Last Saturday, February 11th, marked another big anniversary in the history of The Beatles.
It was on that day in 1963 they recorded "I Saw Her Standing There," "Boys," "Do You Want to Know a Secret," "There's a Place," "Twist and Shout" and several other songs for their first British album, Please Please Me, in a very long one-day session at EMI's Abbey Road studios in London.
Sung by Paul McCartney, "I Saw Her Standing There" was actually the B-side of "I Want to Hold Your Hand," which topped the Billboard Hot 100 for 7 weeks. However, it peaked at number-14 on its own. And it's a mainstay in McCartney's set to this day,
The song also appeared on 3 non-compilation/live albums -- Please, Please Me in the U.K.; Introducing...The Beatles and then Meet The Beatles in the U.S.
Late Beatles producer George Martin once commented on how “I Saw Her Standing There”was a great example of how Lennon and McCartney collaborated. He said, “Paul has often said that when it came to writing ‘I Saw Her Standing There,’ which was Paul’s song, the original lyrics were, ‘She was just 17, she was a ballroom queen,’ or something of that sort. And John heard it and said, ‘Aw Paul, that’s awful. She was just 17, you know what I mean.’ And he put that line in, which was so telling, it was so apt. That sort of summed up the kind of collaboration they had. Similarly, Paul would be equally astringent when it came to John.”
John Lennon also played that song at his last ever concert performance, November 28th, 1974, when he was joined by Elton John at New York's Madison Square Garden.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s Beatles exhibit, Get Back to Let It Be, which opened in March 2022, has been extended and will remain on display through the remainder of this year. It’s an immersive complement to director Peter Jackson's documentary series The Beatles: Get Back.
[Source: Classic Hits Today]