George Harrison
George Harrison was an English musician, singer-songwriter and film producer who achieved international fame as the lead guitarist of the Beatles. Referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison embraced Indian culture and helped broaden the scope of popular music through his incorporation of Indian instrumentation and Hindu-aligned spirituality in the Beatles' work. Although the majority of the band's songs were written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, most Beatles albums from 1965 onwards contained at least two Harrison compositions, his songs for the group included "Taxman", "Within You Without You", "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", "Here Comes the Sun" and "Something". Harrison's earliest musical influences included Django Reinhardt. By 1965, he had begun to lead the Beatles into folk rock through his interest in Bob Dylan and the Byrds, towards Indian classical music through his use of the sitar on "Norwegian Wood". Having initiated the band's embracing of Transcendental Meditation in 1967, he subsequently developed an association with the Hare Krishna movement.
After the band's break-up in 1970, Harrison released the triple album All Things Must Pass, a critically acclaimed work that produced his most successful hit single, "My Sweet Lord", introduced his signature sound as a solo artist, the slide guitar. He organised the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh with Indian musician Ravi Shankar, a precursor to benefit concerts such as Live Aid. In his role as a music and film producer, Harrison produced acts signed to the Beatles' Apple record label before founding Dark Horse Records in 1974 and co-founding HandMade Films in 1978. Harrison released several best-selling singles and albums as a solo performer. In 1988, he co-founded the platinum-selling supergroup the Traveling Wilburys. A prolific recording artist, he was featured as a guest guitarist on tracks by Badfinger, Ronnie Wood and Billy Preston, collaborated on songs and music with Dylan, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr and Tom Petty, among others. Rolling Stone magazine ranked him number 11 in their list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".
He is a two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee – as a member of the Beatles in 1988, posthumously for his solo career in 2004. Harrison's first marriage, to model Pattie Boyd in 1966, ended in divorce in 1977; the following year he married Olivia Arias, with whom he had Dhani. Harrison died from lung cancer in 2001 at the age of 58, two years after surviving a knife attack by an intruder at his Friar Park home, his remains were cremated and the ashes were scattered according to Hindu tradition in a private ceremony in the Ganges and Yamuna rivers in India. He left an estate of £100 million. Harrison was born at 12 Arnold Grove in Wavertree, Liverpool, on 25 February 1943, he was the youngest of four children of Harold Hargreaves Louise. Harold was a bus conductor who had worked as a ship's steward on the White Star Line, Louise was a shop assistant of Irish Catholic descent, he had one sister and two brothers and Peter. According to Boyd, Harrison's mother was supportive: "All she wanted for her children is that they should be happy, she recognized that nothing made George quite as happy as making music."
Louise was an enthusiastic music fan, she was known among friends for her loud singing voice, which at times startled visitors by rattling the Harrisons' windows. When Louise was pregnant with George, she listened to the weekly broadcast Radio India. Harrison's biographer Joshua Greene wrote, "Every Sunday she tuned in to mystical sounds evoked by sitars and tablas, hoping that the exotic music would bring peace and calm to the baby in the womb."Harrison lived the first four years of his life at 12 Arnold Grove, a terraced house on a cul-de-sac. The home had an outdoor toilet and its only heat came from a single coal fire. In 1949, the family was moved to 25 Upton Green, Speke. In 1948, at the age of five, Harrison enrolled at Dovedale Primary School, he passed the eleven-plus exam and attended Liverpool Institute High School for Boys from 1954 to 1959. Though the institute did offer a music course, Harrison was disappointed with the absence of guitars, felt the school "moulded into being frightened".
Harrison's earliest musical influences included George Formby, Cab Calloway, Django Reinhardt and Hoagy Carmichael. In early 1956 he had an epiphany: while riding his bicycle, he heard Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel" playing from a nearby house, the song piqued his interest in rock and roll, he sat at the back of the class drawing guitars in his schoolbooks, commented, "I was into guitars." Harrison cited Slim Whitman as another early influence: "The first person I saw playing a guitar was Slim Whitman, either a photo of him in a magazine or live on television. Guitars were coming in."Although Harold Harrison was apprehensive about his son's interest in pursuing a music career, in 1956 he bought George a Dutch Egmond flat top acoustic guitar, which according to Harold, cost £3.10. One of his father's friends taught Harrison how to play "Whispering", "Sweet Sue" and "Dinah", inspired by Donegan's music, Harrison formed a skiffle group called the Rebels with his brother Peter and a friend, Arthur Kelly.
