February 10, 1964 (6 weeks)
For basically the entirety of 1963, LA-based Capitol Records didn't want to have anything to do with The Beatles. Then, the calendar flipped and suddenly they wanted nothing but The Beatles. (And they say the record buying public is fickle) Having dropped the ball repeatedly, they now wanted to carry it for as long as possible. Since this is an American football metaphor then they didn't simply wish to carry it into the endzone but to pull a Bo Jackson by running the ball down the ramp, out of the stadium and into the metro Seattle area — or something to that effect.
Milking it is an inevitability of commercial pop. When I was growing up, it was done to such obnoxious depths in pop that the likes of Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson and Bruce Springsteen would release albums with eight or nine singles on them. But record labels back in the sixties weren't that crass — or, more accurately, they were crass in different ways — so their solution was to simply put out more LP's. The Beatles had a standard of thirteen or fourteen tracks on their first eight albums - released within the space of just over four years - and they also put out plenty of stand alone singles and even one EP of fresh material. Capitol's solution was to put out more albums by cutting the number of tracks to eleven or twelve and filling them out with odds and ends. The Beatles hated this practice and even addressed it on the controversial 'butcher' cover of the 1966 American release Yesterday and Today.
What isn't typically mentioned is that Capitol interfered in other areas too. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" had initially been released in the UK near the end of 1963 with the thoughtful "This Boy" as its B side. It was a piece that chief composer John Lennon was justifiably proud of. Yet, the Americans weren't having it. Sure, it could be included as an album deep cut but there was no way something this melancholic was going to be on one of their singles. Instead, they chose "I Saw Her Standing There", the lead cut and one of the standouts from debut album Please Please Me. A hands down classic and the first of many album tracks that could easily have been a single in its own right. (For all the many number one hits the Fab Four would release during the sixties, they easily could have had at least half-a-dozen more)
(Capitol altering Beatles' singles in this manner would only occur once more when "Things We Said Today" was replaced as the B side to "A Hard Day's Night" by "I Should Have Known Better". Though this is another example of a ponderous offering giving way to something much more upbeat — which also could've been a hit in its own right — this change is more understandable, if for no other reason than it gave listeners the opportunity to have two songs featured in their first film on the same single)
Great as it is, I don't care for "I Saw Her Standing There" as either a B side or, in Canada's case, a double A side. It's hard to say precisely why but it just doesn't fit. Matched with "I Want to Hold Your Hand", the pairing feels like wearing colours that are kind of similar but which still manage to clash. It smacks of a calculated record company decision - which, indeed, it was. Beyond simply being a more uptempo beat tune to match the Beatlemania craze than "This Boy", it's almost as if Capitol was hedging their bets. "Well, if the A side doesn't catch on then maybe the kids will get into the B side instead". Had I been alive at the time, I might have reacted to it differently — "Damn, two bangers for the price of one!" or, to be more accurate to the era, "The B side is as groovy as the A!" — but knowing what I know now more than sixty years after the fact, it sounds out of place. "I Saw Her Standing There" was recorded only eight months prior to "I Want a Hold Your Hand" but in Beatles' time that's more like two or three years worth of development. The B side practically sounds primitive by comparison.
Still, there's no arguing with "I Want to Hold Your Hand". If not quite as thrilling as "She Loves You", it nevertheless wrapped up a banner 1963 in Britain while being an excellent entry point for the Americans in '64. While its predecessor has been picked over by critics for traces of subtext, there's little to suggest any kind of deep meaning here, particularly if you never heard the repeated "I can't hide" as "I get high". (Bob Dylan, for one, did mishear that particular lyric which led to him incorrectly assuming that The Beatles were already users of recreational drugs) Still, the song meant enough to John Lennon that he expressed a desire to someday re-record it, along with the likes of "Help!", "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "I Am the Walrus". He never described it as "real" the way he did some of his more lauded works so perhaps he simply had good memories of writing it with Paul McCartney and, in particular, the way it so effortlessly took over the United States.
It should be said that "I Want to Hold Your Hand" means great deal to many people, especially in North America. It made them superstars in a country that couldn't have cared less about them just a week or two prior to it hitting the charts. People didn't pour over its lyrical depths, and not just because it doesn't possess any. All everyone wanted to do was be caught up in the sheer delight of listening to it. Famed beat poet Allen Ginsberg got up and danced to it in a New York club, no doubt losing hipster cred along the way. It prompted folk singers to embrace pop and thousands of youngsters ended up forming bands because of it. Those of us who would rather listen to music than play it ourselves couldn't bear to be without it. Why? Because it sounds so audaciously great. "If we were to ask the average listeners what The Beatles' lyrics mean, they would say very little", Ian MacDonald noted in the introduction to his book Revolution in the Head. "If, on the other hand, we asked the same listeners what The Beatles mean to them, we would get a very different response". The Beatles may have said little but they meant everything.
Score: 8
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