sullivan Show appearance in the USA.

 

According to George Harrison, "This Boy" was an attempt by John Lennon and Paul McCartney at writing a tune in the style of Motown star Smokey Robinson - specifically his song (the Lennon favourite) "I've Been Good To You" which has similar chord changes, melody and, arrangement. Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison join together to sing in a three-part harmony in the verses and refrain. The same technique is exercised in later Beatle songs, most famously on the 1969 song "Because" on Abbey Road. Lennon was later quoted saying that the song "Yes It Is", the B-side of the 1965 single "Ticket to Ride", was him trying to re-write this song.

 

An instrumental version of "This Boy", orchestrated by George Martin, is used as the background musical theme when Ringo does his "walkabout" in the film A Hard Day's Night. The piece, under the title, "Ringo's Theme (This Boy)" is included on the American A Hard Day's Night soundtrack album.

 

 

Recordings

Besides the initial recording, alternate recordings have also been officially released. A live version performed on The Morecambe and Wise Show in 1963 was released on Anthology 1 and two incomplete takes from the original recording were released as a track on the single Free as a Bird.

 

 

Cover versions

At the 2001 John Lennon "Come Together" concert in New York City, Rufus Wainwright performed this song with John's son Sean Lennon.

 

 

35. Can't Buy Me Love

 

 

"Can't Buy Me Love" is the title of a song composed by Paul McCartney (credited to Lennon/McCartney) and released by The Beatles on the A side of their sixth British single, "Can't Buy Me Love/You Can't Do That."

 

It was recorded on 29 January 1964 at EMI’s Pathe Marconi Studios in Paris, France, where the Beatles were performing 18 days of concerts at the Olympia Theatre. EMI’s West Germany branch, Odeon, insisted that the Beatles would not sell records in Germany unless they were actually sung in German. Reluctantly, the Beatles agreed to re-record the vocals to “She Loves You”, and “I Want To Hold Your Hand”. This was accomplished well within the allotted studio time allowing them the opportunity to record the backing track to the recently composed “Can’t Buy Me Love”. McCartney’s final vocal was overdubbed at Abbey Road Studios, London, on 25 February. Also re-recorded on this day at Abbey Road was Harrison's guitar solo, although his original solo can still be heard, as it had bled onto the basic track via the group microphones.

 

While in Paris, they stayed at the five star George V hotel and had an upright piano moved into one of their suites so that song writing could continue. It was here that McCartney wrote "Can't Buy Me Love." The song was written under the pressure of the success achieved by "I Want to Hold Your Hand" which had just reached number one in America. When producer George Martin first heard it, he felt the song needed “tagging” front and back. He suggested dropping the lyric “everybody tells me so” from the opening chorus, and instead, just repeating "love, oh" from the first two bars. And then by repeating the vocal (and melody) over the last two bars of the chorus, you were quickly into the song’s verse. This is also how the song closes. The song’s verse is a twelve bar blues in structure, i.e. CCCC FFCC GFFC, a formula the Beatles rarely applied to their own material. It became one of the first pop songs to begin with its chorus and one of the first Beatles songs not to include any other singers besides the lead vocalist (in this case, McCartney). It was also the only occasion that a Beatles song was recorded outside of Britain.

 

When pressed by American journalists in 1966 to reveal the song's "true" meaning, McCartney denied that "Can't Buy Me Love" was about prostitution, stating that, although it was open to interpretation, that suggestion was going too far, saying: “The idea behind it was that all these material possessions are all very well, but they won’t buy me what I really want.”Although he was to later comment: “It should have been “Can Buy Me Love” when reflecting on the perks that money and fame had brought him.

 

It became their fourth UK number-one single and their third single to sell over a million copies in the UK. It also topped the charts in the U.S.

 

Rolling Stone ranked "Can't Buy Me Love" at #289 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

 

U.S. music charts

The Beatles established four records on the Billboard Hot 100 with "Can't Buy Me Love" at number one:

 

Until Billboard began using SoundScan for their charts, it had the biggest jump to number one: (number twenty-seven to number one; no other single ever did this).

It gave the Beatles three consecutive number-one songs ("I Want to Hold Your Hand" was replaced at number one by "She Loves You" which was in turn replaced by "Can't Buy Me Love").