On the bus to school, Harrison met Paul McCartney, who attended the Liverpool Institute, the pair bonded over their shared
Music video
A music video is a short film that integrates a song with imagery, is produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings. There are cases where songs are used in tie-in marketing campaigns that allow them to become more than just a song. Tie-ins and merchandising can be used for food or other products. Although the origins of the music video date back to musical short films that first appeared in the 1920s, they again came into prominence in the 1980s when the channel MTV based their format around the medium. Prior to the 1980s, these kinds of videos were described by various terms including "illustrated song", "filmed insert", "promotional film", "promotional clip", "promotional video", "song video", "song clip" or "film clip". Music videos use a wide range of styles and contemporary video-making techniques, including animation, live action and non-narrative approaches such as abstract film.
Some music videos combine different styles with the music, such as animation and live action. Combining these styles and techniques has become more popular because of the variety for the audience. Many music videos interpret images and scenes from the song's lyrics, while others take a more thematic approach. Other music videos may not have any concept, being a filmed version of the song's live concert performance. In 1894, sheet music publishers Edward B. Marks Joe Stern hired electrician George Thomas and various performers to promote sales of their song "The Little Lost Child". Using a magic lantern, Thomas projected a series of still images on a screen simultaneous to live performances; this would become a popular form of entertainment known as the illustrated song, the first step toward music video. In 1926, with the arrival of "talkies" many musical short films were produced. Vitaphone shorts featured many bands and dancers. Animation artist Max Fleischer introduced a series of sing-along short cartoons called Screen Songs, which invited audiences to sing along to popular songs by "following the bouncing ball", similar to a modern karaoke machine.
Early 1930s cartoons featured popular musicians performing their hit songs on-camera in live-action segments during the cartoons. The early animated films by Walt Disney, such as the Silly Symphonies shorts and Fantasia, which featured several interpretations of classical pieces, were built around music; the Warner Bros. cartoons today billed as Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, were fashioned around specific songs from upcoming Warner Bros. musical films. Live action musical shorts, featuring such popular performers as Cab Calloway, were distributed to theaters. Blues singer Bessie Smith appeared in a two-reel short film called St. Louis Blues featuring a dramatized performance of the hit song. Numerous other musicians appeared in short musical subjects during this period. Soundies and released from 1940 to 1947, were musical films that included short dance sequences, similar to music videos. In the mid-1940s, musician Louis Jordan made short films for his songs, some of which were spliced together into a feature film, Lookout Sister.
These films were, according to music historian Donald Clarke, the "ancestors" of music video. Musical films were another important precursor to music video, several well-known music videos have imitated the style of classic Hollywood musicals from the 1930s to the 1950s. One of the best-known examples is Madonna's 1985 video for "Material Girl", modelled on Jack Cole's staging of "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend" from the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Several of Michael Jackson's videos show the unmistakable influence of the dance sequences in classic Hollywood musicals, including the landmark "Thriller" and the Martin Scorsese-directed "Bad", influenced by the stylised dance "fights" in the film version of West Side Story. According to the Internet Accuracy Project, disc jockey–singer J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson was the first to coin the phrase "music video", in 1959. In his autobiography, Tony Bennett claims to have created "...the first music video" when he was filmed walking along the Serpentine in Hyde Park, London in 1956, with the resulting clip being set to his recording of the song "Stranger in Paradise".
The clip was sent to UK and US television stations and aired on shows including Dick Clark's American Bandstand. The oldest example of a promotional music video with similarities to more abstract, modern videos seems to be the Czech "Dáme si do bytu" created in 1958 and directed by Ladislav Rychman. In the late 1950s the Scopitone, a visual jukebox, was invented in France and short films were produced by many French artists, such as Serge Gainsbourg, Françoise Hardy, Jacques Dutronc, the Belgian Jacques Brel to accompany their songs, its use spread to other countries, similar machines such as the Cinebox in Italy and Color-Sonic in the USA were patented. In 1961, for the Canadian show Singalong Jubilee, Manny Pittson began pre-recording the music audio, went on-location and taped various visuals with the musicians lip-synching edited the audio and video together. Most music numbers were taped in-studio on stage, the location shoot "videos" were to add variety. In 1964, Kenneth Anger's experimental short film, Scorpio Rising used popular songs instead of dialog.
