Talk:I Want to Hold Your Hand

Personal Experience - first kid on the block

I received an EP (Twist and Shout)which contained this song in California from my brother before the Beatles came to the US. I wondered about this for years, as my brother's residence in England (he went to London School of Economics for his Masters') was much later. He explained it to me recently:

He was a Peace Corps volunteer in Liberia Africa at the time. He had traveled to Nigeria and another aid volunteer from England told him about this fantastic band called the Beatles and, somehow, this EP was available in Nigeria! I guess he was making up for telling people not to buy Elvis Presley when he worked in a record store in Pomona, CA as a teen - he invariably steered them to the 'race records' in the store which Elvis had probably listened to.

Small layout problem

There is a small layout problem that causes computers with resolutions of 1024 to have vertical scroll bars. I do not know how to fix it, but I'm pointing it out.Dooga 04:22, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Congrats

On the FA. Very small talk page for it though :P. Aditionally, I can't find the broken archive link to the peer review above. - Estel ^(talk) 08:43, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Song Inspiration Examples

"McCartney and Lennon did not have any particular inspiration for the song, unlike their later hits such as "Yesterday", "Hey Jude" and "Let It Be"."

McCartney has written all of those songs. Perhaps at least one Lennon song should be used as an example?

Melody and Lyrics

This section mentions the "octave jump" that both singers sing; only Paul (apparently the backing vocal) jumps up an octave - John (singing the lead line) jumps up a fifth, not an octave. You can hear this in the audio sample.

This article is the biggest crock of shit we have ever read. You bloody AMERICANS... It's really disgusting.

Hey, that's a bit rough don't you think Mate?

I would like to point out that the statement that a solo connects the two bridges in this song is incorrect. There is no solo in this song. It's all verses and bridges. Have a listen before you write about details!

Where is the citation for this section? It makes a lot of assumptions that look like original research. (Example: The song is about a man expressing his feelings for his lover, and at first, the singing is done in a seemingly shy and bashful manner, with the singer pausing every few words: "Oh yeah, I (pause) tell you something (pause) I think you'll understand". However, when the chorus is reached and the singers make the octave-long jump, there is no hiding their feelings, with an uninterrupted "I want to hold your hand". The lyrics are straightforward and simple compared with later works of the Beatles.) This FA is missing a lot of inline citations! How was this missed in the peer review and FAC process? -- Malber (talk · contribs)

Missing peer review

It is said that this article has received one. It would be good to be given a link to it.

The archive is at Wikipedia:Peer_review/Archive_1#I_Want_To_Hold_Your_Hand but I don't know how to link this into the template.--Adam ^(talk) 14:58, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. GeeJo _{(t) (c)} • 17:32, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Stereo

'The song was also the first Beatles song to be recorded in true stereo'. This requires some explanation, and if there is none, removal. It was recorded in 4 tracks. The release was mono. Where did stereo come in?

Perhaps you mean that the final mix made at the time was stereo - but that would be odd, given that the releases were mono. Also, I heard in an interview with Paul McCartney that most Beatles tracks were mixed by them in mono, and the stereo mixes were cooked up later by engineers. This appears to have been the case at least up to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - see that album's Wikipedia entry.

Without explanation, the claim that it was 'recorded in true stereo' is meaningless. If it was the first track to be recorded on 4 track rather than 2 track, you could just as well say it was the 1st one not to be recorded in stereo. --Tower 14:55, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Also, regarding recordings, the article states this was the only song recorded by the group outside of London. Unless I am mistaken, the first recording of "Can't Buy Me Love" (although unreleased at the time) was recorded in Paris; which had a backing vocal track which was later dumped. It may also be noteworthy for this article that Capitol Records was originally resistant to releasing ANY Beatle records in the United States, which is why Vee Jay records released their first LP. -- ZincOrbie 17:25, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

German version

The article - quite rightly - covers the German version in quite a lot of detail, but it neglects to say what chart position that version reached (in Germany or any other country). It would be great if somebody could add that information. --kingboyk 01:45, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

No Specific inspiration?

Is there really evidence that "McCartney and Lennon did not have a specific inspiration for the song"? The fact that they were asked to write something for the American market does not preclude them writing it with a particular event/girl in mind. --Tower 23:40, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I do agree with that, but I think that it is saying, the event/girl was not the main motivation.

Hammond Organ on the Studio Version?

I have proposed for over 30 years that there is a Hammond organ on the backing track of I Want to Hold Your Hand. I have always maintained that the sound that is attributed to Lennon's Rickenbacker backing track (which is under Harrison's two guitars - one doing chords and one overdubbing little riffs) is his guitar integrated with a Hammond organ. The deep leslie and tremolo effect that the Hammond uses was masterfully compressed and integrated with Lennon's guitar to create that richly textured, wall of sound that has since, never been reproduced or successfully mimicked even with today's sophisticated digital loop amps. To make a long story short, when ever the Beatles played that tune live, Lennon not only was totally unable to ever re-create that sound, he also played several chord inversions that are totally absent from his recorded version. On top of that, on the recording, he only plays fifth intervals (with some added 9th tones), in other words, each chord is only comprised of the bottom root note and the next string up, the fifth (with occasional 9th). So most chords consist of the 6th and 5th strings and on a few, the 5th and 4th strings. The organ, either played by Martin or one of the guys on an overdub, also only uses the two note intervals to cleverly mimic the guitar, yet create that lush driving texture that makes the song. It was so attractive that the Kinks, Who, Animals and just about every guitar player in the early 60's tried to mimic that at one time or another. None could do it because, its a Hammond on top of the guitar!

Very few people seem able to "hear" that organ meshing with the guitar, never mind obvious red flags where Lennon's alleged guitar hits low octave D notes (before the B7 after "I think you'll understand..") and bent, or oscillating open low E string tones (6th string) which is impossible in the manner heard on the record. The low D note (not Paul's bass) is impossible unless Lennon played a 7 string guitar:-)

Listen closely to the isolated backing track of the German stereo version of IWTHYH (Komm gib mir deine Hand) where the Beatles sang in German but used the same pre-recorded backing track that is from the British version. It is available and easy to isolate the left channel if one has the the first of two Capitol CD sets of Beatles that includes Something New (album) and of course Komm gib mir deine Hand . If you listen, you will at minimum, hear where John's guitar, doing backing chords, creates some of the strangest sounds, grunts, nuances and general anomalies ever heard. Why? Because its the Hammond Organ superimposed on top! The so called scholars say, "no its just overdriven amps", "old strings", "harmonic distortions" or his speakers busted or any excuse including aliens:-) The song starts out with Lennon's two intro backing chords (C to D) but at 8 seconds into it, the organ makes its stealth entrance. Its no coincidence that the usage of the Hammond was probably strongly influenced by their utilization of the organ just a few days earlier for the overdubs of I Wann be Your Man except that this time, they more stealthily, compressed and mixed in the organ to mask it. I invite anyone with an open mind, and discerning ear for subtle variances or anomalous sounds, to listen closely and respond with their thoughts. Ctenid JA March 6, 2007

reference for Fieldler, Boston Pops

From "Top Pop Singles 1955-1990" Joel Whitburn, 1991. Confirms release peaked at Number 55, charting for 6 weeks, debuting on the charts on 4 July 1964. I don't know how to do the footnotes...

removed templates

FYI, someone removed a bunch of templates here : http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:I_Want_to_Hold_Your_Hand&diff=next&oldid=108266482 . Someone may want to review and see if it was appropriate. --Spundun 23:55, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:03 iwantoholdyourhand.jpg

Image:03 iwantoholdyourhand.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot 03:01, 26 October 2007 (UTC)