When "Can't Buy Me Love" went to number one (4 April 1964), the entire top five of the Hot 100 was by the Beatles, the next positions being filled by "Twist and Shout", "She Loves You", "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "Please Please Me," respectively. No other act has ever even held the top five spots simultaneously.

During its second week at number one (11 April 1964), the Beatles had fourteen songs on the Hot 100 at the same time.

 

Cover versions

The Chipmunks (1964)

The Eliminators (1964)

Ella Fitzgerald (1964)

Johnny Rivers (1964)

George Martin (1964)

The Supremes (1964)

Dave "Baby" Cortez (1965)

Henry Mancini (1965)

Peter Sellers (1965)

Chet Atkins (1966)

Count Basie and his Orchestra (1966)

Cathy Berberian (1967)

Phil Seaman (1968)

David Clayton-Thomas (1973)

Shirley Scott & Stanley Turrentine (1978)

Stanley Turrentine (1981)

The King's Singers (1988)

The Allen Toussaint Orchestra (1989)

Elena Duran, Stephane Grappelli & Laurie Holloway (1991)

Giovanni (1993)

Shenandoah (1995)

Blackstreet (1996)

John Pizzarelli (1998)

Laurence Juber (2000)

Jive Bunny & the Mastermixers (2001)

Michael Bublé (2005)

 

36. You Can't Do That

 

 

"You Can't Do That" is a song by The Beatles credited to Lennon/McCartney and released as the B-side of the single "Can't Buy Me Love", and also included on the UK album A Hard Day's Night and the US album The Beatles' Second Album.

 

"You Can't Do That" was wholly composed by John Lennon and recorded on Tuesday, 25 February 1964, in Abbey Road Studios in London, for the flip side to their single "Can’t Buy Me Love". With filming due to begin on A Hard Day’s Night, director Dick Lester needed the Beatles to provide him with new material ahead of production, and "You Can’t Do That" was used for the Scala Theatre "live performance" portion of the film, but dropped for the final cut.

 

Another of Lennon's semi-autobiographical songs, "You Can’t Do That" allows Lennon to vent some of his aggression (the abrasive guitar solo was devised and played by him according to Ian MacDonald) and by take nine—only the fourth complete take—it was finished. The song's jealousy theme was re-visited in other Lennon compositions, such as "Run for Your Life" and "Jealous Guy".

 

Influenced by the then relatively unknown Wilson Pickett, the song is essentially a twelve bar in its structure, but Lennon introduces a sung discordant flattened 3rd (F) passing note on the D7th chord, pointedly emphasising "…I told you before…" and then pushing the same note for the exasperated “Oh!” before ultimately resolving to the song's key of G.

 

While in New York for The Ed Sullivan Show guitarist George Harrison was presented with a Rickenbacker 360 Deluxe electric 12-string guitar worth (in 1964) $900. Only the second one produced, it was heard for the first time on "You Can’t Do That" (although actually used for the first time on "Can't Buy Me Love" but lost in the mix) and gave the song its distinctive chiming sound. It would be played extensively on the A Hard Day’s Night LP, greatly influencing Roger McGuinn, who would later form The Byrds.

 

"You Can't Do That" was covered by Harry Nilsson for his debut album Pandemonium Shadow Show. Rather than simply covering it, Nilsson worked song titles from 20 other Beatles tunes into the mix.

37. I Call Your Name

 

(Ringo's 1990 version)

 

"I Call Your Name" is a song by The Beatles. Credited to Lennon & McCartney, the song was primarily written by John Lennon.

 

It was originally written by Lennon for Billy J. Kramer of the Dakotas, another Liverpool band who was signed to Parlophone by George Martin. Kramer released it as the B-side of "Bad to Me", another Lennon/McCartney composition, and hit #1 in late 1963.

 

Lennon was reportedly dissatisfied with the Dakotas' arrangement of his song, as well as its position as the single's B-side, so The Beatles recorded and released it on the 1964 Long Tall Sally EP. The song's midsection is the Beatles very successful attempt to introduce raggae (which they called "bluebeat") to European and American audiences.

 

Ringo Starr is featured as lead vocalist on bootleg versions.

