Every New Zealand #1 single…
8
I Want to Hold Your Hand by The Beatles
Topped the NZ chart for 4 weeks from 26 December 1963
The Beatles enjoyed 14 #1 singles in New Zealand between 1963 and 1970 – it almost certainly would have been more if someone had maintained the charts during 1965. ‘Eight Days A Week’, ‘Help!’, ‘Ticket To Ride’, ‘Yesterday’, and ‘We Can Work It Out’ were all worldwide hits that could have feasibly topped the chart.
Despite 1965’s absence, The Beatles topped New Zealand’s single charts more than anyone else. Katy Perry (WTF…) and Justin Bieber are their closest competition.
The Beatles
The Beatles were a global phenomenon in the 1960s, keeping pace with popular music’s rapid development in the 1960s. You probably know about them already….
I Want to Hold Your Hand
‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ was from 1963, when John Lennon and Paul McCartney still collaborated closely on songs. They wrote it in the basement of the Ashers’ house, where Margaret Asher taught cello. Paul lodged there as he dated Jane Asher.
We wrote a lot of stuff together, one on one, eyeball to eyeball. Like in ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand,’ I remember when we got the chord that made the song. We were in Jane Asher’s house, downstairs in the cellar playing on the piano at the same time. And we had, ‘Oh you-u-u/ got that something …’ And Paul hits this chord and I turn to him and say, ‘That’s it!’ I said, ‘Do that again!’ In those days, we really used to absolutely write like that—both playing into each other’s noses.
John Lennon, Playboy, 1980
‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ was The Beatles’ breakthrough hit in the United States. Capitol believed that The Beatles would fail in the US, so ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ was actually their first single. It was released two weeks ahead of schedule, after rogue DJs started playing it. It sold 250,000 copies in its first three days. They also played it on their legendary Ed Sullivan appearance.
My verdict
‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ is an interesting song to rate. It’s light years ahead of some of their chart competition – the other three number one songs in New Zealand in December 1963 were:
- Gerry And The Pacemakers bringing Rodgers and Hammerstein to the top of the charts
- Nino Tempo & April Stevens’s quaint version of ‘Deep Purple’
- The Singing Nun’s ‘Dominique’.
Compared to these 1963 alternatives, ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ is fresh and exciting. But The Beatles continued to develop, and ‘Hand’ might not even make my top fifty Beatles songs. There’s plenty to like: the chord sequence of G – D7 – Em – B7 is unexpected.
It’s interesting to read contemporary criticism. Bob Dylan famously said “They were doing things nobody was doing. Their chords were outrageous, just outrageous, and their harmonies made it all valid.” On the other hand, mainstream critics were less impressed. David Newman famously wrote “Terrible awful. …It’s the bunk. The Beatles are indistinguishable from a hundred other similar loud and twanging rock-and-roll groups. They aren’t talented singers (as Elvis was), they aren’t fun (as Elvis was), they aren’t anything.”
I enjoy Grace Slick’s thoughts, although I also enjoy how pop music used to be far less blatant about one’s real intentions. I also remember her on a documentary, saying something like “You don’t want to hold her hand, you want to dick her.”
Somebody called and said, “Hey, you’ve got to come over and see Ed Sullivan [show]. These guys called The Beatles are on.” So I went over and they sang, “I Wanna Hold Your Hand.” Now these are 20-year-old people singing, “I want to hold your hand.” Until they came out with Rubber Soul, I thought they were silly.
Grace Slick, Forbes
The Aftermath
The Beatles continued to rule the pop world through most of the 1960s. It wasn’t until the late 1960s that The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and Creedence Clearwater Revival challenged their reign over rock and pop.
I also enjoy Sparks’ lounge-flavoured cover version, with a creamy Russell Mael vocal.
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David Newman, what a stick in the mud. An inflexible mind is cursed in this world. That album shaped my ear in a good way. Beatles Forever! Grace Slick can eat their dust.
I think Grace Slick could see through their euphemisms! Not a big Jefferson Airplane fan, but they have their moments.
This was the song that really broke them in the states. I was 5 years old, in kindergarten, and until Dana Moriarty brought this 45 to class for show-and-tell, it had been a bland diet of “Puff, the Magic Dragon,” “God Bless America,” “This Land is Your Land,” etc. The song is really tame now, almost a joke, but to our young ears in early 1964, it was a revelation.
Yup, their first single – maybe it worked for them building some anticipation. It’s a lot more cutting edge than ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ and The Singing Nun – eg NZ’s other December 1963 charttoppers.
It’s not one of their best – it’s obvious in a teenage way but melodic and memorable nonetheless.
We are on day one of a Beatles weekend at a local pub venue The Artisan Tap in Hartshill Stoke on Trent and after 5 bands and 8 hours of Beatles music, no-one did I Wanna Hold Your Hand but there’s always tomorrow! Surprisingly Come Together was the most covered song and Yesterday hasn’t featured at all yet….
I can see a band wanting to play Come Together – kind of a fun groove. Sounds like a fun event.
The difference was those chords…the Everly Brothers had the harmonies but the Beatles put it all together. You listen to the 50s and it’s alot of A-D-E … they changed that. Not one of my favorites by them by any means but still a really well constructed songs…I do love that bridge.
I still like many of their earlier songs like It Won’t Be Long, I’ll Cry Instead, Please Please Me, and a bunch more. Some just as much as the later ones.
Yeah, early Beatles are really good – just 1965-1967 Beatles are even better in my book. I love Boys from Please Please Me, as you know a cover with Ringo on vocals.
It may be interesting to note that the Beatles also recorded the song in German.
I read that! And She Loves You as well.
I think your assessment of “I Want to Hold Your Hand” is fair. The music is pretty cool for the time, and the singing, always one of the key strengths of The Beatles, is excellent. Similar to “She Loves You”, the lyrics ain’t exactly Shakespeare, but not every song needs to be poetry to be fun.
“It’s obvious in a teenage way but melodic and memorable nonetheless.” is a great way to sum it up. Here’s looking at you, Martin Johnson! 🙂
I was nine years old when it came out, and I love it. I bought the album it was on, which in America was titled “Meet the Beatles”. It was the first album I ever bought.
I imagine it sounded a lot more revolutionary at the time – kind of hard to imagine its impact when the Beatles grew so much over the next few years.