In 1964, The Moody Blues producer, Alex Murray, wanted to promote his version of "Go Now". The short film clip he produced and directed to promote the single has a striking visual style that predates Queen's similar "Bohemian Rhapsody" vid
Paris
Paris is the capital and most populous city of France, with an area of 105 square kilometres and an official estimated population of 2,140,526 residents as of 1 January 2019. Since the 17th century, Paris has been one of Europe's major centres of finance, commerce, fashion and the arts; the City of Paris is the centre and seat of government of the Île-de-France, or Paris Region, which has an estimated official 2019 population of 12,213,364, or about 18 percent of the population of France. The Paris Region had a GDP of €681 billion in 2016, accounting for 31 percent of the GDP of France, was the 5th largest region by GDP in the world. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit Worldwide Cost of Living Survey in 2018, Paris was the second most expensive city in the world, after Singapore, ahead of Zurich, Hong Kong and Geneva. Another source ranked Paris as most expensive, on a par with Singapore and Hong-Kong, in 2018; the city is a major rail and air-transport hub served by two international airports: Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly.
Opened in 1900, the city's subway system, the Paris Métro, serves 5.23 million passengers daily, is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro. Gare du Nord is the 24th busiest railway station in the world, the first located outside Japan, with 262 million passengers in 2015. Paris is known for its museums and architectural landmarks: the Louvre was the most visited art museum in the world in 2018, with 10.2 million visitors. The Musée d'Orsay and Musée de l'Orangerie are noted for their collections of French Impressionist art, the Pompidou Centre Musée National d'Art Moderne has the largest collection of modern and contemporary art in Europe; the historical district along the Seine in the city centre is classified as a UNESCO Heritage Site. Popular landmarks in the centre of the city include the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris and the Gothic royal chapel of Sainte-Chapelle, both on the Île de la Cité. Paris received 23 million visitors in 2017, measured by hotel stays, with the largest numbers of foreign visitors coming from the United States, the UK, Germany and China.
It was ranked as the third most visited travel destination in the world in 2017, after Bangkok and London. The football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris; the 80,000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros. Paris will host the 2024 Summer Olympics; the 1938 and 1998 FIFA World Cups, the 2007 Rugby World Cup, the 1960, 1984, 2016 UEFA European Championships were held in the city and, every July, the Tour de France bicycle race finishes there. The name "Paris" is derived from the Celtic Parisii tribe; the city's name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology. Paris is referred to as the City of Light, both because of its leading role during the Age of Enlightenment and more because Paris was one of the first large European cities to use gas street lighting on a grand scale on its boulevards and monuments.
Gas lights were installed on the Place du Carousel, Rue de Rivoli and Place Vendome in 1829. By 1857, the Grand boulevards were lit. By the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps. Since the late 19th century, Paris has been known as Panam in French slang. Inhabitants are known in French as Parisiens, they are pejoratively called Parigots. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the area's major north–south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité; the Parisii minted their own coins for that purpose. The Romans began their settlement on Paris' Left Bank; the Roman town was called Lutetia. It became a prosperous city with a forum, temples, an amphitheatre. By the end of the Western Roman Empire, the town was known as Parisius, a Latin name that would become Paris in French. Christianity was introduced in the middle of the 3rd century AD by Saint Denis, the first Bishop of Paris: according to legend, when he refused to renounce his faith before the Roman occupiers, he was beheaded on the hill which became known as Mons Martyrum "Montmartre", from where he walked headless to the north of the city.
