| I Wanna Hold Your Hand |
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"I Want to Hold Your Hand" is a 1963 , 2004 . 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: McCartney, however, disagreed, saying only a year after writing the song: 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." 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: 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 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.1 Later she said: 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 demand was insatiable; in the first three days alone, a quarter million copies had already been sold. In 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 Airbrush ed 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 , 1964 ). ''The Ottawa Journal''. Another critic declared that the Beatles were "really pretty boring to listen to. Their act is absolutely nothing," and that " {Link without Title} heir greatest asset is that they look like rather likable, almost innocent young fellows who have merely hit a lucky thing." W5353, New York, NY. ASIN B000J68AZM. 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 .Segal, David (Aug. 3, 2005). The Rock Journalist At a High Point In Music History . ''Washington Post''. 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 . 2 "I Want to Hold Your Hand" was not subject to numerous , 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 ,(Covach 2005, p.70) 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 Chord s, then, in true Beatles fashion, lunges upward, relying on a surprising Minor Chord , joined by George Harrison 's Guitar Riff s. 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. CREDITS
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