1 week Ago By Dan Haygarth, Scarlett O'Toole
When I Want to Hold Your Hand topped the U.S. charts, Paul McCartney and John Lennon felt the pressure to write another hit song .
The Beatles had already won the hearts of fans in the U.K. and Europe, but soaring to the number one spot on the American charts in February 1964 took their fame to even greater heights.
The band's song I Want To Hold Your Hand climbed swiftly to the number one spot in America just days before they landed in New York for their debut U.S. performance.
Dominating the top spot for seven weeks, the song triggered Beatlemania across the States. Amid this frenzy, and while touring in Paris, news of their chart-topping success reached The Beatles, leaving Paul to head straight to their hotel piano to write their next hit. Paul ended up writing Can't Buy Me Love.
Discussing the song, Paul said, "Can't Buy Me Love is my attempt to write a bluesy mode." He further explained, "The idea behind it was that all these material possessions are all very well but they won't buy me what I really want. It was a very hooky song.
Ella Fitzgerald later did a version of it which I was very honored by." While John openly acknowledged the song was mostly Paul's, he claimed to have contributed to the chorus. Recounting in a 1980 interview, John commented, "That's Paul's completely.
Maybe I had something to do with the chorus, but I don't know. I always considered it his song." When Paul first presented the song to The Beatles' producer George Martin, he was advised to make some changes.
George recalled, "I thought that we really needed a tag for the song's ending, and a tag for the beginning; a kind of intro." He added, "So I took the first two lines of the chorus and changed the ending, and said, 'Let's just have these lines, and by altering the second phrase we can get back into the verse pretty quickly.' And they said, 'That's not a bad idea, we'll do it that way.
'" The initial recordings of the song were made in Paris on January 29, 1964. The final touches were added at Abbey Road the following month and it was released as a single in the U.K.
and U.S. in March, with John Lennon's You Can't Do That as its B-side.
The song was an instant hit, selling two million copies in its first week and topping the U.S. Billboard Top 100 charts for five weeks.
It gave The Beatles the next big hit they were looking for. The song also featured in the 1964 film A Hard Day's Night and its accompanying album. However, the song's meaning sparked some confusion, with some suggesting it was about prostitution.
Paul wasn't pleased with this interpretation. In 1966, when asked about the song's meaning, he stated, "Personally, I think you can put any interpretation you want on anything, but when someone suggest that Can't Buy Me Love is about a prostitute, I draw the line. That's going too far.
" Discussing the inspiration behind his hit tune, he shared, "The idea behind it was that all these material possessions are all very well, but they won't buy me what I really want." Despite debates over its interpretation, Paul admitted, "The single did really well for us, getting to number one in the U.K.
and U.S. at the same time.
And then, funnily enough, it was knocked off the number one spot in the U.K. by A World Without Love, a song I wrote for Jane Asher's brother Peter.
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