We wrote a lot of stuff together, one on one, eyeball to eyeball. Like in 'I Want to Hold Your Hand,' I remember when we got the chord that made the song. We were in Jane Asher's house, 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 really used to absolutely write like that — both playing into each other's noses.
It was on this day in 1964 that The Beatles had their first number one hit in the United States, with I Want to Hold Your Hand. Over the next six years, their music would top the charts another 20 times.
The quote from above is widely attributed to John Lennon, given in the interview linked above, but oddly, if you read the entire interview the actual quote can’t be found. Still we’ve included it as the source because we couldn’t find another source, and it seems like a possible oversight from www.beatlesinterviews.org as a large portion of the interview is dedicated to talking about the genesis of the band’s songs.
Originally published on The Minot Voice: February 1, 2015