Writers: John Lennon, Paul McCartney Producer: George Martin Released: Dec. 63, Capitol 15 weeks; no. 1 As a young, struggling beat group, playing grueling gigs at grubby bars, the Beatles had an in-joke to cheer themselves up: declaring that they were going to the toppermost of the poppermost. By 1963, they meant it enough to issue an ultimatum. We said to [manager] Brian Epstein, Were not going to America till weve got a Number One record, Paul McCartney said. So he and John Lennon went to the home of the parents of Jane Asher, McCartneys girlfriend, where — one on one, eyeball to eyeball, as Lennon put it — they wrote I Want to Hold Your Hand, an irresistibly erotic come-on framed as a chaste, bashful request. The lightning-bolt energy of their collaboration ran through the bands performance, taped October 17th, 1963. It lunges out of the speakers with a rhythm so tricky that the first wave of bands to cover the song often couldnt figure it out; Lennon and McCartney constantly switch between unison and harmonies, both of them snapping and whooping like they own the melody. Every element of the song is a hook, from Lennons Chuck Berry riffing to George Harrisons string-snapping guitar fills to the quartets syncopated hand claps. With advance orders at a million copies, I Want to Hold Your Hand was released in the U.K. in late November, and promptly bumped the bands own She Loves You from the top of the charts. After 15-year-old Marsha Albert convinced a Washington, D.C., DJ to seek out an imported copy of the single, it quickly became a hit on the few American stations that managed to score a copy. Rush-released in America the day after Christmas, I Want to Hold Your Hand hit Number One in the States on February 1st, 1964. When the bandmates got the news in Paris, during a three-week stand there, they partied all night. The single was certified gold two days later, and four days after that, the Beatles landed in New York the way theyd wanted: toppermost of the poppermost. https://youtube/watch?v=ipADNlW7yBM
Posted on: Tue, 28 Oct 2014 18:18:03 +0000
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