She Loves You

She Loves You is a song by The Beatles, written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. It was released as a single in 1963, and is one of the band's most famous songs.

About
Paul and John composed "She Loves You" on June 26, 1963 in a Newcastle-upon-Tyne hotel room after a concert opening for Roy Orbison. Inspired by Bobby Rydell's "Forget Him," Paul's initial idea was to have an "answering" song, him singing "She Loves You" and the others calling back "yeah yeah yeah". John persuaded him to drop the idea. Lennon later stated, "We'd written the song, and then suddenly realized we needed more... so we added 'yeah, yeah, yeah' and it caught on." The refrain became the subject of controversy upon the song's release, as it was considered uncouth at the time. McCartney's father himself objected, asking his son if they couldn't possibly change it to the better sounding "yes, yes, yes."

Five days later after writing the song the Beatles were in the studio recording it, first running it past George Martin on acoustic guitars. Martin was intrigued by the final chord, an odd sort of major sixth with George Harrison doing the sixth and John and Paul the third and fifths. Martin thought it was too jazzy but the Beatles insisted it remain.

This was the single which finally had the now-familiar songwriting order Lennon-McCartney as it would appear in all subsequent releases.

Sie Liebt Dich
"She Loves You" was one of the two songs recorded in German (the other being I Want to Hold Your Hand). Though the Beatles disliked the idea, they did it anyway. It was released as "Sie Liebt Dich". As the vocals could not be separated from the music, The Beatles had to re-perform it.

Recording
The exact number of takes it took to perfect "She Loves You" is unknown. And although it was recorded on two tracks, the stereo master of the song has been lost. A "mock stereo" mix was made in 1966 for A Collection of Beatles Oldies. If one listens to "She Loves You" on CD there is a noticeable drop-out following the line "You know its up to you." This could be fixed if the stereo master is ever relocated. The reason for this anomaly on the mono appears to be that the EMI master tape was accidentally stretched or mangled after the single was released and a snippet from an 45 record was edited in to fix it. The Capitol version does not have the drop out, so the fix occurred in Britain sometime after September 1963.

Success
"She Loves You" was the first song by The Beatles to sell a million copies in Britain alone. It remained the best-selling single in the United Kingdom for fourteen years, only to be beaten out by Wings' "Mull of Kintyre," a band founded by McCartney himself. It also achieved the rare feat of enjoying two separate stays at #1 on the charts, originally occupying the top spot for four weeks, spending a further seven in the top three and then returning to #1 for another two weeks.

In America, after "Please Please Me" and "From Me To You" both initially flopped, "She Loves You" was released on the tiny Swan label. When it was released on September 16, 1963, it was not given much attention. However, after Beatlemania had hit and "I Want to Hold Your Hand" reached #1, Swan rereleased "She Loves You," which also went to #1 and stayed on the charts for 15 weeks.

Jack Paar played a video clip of this on his show on January 3, 1964. The Beatles had appeared on news clips as part of stories about their success in England, but this was the first time they appeared on a US TV talk show. The song was also included in the film A Hard Day's Night, but did not appear on the album.

Credits

 * John Lennon — rhythm guitar (1958 Rickenbacker 325), lead vocal
 * Paul McCartney — bass guitar (1961 Hofner 500/1), lead vocal
 * George Harrison — lead guitar (1962 Gretsch 6122 Country Gentleman), harmony vocal
 * Ringo Starr — drums
 * George Martin - producer

She Loves You She Loves You