The Beatles: "She Loves You"

January 20, 1964 (3 weeks)

People love to crap on Dick Rowe, the record exec for Decca who turned down The Beatles, but I'm not so sure I would've been all that thrilled by competently played but ultimately pretty uninspired run throughs of "Three Cool Chicks" and "Besame Mucho" either. No, the far greater blunder was made by Capitol Records in the United States when they turned down "She Loves You" in September of 1963. "Love Me Do"? Yeah, I can understand the urge to take a pass. "Please Please Me"? They probably could've released it but maybe they were turned off by rumours that it was about a certain sexual act. "From Me to You"? In isolation, yeah, I might have turned my nose up too. But "She Loves You"? How on earth did they sit through its two minutes and seventeen seconds of running time and conclude that it was a loser?

With a little more faith in the commercial potential of British artists, Capitol's Canadian division had no qualms about releasing the latest Beatles' single even though the Fabs still hadn't managed to dent the CHUM charts either. It probably didn't hurt that Del Shannon's admittedly rather laboured cover of "From Me to You" reached the Top 20 a month earlier, far outpacing its peak inside the bottom quarter of the Hot 100. Helping out as well was Cliff Richard's recent run of hits north of the border: if one chartbusting English star could break Canada then why couldn't another — especially one that was even hotter? But the biggest factor of all was the role of Paul White, a recent transplant from Britain to Canada who landed a job with Capitol. The young rep began pushing acts from his homeland including this quartet from Liverpool who'd been racking up hits back home but who had so far been spurned down in the States. (You can hear more about White and Capitol Canada's role in The Beatles story by checking you this informative video on Andrew from Parlogram's YouTube channel)

"She Loves You" took its time catching on in Canada but once it had finally become a hit, there was no stopping it. Moving into the the Top 10 on December 5, 1963, it remained there for sixteen weeks. After its three weeks at number one had come to an end, it dropped to two and stayed there, a loyal companion to "I Want to Hold Your Hand" which had by then usurped it. (It had even greater longevity back in Britain: after four weeks at number one it then spent seven weeks either at numbers two or three before enjoying another fortnight back on top; it ended up spending a total of twenty weeks in the Top 5) I recently blogged about Jimmy Gilmer's very likable and very catchy chart topper "Sugar Shack" and how it outstayed its welcome by remaining on top for six very long weeks. While I am well aware of its many charms that helped it get to number one, its flaws would have been painfully exposed over that month and a bit. But I am unaware of anyone who ever got sick and tired of "She Loves You" (though, granted, I have known a handful of people who never liked it to begin with; we'll chalk that up to them being dead inside). How was it that people just couldn't get enough of it?

Before I get to its appeal, a word on what it actually means — at least to the extent that it means anything at all. Critics Tom Breihan and Tom Ewing have different takes: while the former likes the subtext of warning someone that if you don't start treating this girl right then they'll be the ones who'll swoop in and take her away ("They're The Beatles. They probably already [took her away]") while the latter eschews this in favour of the more optimistic view that it's really about friendship. It certainly can be read either way but it's also worth keeping in mind that John Lennon had got married while still twenty-one to a woman he would fall out of love with before long. The Fabs had already been getting up to no good with the ladyfolk for quite some time, a trend that would only continue as their fame grew. Could "She Loves You" be a message from co-writer and friend Paul McCartney or was it projection on the part of Lennon, a man who would one day compose a song all about an affair while gently avoiding saying so outright? The Beatles weren't about to position themselves as bad guys since everyone was counting on them to be the good guys.

Or, what if it's about Lennon and/or McCartney cruelly messing with their mate in question? Consider the song's second verse:

"She said you hurt her so

She almost lost her mind,

But now she says she knows

You're not the hurting kind"

What kind of toxic shit is this? Whatever this rogue did it nearly drove her to a nervous breakdown but now all of a sudden everything's forgiven? Whatsmore, he doesn't seem to have even apologized to her, so there's nothing to suggest he's been manipulating this poor girl. Everything is being transmitted from her to him via an intermediary who may not be completely truthful.

Here's the thing though: we're all way over-thinking things. Only a year prior to writing this, their biggest ever hit in Britain, they were thin on self-composed material and were fighting with producer George Martin over his suggestion that they record the moronic Mitch Murray tune "How Do You Do It?". The threat of making it big with a song they hated spurred Lennon and McCartney into upping their game as writers. While they were developing at a remarkable rate, many of these early efforts are nothing special, especially lyrically. (Lennon and McCartney just seemed pleased with the fact that they wrote it in the third person for the first time) Take the anecdote attributed to engineer Norman Smith who glanced at the words prior to a session and was none too impressed, figuring this wasn't going to be one of their winners. Then they started playing it and he was bowled over.

And well he should have been. "She Loves You" is the apogee of Beatlemania, even if it is anything but the prototypical Fab Four single. It opens with a drum roll and that unforgettable "Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!" chorus and there's no middle eight to speak of (which would actually be a welcome contrast to their slightly irritating habit of repeated bridge sections on many of the songs from 1965 albums Help and Rubber Soul). Subtext or not, all there is is pure joy, that rarest of songs that you're singing along with almost instantly. While the majority of fans in the twenty-first century opt for their more mature work from about 1965 all the way up to their break-up, they're missing out if they don't at least give the occasional listen to their peerless run of early singles. "She Loves You" may not necessarily be the best example of what they were capable of (more on that very soon!) but it certainly makes it clear they'd already mastered this pop caper.

Canadians ended up embracing The Beatles just before the Americans fell all over themselves for them, which, in turn, led to an even greater deluge of their product on the charts in the weeks ahead. As such, North Americans being forced to deal with a giant dump of Beatle product in a very short amount of time resulted in chart dominance but little appreciation for how far they had come in only just over a year as recording artists. The signs of what were to come were there but few would have seen them. Not only were The Beatles becoming vastly more popular but they were improving by the day. 

Score: 9