Clovis the Frank, the first king of the Merovingian dynasty, made the city his capital from 508. As the Frankish domination of Gaul began, there was a gradual immigration by the Franks to Paris and the Parisian Francien dialects were born. Fortification of the Île-de-la-Citie failed to avert sacking by Vikings in 845, but Paris' strategic importance—with its bridges prevent
A Hard Day's Night (film)
A Hard Day's Night is a 1964 British musical comedy film directed by Richard Lester and starring the Beatles—John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr—during the height of Beatlemania. It was written by Alun Owen and released by United Artists; the film portrays 36 hours in the lives of the group. The film was a critical success. Forty years after its release, Time magazine rated it as one of the all-time great 100 films. In 1997, British critic Leslie Halliwell described it as a "comic fantasia with music; the film is credited as being one of the most influential of all musical films, inspiring numerous spy films, the Monkees' television show and pop music videos. In 1999, the British Film Institute ranked it the 88th greatest British film of the 20th century. Bound for a London show from Liverpool, the Beatles escape a horde of fans. Once they are aboard the train and trying to relax, various interruptions test their patience: after a dalliance with a female passenger, Paul's grandfather is confined to the guard's van and the four lads join him there to keep him company.
John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr play a card game, entertaining some schoolgirls before arriving at their desired destination. Upon arrival in London, the Beatles are driven to a hotel, they are tasked to answer numerous letters and fan mail in their hotel room but instead they sneak out to party. After being caught by their manager Norm, they return to find out that Paul's grandfather John went to the casino. After causing minor trouble at the casino, the group is taken to the theatre where their performance is to be televised. After rehearsals, the boys leave through a fire escape and dance around a field but are forced to leave by the owner of the property. On their way back to the theatre, they are separated when a woman named Millie recognises John as someone famous but cannot recall who he is. George is mistaken for an actor auditioning for a television show featuring a trend setter hostess; the boys all return to rehearse another song and after goofing around backstage, they play another song to impress the makeup artists.
While waiting to perform, Ringo is forced to look after Paul's grandfather and decides to spend some time alone reading a book. Paul's grandfather, a "villain, a real mixer", convinces him to go outside to experience life rather than reading books. Ringo goes off by himself, he tries to have a quiet drink in a pub, takes pictures, walks alongside a canal, rides a bicycle along a railway station platform. While the rest of the band frantically and unsuccessfully attempts to find Ringo, he is arrested for acting in a suspicious manner. Paul's grandfather joins him shortly after attempting to sell photographs wherein he forged the boys' signatures. Paul's grandfather makes a run for it and tells the rest of the band where Ringo is; the boys all go to the station to rescue Ringo but end up running away from the police back to the theatre and the concert goes ahead as planned. After the concert, the band is taken away from the hordes of fans via helicopter; the screenplay was written by Alun Owen, chosen because the Beatles were familiar with his play No Trams to Lime Street, he had shown an aptitude for Liverpudlian dialogue.
McCartney commented, "Alun hung around with us and was careful to try and put words in our mouths that he might've heard us speak, so I thought he did a good script." Owen spent several days with the group, who told him their lives were like "a train and a room and a car and a room and a room and a room". Owen wrote the script from the viewpoint that the Beatles had become prisoners of their own fame, their schedule of performances and studio work having become punishing; the script comments cheekily on the Beatles' fame. For instance, at one point a fan, played by Anna Quayle recognises John Lennon, though she does not mention Lennon's name, saying only "you are...". He demurs, saying his face is not quite right for "him", initiating a surreal dialogue ending with the fan agreeing that Lennon doesn't "look like him at all", Lennon saying to himself that "she looks more like him than I do". Other dialogue is derived from actual interviews with the Beatles; when Ringo is asked if he's a mod or a rocker, he replies: "Uh, no, I'm a mocker", a line derived from a joke he made on the TV show Ready Steady Go!.
The frequent reference to McCartney's grandfather as a "clean old man" sets up a contrast with the stock description of Brambell's character, Albert Steptoe in Steptoe and Son, as a "dirty old man". Audiences responded to the Beatles' brash social impudence. Director Richard Lester said, "The general aim of the film was to present what was becoming a social phenomenon in this country. Anarchy is too strong a word, but the quality of confidence that the boys exuded! Confidence that they could dress as they liked, speak as they liked, talk to the Queen as they liked, talk to the people on the train who'fought the war for them' as they liked.... Still based on privilege—privilege by schooling, privilege by birth, privilege by accent, privilege by speech; the Beatles were the first people to attack this
Single (music)
In the music industry, a single is a type of release a song recording of fewer tracks than an LP record or an album. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, a single is a song, released separately from an album, although it also appears on an album; these are the songs from albums that are released separately for promotional uses such as digital download or commercial radio airplay and are expected to be the most popular. In other cases a recording released. Despite being referred to as a single, singles can include up to as many as three tracks; the biggest digital music distributor, iTunes Store, accepts as many as three tracks less than ten minutes each as a single, as does popular music player Spotify. Any more than three tracks on a musical release or thirty minutes in total running time is either an extended play or, if over six tracks long, an album; when mainstream music was purchased via vinyl records, singles would be released double-sided.
