October 17th 1963 – A Busy Day at Abbey Road

October 17th 1963 was a busy day for the Beatles at EMI Studios, Abbey Road. They recorded both sides of their new single, ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ and it’s B Side ‘This Boy’

If that wasn’t enough, they also recorded a Christmas message to be sent to members of the Beatles Fan Club. They would continue to record these discs for the Fan Club for the next 7 years.

I Want to Hold Your Hand was written in the basement of 57 Wimpole Street, where Margaret Elliott, the mother of Jane Asher, had her music room. Paul McCartney had recently moved into the Asher’s house, as he was dated their daughter, Jane. John Lennon visited Paul here on a few occasions, and as he told ‘Playboy’ magazine in 1980:

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.

Of course I Want to Hold Your Hand became the Beatles first number one hit in the USA.

I Want to Hold Your Hand on the Ed Sullivan Show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jenWdylTtzs

The Beatles 1963 Christmas Record https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZLYO0H65E0

The Beatles 1963 Christmas record