Ask a hundred Beatles fans their favorite song, and you might get a hundred different answers. It’s a testament to the band’s songwriting prowess. Even their lousy songs became fan favorites and performed well on the charts. One of The Beatles’ first big hits was so good that Peter Asher called it the greatest song he had ever heard.
Peter Asher called The Beatles’ song ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ the greatest he had ever heard, and we get it
The Beatles relied on cover songs during their early days. Other artists’ songs comprised their Hamburg, Germany, residency setlists. Even their debut album, Please Please Me, went heavy on covers. Once John Lennon and Paul McCartney discovered how easy writing songs together was, The Beatles’ career really took off.
Paul lived with the family of his girlfriend, Jane Asher, in 1963. She was a well-known child actor before she dated Macca. John and Paul wrote “I Want to Hold Your Hand” in her basement. They summoned Peter Asher to listen to it when they finished. He was completely blown away.
Asher asked the pair to play the tune a second time before calling “I Want to Hold Your Hand” the best song he had heard in his life (per 150 Glimpses of The Beatles by Craig Brown):
“Oh, my God! Can you play that again? Am I losing my mind, or is this the greatest song I ever heard in my life?”
Peter Asher
Asher watched John and Paul write the song, and seeing the writing process left a mark. Years later, he stood by his “greatest song” comment and said watching the duo work on “I Want to Hold Your Hand” was an exciting highlight of his life. It might not sound as impactful or experimental as Fab Four tunes that followed, but we can understand why Asher said “I Want to Hold Your Hand” was the best song he’d ever heard.
Like other early Beatles songs, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” featured a wonderful melody, plenty of vocal harmonies, and tight musicianship. Those traits were present in the band’s earliest homegrown tunes.
What set “I Want to Hold Your Hand” apart from earlier hits was that the guitars set the hook. The opening notes wonderfully foreshadow the emotional heart of the song — the “I can’t hide” lyrics that enter the song at the 1:04 and 1:45 marks.
“I Want to Hold Your Hand” was the Fab Four’s first guitar-centric Beatles hit, but it was hardly their last. The Beatles followed that blueprint on tunes like “A Hard Day’s Night,” “I Feel Fine,” and “Ticket to Ride.”
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As their career progressed, Beatles songs more frequently showcased guitar (think “Paperback Writer,” “Taxman,” and, fittingly, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”) while sacrificing none of the melodic elements and expert songwriting skills.
How did ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ perform on the charts?
Asher called “I Want to Hold Your Hand” the greatest song he had ever heard. Fab Four fans agreed. The tune didn’t appear on a studio album but became one of The Beatles’ biggest hits anyway.
The band recorded it in October 1963, released it in late November, and had their third No. 1 hit by the middle of December. “I Want to Hold Your Hand” spent five straight weeks in the No. 1 spot and 10 consecutive weeks in the top 10 in The Beatles’ home country (per the Official Charts Company). It nearly matched earlier hits “From Me to You” (seven weeks) and “She Loves You” (six weeks) in the No. 1 spot.
Once the United States wised up to The Beatles, music fans made “I Want to Hold Your Hand” a hit. It became the Fab Four’s first charting single in the U.S. when it appeared at No. 45 on Billboard’s Jan. 18, 1964, singles chart. It rose to No. 3 the next week and took the top spot in Feb. 1.
The tune spent seven weeks on the top, second only to “Hey Jude” among The Beatles No. 1 Billboard hits.
Peter Asher called the Beatles’ song “I Want to Hold Your Hand” the greatest song he had ever heard and stood by that statement years later. The tune proved to be a game-changer in how Paul McCartney and John Lennon composed songs, and Beatles fans on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean loved it just as much as Asher did.
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