That is to say, they were released with an A-side and B-side, on which two singles would be released, one on each side. Moreover, only the most popular songs from a released album would be released as a single. In more contemporary forms of music consumption, artists release most, if not all, of the tracks on an album as singles; the basic specifications of the music single were set in the late 19th century, when the gramophone record began to supersede phonograph cylinders in commercially produced musical recordings. Gramophone discs were manufactured in several sizes. By about 1910, the 10-inch, 78 rpm shellac disc had become the most used format; the inherent technical limitations of the gramophone disc defined the standard format for commercial recordings in the early 20th century. The crude disc-cutting techniques of the time and the thickness of the needles used on record players limited the number of grooves per inch that could be inscribed on the disc surface, a high rotation speed was necessary to achieve acceptable recording and playback fidelity.
78 rpm was chosen as the standard because of the introduction of the electrically powered, synchronous turntable motor in 1925, which ran at 3600 rpm with a 46:1 gear ratio, resulting in a rotation speed of 78.26 rpm. With these factors applied to the 10-inch format and performers tailored their output to fit the new medium; the 3-minute single remained the standard into the 1960s, when the availability of microgroove recording and improved mastering techniques enabled recording artists to increase the duration of their recorded songs. The breakthrough came with Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone". Although CBS tried to make the record more "radio friendly" by cutting the performance into halves, separating them between the two sides of the vinyl disc, both Dylan and his fans demanded that the full six-minute take be placed on one side, that radio stations play the song in its entirety; as digital downloading and audio streaming have become more prevalent, it has become possible for every track on an album to be available separately.
The concept of a single for an album has been retained as an identification of a more promoted or more popular song within an album collection. The demand for music downloads skyrocketed after the launch of Apple's iTunes Store in January 2001 and the creation of portable music and digital audio players such as the iPod. In September 1997, with the release of Duran Duran's "Electric Barbarella" for paid downloads, Capitol Records became the first major label to sell a digital single from a well-known artist. Geffen Records released Aerosmith's "Head First" digitally for free. In 2004, Recording Industry Association of America introduced digital single certification due to significant sales of digital formats, with Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl" becoming RIAA's first platinum digital single. In 2013, RIAA incorporated on-demand streams into the digital single certification. Single sales in the United Kingdom reached an all-time low in January 2005, as the popularity of the compact disc was overtaken by the then-unofficial medium of the music download.
Recognizing this, On 17 April 2005, Official UK Singles Chart added the download format to the existing format of physical CD singles. Gnarls Barkley was the first act to reach No.1 on this chart through downloads alone in April 2006, for their debut single "Crazy", released physically the following week. On 1 January 2007 digital downloads became eligible from the point of release, without the need for an accompanying physical. Sales improved in the following years, reaching a record high in 2008 that still proceeded to be overtaken in 2009, 2010 and 2011. Singles have been issued in various formats, including 7-inch, 10-inch, 12-inch vinyl discs. Other, less common, formats include singles on Digital Compact Cassette, DVD, LD, as well as many non-standard sizes of vinyl disc; the most common form of the vinyl single is the 45 or 7-inch. The names are derived from its play speed, 45 rpm, the standard diameter, 7 inches; the 7-inch 45 rpm record was released 31 March 1949 by RCA Victor as a smaller, more durable and higher-fidelity replacement for the 78 rpm shellac discs.
