From head to heart
The Beatles' She Loves You

Following our retroscope series of latter years, here we go again! Here's Speakers' corner's cousin; From head to heart. Luna Kafé's focused eye on great events, fantastic happenings, absolute milestones, or other curious incidents from the historic shelves'n'vaults of pop'n'rock. Blowing our ears and our head, punching our chest and shaking our heart. Making us go sentimental, but not slaphappy. This moonth the Lunar vessel grabs a 50-year-old piece. A seven inch, a single going steady. Forever. Yeah! Their 4th, and their second number 1 (in the UK).

The Beatles
She Loves You /
I'll Get You
Parlophone

She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah!
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah!
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!

Yeah, yeah, yeah!
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!

A lot can be said about this song. John and Paul started writing it in Newcastle after a show on 26 June 1963 and finished it the following day at the McCartney family home. It was recorded five days later at Abbey Road Studios in London on a two track tape machine in glorious mono. The single was released in Britain on 23 August. Capitol Records in the USA turned it down. Instead it was licenced to Swan Records that released the song on 16 September. "She Loves You" was an instant hit in Britain, several European countries and Canada. In the US it didn't take off until the winter of 64 after the following single "I Want To Hold You Hand", finally on the Capitol label, had made it to no. 1.

Paul's father suggested they should change the American sounding 'yeah, yeah, yeah!' to the English 'yes, yes, yes!'. They didn't. John said early on that he would never sing the song after he turned 40. He never did.

I remember this next door girl, three or four years old, sitting on our swing, singing: 'Beatles yeah, yeah, yeah! Beatles yeah, yeah, yeah! Beatles yeah, yeah, yeah!' on and on and on...

Copyright © 2013 JP