 

Covers

The Mamas & The Papas covered "I Call Your Name" in 1966 on their debut album If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears. In their version of the song, Mama Cass calls out for John (Lennon) as a way of acknowledging Lennon for writing the song.

38. Slow Down

 

No Video / Audio

 

"Slow Down" is a 12-bar blues written and performed by Larry Williams. Released as a single in 1958, it was a Rhythm and Blues hit that would help influence the growing Rock & Roll movement of the time. It was released as a 7" Single (45RPM). The A-Side was "Slow Down" and the B-Side was "Dizzy Miss Lizzy", both of which later would be covered by The Beatles in 1964 and 1965 respectively.

 

The Beatles covered the song early in their live career and eventually recorded a version and released it on their Long Tall Sally EP single in the UK. Not long after, the song was released in the US on its own, with the B-Side of 1964's "Matchbox" (also a 12-bar blues, from the Long Tall Sally EP).

 

 

39. Long Tall Sally

 

 

"Long Tall Sally" is a rock and roll 12-bar blues written by Robert "Bumps" Blackwell, Enortis Johnson and Richard Penniman (Little Richard), recorded by Little Richard and released March 1956 on the Specialty Records label. The flip side was "Slippin' and Slidin'". Both songs were subsequently released in the LP "Here's Little Richard" (Specialty, March 1957)The single reached #1 on the rhythm and blues charts, staying at the top for six of 19 weeks. It received the Cashbox Triple Crown Award in 1956. The song as sung by Little Richard is #56 on Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

 

It became one of the singer's best-known hits and has become a rock and roll standard covered by hundreds of artists.

 

The Beatles wild version featured Paul McCartney singing in G, a whole step higher than Richard, in an apparent attempt to surpass his master. In the early sixties, The Beatles played as an opening act for Little Richard in England and in Hamburg and made friends with Richard, who taught them -and especially McCartney- a few lessons in singing. The famous 'ooohs' in "She Loves You" and other beatle songs came directly from the ones in "Long Tall Sally" and they are actually a Little Richard trademark.

 

"Long Tall Sally" was also covered live by Led Zeppelin at the Royal Albert Hall in 1970, but was omitted from their DVD.

40. Matchbox

 

(Carl Perkins, Eric Clapton & Ringo Starr 1985 version)

 

"Matchbox" is a rockabilly song credited to Carl Perkins and first recorded by the artist at Sun Records in 1957. It is one of Perkins' best-known recordings, although it gained additional notoriety through the wealth of cover versions that followed, notably the cover by The Beatles.

 

Although credited to Perkins, as was the case with many early rock and roll recordings, it was in fact a rewritten version of a previously-existing song that can trace its origins to a traditional blues number originally recorded in 1927. This was performed by artists ranging from Leadbelly to Blind Lemon Jefferson, and was rewritten by Perkins when he came to record his own version in 1957.

 

The song consists mainly of traditional blues lyrics, including the initial verse:

 

"I'm sittin' here wonderin, a matchbox holding my clothes (2X)

"I ain't got no matches but I still got a long way to go."

 

The Beatles

The Beatles, being fans of Perkins, began performing the song circa 1961. Their then-drummer, Pete Best, performed the lead vocals, but no studio recording featuring Best doing the song is known to exist. In 1962, John Lennon sang the song during a performance at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany; a recording of this exists and was included on Live! at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany; 1962.

 

The next year, The Beatles performed "Matchbox" with Ringo Starr on lead vocals for their BBC radio show, and this version would be included on the Live at the BBC album. Starr also got to sing lead vocals on it when it was recorded in 1964. There are suggestions that Perkins may have been present in the studio at that time. As was usually the case, all instruments on the song are played by The Beatles themselves, with the exception of the piano, which was played by producer George Martin. It appeared on the Long Tall Sally EP in the United Kingdom and the Something New album in the United States, and was also the B-side of the American "Slow Down" single, released on 24 August 1964, which reached no. 17 in the charts.

 

This song is possibly the only Beatles song to have had three different lead vocalists for their renditions of it.

 

Numerous other artists have recorded their own versions of "Matchbox", including Ronnie Hawkins and Jerry Lee Lewis. In Sam Cooke's live version, he interjects, "Can you see me putting all my clothes in a little old matchbox?"