The first 45
A Collection of Beatles Oldies
A Collection of Beatles Oldies is a compilation album by the English rock band the Beatles. Released in the United Kingdom in December 1966, it features hit singles and other songs issued by the group between 1963 and 1966; the compilation served as a stopgap release to satisfy EMI's demand for product during the Christmas period, since the Beatles had only begun recording Sgt. Pepper's the follow-up to their Revolver album, late the previous month, it was the band's first official greatest hits collection, although the Beatles had no involvement in the album. The album's preparation and release coincided with rumours in the press that the group were on the verge of splitting up; this speculation was encouraged by the band members' high-profile individual activities since completing their final US tour, in late August 1966, the announcement that, unlike in previous years, the Beatles would not be performing any concerts in Britain at the end of the year. The album cover is a painting combining contemporary psychedelic and op art themes and was commissioned by the band's manager, Brian Epstein.
To proponents of the Paul is Dead theory, the artwork offered the first clues relating to the alleged demise of Paul McCartney and his replacement in the Beatles by a lookalike, a scenario, said to have taken place in November 1966 and been facilitated by the group's retirement from live performance. A Collection of Beatles Oldies offered the debut album release in Britain for many of the band's singles, although these songs had been available on compilation EPs since their initial release, it provided the debut release in stereo for these recordings, since the Beatles favoured mono mixes for their singles until 1969. The compilation peaked at number 7 on the UK Albums Chart, where all the band's previous albums had held the top spot, it was released in some other European countries and, in 1968, in Australia. The album was deleted from the Beatles' catalogue following the reissue of their albums on compact disc in 1987; the Beatles made the decision to retire from live performance in 1966, dissatisfied at playing to audiences of screaming fans, following a series of controversies that had tarnished the band's image throughout the year.
These controversies included the unfavourable reaction to the butcher cover used for the band's American album Yesterday and Today, death threats and political incidents during their visits to Japan and the Philippines, condemnation from some religious groups in America in response to John Lennon's comment that the Beatles had become more popular than Christ. After completing their world tour on 29 August, the four band members took a break from group activities for three months. Due to the attention that their individual activities received, by early November, rumours in the press claimed that the band were breaking up. Alternatively, according to a report in The Sunday Telegraph, the Beatles were to sever ties with their longtime manager, Brian Epstein, instead be represented by Allen Klein. Fans of the band were disappointed by the announcement that, in a break from the tradition established in 1963, the Beatles were not playing any UK shows over the Christmas period. On 10 November, four days after 200 fans had demonstrated outside Epstein's home in central London, newspapers reported that there would be no further concert tours by the Beatles.
Although Epstein voiced support for the Beatles' continuing evolution as artists, highlighting the advances they had made with their August 1966 album Revolver, this period was one of doubt and anxiety for him. As a manager who thrived on organising the group's concert appearances, he began to worry that their enormous popularity might be coming to an end, or would diminish in the absence of new musical product. In the Beatles' absence, The Monkees – a television show starring four California-based musician-actors, brought together as a Beatles-like act – had first aired in September and soon won over the teenybopper audience that the band had sought to lose. In late October, Epstein informed EMI that, unlike in the previous three years, no new Beatles material would be ready in time for a Christmas release; as a result, the record company planned a compilation album, titled A Collection of Beatles Oldies, for release in Britain and other territories overseen by EMI. According to their press officer, Tony Barrow, the Beatles were opposed to the release of the compilation.
The band returned to work on 24 November, when they began the recording sessions for their album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Although an article in Melody Maker stated that the band would issue a new single in December, the only other scheduled release, aside from the new compilation, was the Beatles' annual fan-club Christmas record. Writing in 1977, author Nicholas Schaffner commented that it was surprising that EMI's US counterpart, Capitol Records, did not issue the compilation album, given the company's policy of maximising the amount of Beatles releases in North America. A Collection of Beatles Oldies was the band's first official greatest-hits set and their eighth official album release in Britain; the album was hurriedly prepared. A cover version of Larry Williams' "Bad Boy" was the sole new track for the UK market, it had been released in the United States, on the Capitol album Beatles VI in June 1965. Thirteen of the fifteen other songs had been issued as singles, all of which had topped the national chart compiled by Record Retailer magazine.
