When it comes to number one hits, few bands compare to The Beatles. They had countless chart-topping tracks, both in the UK and in the US, but some were undoubtedly more meaningful than others. In 1964, there was one song that changed the trajectory of the band’s career forever. “I Want To Hold Your Hand” was released in November 1963, quickly rising through the British charts. But in February 1964, it became the first song by the group to top the American charts. That song kicked off the British invasion and signaled the end of an era in rock.
The Song Was Written to Be a Commercial Success
“I Want To Hold Your Hand” was always meant to be a commercial success. John Lennon and Paul McCartney had been practically ordered by their manager, Brian Epstein to focus on writing a song that would appeal to the American public. Everyone was pushing to take the group to tour the US and none of their previous tracks had been as successful in America as they had been in Britain. So, Lennon and McCartney got to work, this time in their new home base.
McCartney had moved into his girlfriend Jane Asher’s parents’ house earlier that year, and the songwriting partners crammed into the basement, much like they had done at McCartney’s childhood home. The process was as intimate as it had been when they were teenagers, though the stakes were significantly higher by then. “We wrote alot 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,” John Lennon shared in an interview in 1980.
“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.”
McCartney shared his own memory of writing that particular song, explaining that they were on a deadline imposed by their manager. The process, he explained, started with an informal jam that eventually took form. After a few intense hours, they finished the first draft and presented it to their team. The song was recorded the very next day. And the rest is, quite literally, history.
A Beatles’ No. 1 Hit that Changed the World
Just days later after the song went to number 1 on the US charts, The Beatles touched down in New York, and they knew that their lives were about to be permanently changed. On February 9, they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, a performance that was watched by 73 million people, breaking every record at the time. “I Want To Hold Your Hand” spent seven weeks at no. 1 until it was finally replaced… by “She Loves You.” It was becoming evident that The Beatles would not be going away any time soon.
But it wasn’t just their career that changed forever thanks to that song. Rock ‘n’ roll as a whole was never the same after that. The era of the American heroes that The Beatles had grown up idolizing was swiftly coming to an end, and their contemporaries, such as Bob Dylan and The Beach Boys, quickly found a new group to inspire them. “They were doing things nobody was doing,” Dylan said about the song. “Their chords were outrageous, just outrageous, and their harmonies made it all valid… I knew they were pointing the direction of where music had to go.”
Brian Wilson, for his part, admitted to feeling “jealous” of how quickly the Fab Four seemed to be changing the rules. The rivalry between The Beatles and The Beach Boys was nothing but amicable, and they always pushed each other to do better, but for Wilson, seeing the group sweep in and take over America, seemingly out of nowhere, was unsettling at first. “(The Beatles) just seemed to take over, all of a sudden. They were everywhere. I thought their songs were really good.”
“I Want To Hold Your Hand” didn’t just solidify The Beatles’ status as a global sensation, it effectively changed the meaning of rock music. Throughout their career, the Fab Four continued to honor the musicians that inspired them and invented the genre, but after that song, it was clear that they had dethroned all their idols. The Beatles proved, as Dylan said, that everything was valid. That rock music could include complex harmonies, mysterious chords, and even orchestra arrangements. 1964 will forever be remembered as the year that four boys from Liverpool became the leaders of the new generation of rock ‘n’ roll.
