Monday February 7, 2022 “I Want to Hold Your Hand” Beatles
This week we will spend some time with those lads from Liverpool and their impact on music and musicians and as I understand that not everyone is a Beatles fan, to those who aren’t, I apologize. But stick with this week and maybe by Saturday you might change your mind.
On January 7, 1964 “I Want to Hold Your Hand” by that new band from England had moved up the US charts from the previous week where it was at number 35 to become the number one record in the US. A month later The Beatles would make their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.
There would be 73 million viewers watching that show, one of the largest TV audiences ever and included in that audience would be thousands, maybe millions of kids who would soon be begging their parents to buy them a guitar, then trying to learn how to play it…oh yeah and letting their hair grow. That show would create some of the most famous bands of the sixties and beyond. Everyone from The Byrds to the Foo Fighters would point to the Beatles as their inspiration with the reference being “I want to be them!”
There would be two more appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show on 2/16 and 2/23 and after that final show The Beatles would own eight of the top twenty spots on the US charts including the top three positions, five of the top ten positions and ten of the week’s Billboard’s “Hot Prospects”. An unprecedented accomplishment that no band or artist has ever come close to.
Ironically just a year prior The Beatles had released “From Me to You” in the US and it only reached #116, timing in life I guess.
So let’s get started with “I Want to Hold Your Hnad”, the song that brought these Brits to the US shores and catapulted them into becoming the most popular foursome ever, recognized by their first names, adored by millions and imitated by thousands.
Enjoy their first performance from the first Sullivan Show, no monitors and no earpieces, just live.
Stay safe and well…and Paul McCartney has said that there was an eroticism to this song. “I want to hold your hand (and probably do a lot more)” to quote Paul.