The compilation provided the debut UK album release for the following singles tracks: "From Me to You", "She Loves You", "I Want to Hold Your Hand", "I Feel Fine", "Day Tripper", "We Can Work It Out" and
I Want to Hold Your Hand
"I Want to Hold Your Hand" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles. Written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, recorded in October 1963, it was the first Beatles record to be made using four-track equipment. With advance orders exceeding one million copies in the United Kingdom, "I Want to Hold Your Hand" would have gone straight to the top of the British record charts on its day of release had it not been blocked by the group's first million-seller "She Loves You", their previous UK single, having a resurgence of popularity following intense media coverage of the group. Taking two weeks to dislodge its predecessor, "I Want to Hold Your Hand" stayed at number 1 for five weeks and remained in the UK top 50 for 21 weeks in total, it was the group's first American number 1 hit, entering the Billboard Hot 100 chart on 18 January 1964 at number 45 and starting the British Invasion of the American music industry. By 1 February it topped the Hot 100, stayed there for seven weeks before being replaced by "She Loves You".
It remained on the Billboard chart for 15 weeks. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" became the Beatles' best-selling single worldwide selling more than 12 million copies. In 2018, Billboard magazine named it the 48th biggest hit of all time on the Billboard Hot 100. Capitol Records' rejection of the group's recordings in the US was now Brian Epstein's main concern, he encouraged Lennon and McCartney to write a song to appeal to the American market. George Martin, had no such explicit recollections, believing that Capitol were left with no alternative but to release "I Want To Hold Your Hand" due to increasing demand for the group's product. McCartney had moved into 57 Wimpole Street, where he was lodging as a guest of Dr Richard and Margaret Asher, whose daughter, actress Jane Asher, had become McCartney's girlfriend after their meeting earlier in the year; this location became Lennon and McCartney's new writing base, taking over from McCartney's Forthlin Road home in Liverpool. Margaret Asher taught the oboe in the "small, rather stuffy music room" in the basement where Lennon and McCartney sat at the piano and composed "I Want to Hold Your Hand".
In September 1980, Lennon told Playboy magazine: We wrote a lot of stuff together, one on one, eyeball to eyeball. Like in ` I Want to Hold Your Hand,' I remember. We were in 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 used to write like that—both playing into each other's noses. In 1994, McCartney agreed with Lennon's description of the circumstances surrounding the composition of "I Want to Hold Your Hand", saying: "'Eyeball to eyeball' is a good description of it. That's how it was.'I Want to Hold Your Hand' was co-written." According to Ian MacDonald, in keeping with how Lennon and McCartney collaborated at that time, lyrically bland, random phrases were most called out by the pair. The song's title was a variation of "I Wanna Be Your Man", which the Beatles had recorded at EMI Studios. Reminiscent of Tin Pan Alley and Brill Building techniques and an example of modified 32-bar form, "I Want to Hold Your Hand" is written on a two-bridge model, with only an intervening verse to connect them.
The song has no real "lead" singer, as McCartney sing in harmony with each other. The song is in the key of G major and lyrically opens two beats early with "Oh yeah, I'll tell you something" with a D-B, B-D melody note drop and rise over a I chord. Controversy exists over the landmark chord that Lennon stated McCartney hit on the piano while they were composing the song. Marshall considers. Everett is of the same opinion. Pedler claims, that more surprising is the melody note drop from B to F♯ against a III7 chord on "understand". Music theorists are divided over whether this chord is a iii, a B major, or a B7 or a B5 power chord with no major or minor defining third; the Beatles recorded "I Want to Hold Your Hand" at EMI Studios in Studio 2 on 17 October 1963. This song, along with the single's B-side, "This Boy", was the first Beatles song to be recorded with four-track technology; the two songs were recorded on the same day, each needed seventeen takes to complete. Mono and stereo mixing was done by George Martin on 21 October 1963.
Both songs were translated by Luxembourger musician Camillo Felgen, under the pseudonym of "Jean Nicolas". Odeon, the German arm of EMI was convinced that the Beatles' records would not sell in Germany unless they were sung in German; the Beatles detested the idea, when they were due to record the German version on 27 January 1964 at EMI's Pathe Marconi Studios in Paris they chose to boycott the session. Their record producer, George Martin, having waited some hours for them to show up, was outraged and insisted that they give it a try. Two days the Beatles recorded "Komm, gib mir deine Hand", one of the few times in their career that they recorded outside London. However, Martin
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