How 'Can't Buy Me Love' Changed Everything for Paul McCartney

The Beatles took Paris by storm as they played 18 days of concerts in January 1964 at the Olympia Theater.

They stayed at the iconic George V hotel, now a Four Seasons property and the gold standard of luxury in the city since its construction in 1928. The accommodating staff granted a request for a piano in the Beatles' suite, where Paul McCartney began to experiment with some blues phrasing. The result was the first draft of a future hit called "Can't Buy Me Love."

They were on a roll. The Beatles landed their first chart-topping song in America at the end of December 1963 and were on their third in the U.K. with "I Wanna Hold Your Hand." Now, demand for the latest material from McCartney's hit songwriting partnership with John Lennon was at a fever pitch.

At the same time, EMI was determined to make the Beatles happen in as many territories as possible. That's how the Fab Four found themselves in the EMI Pathe Marconi Studios in Paris to record German-language versions of "She Loves You" and "I Want to Hold Your Hand."

When the session wrapped up early, they decided to record the song McCartney had been working on in the hotel, the first version of "Can't Buy Me Love." This marked the first time that a song was written solely by McCartney, despite the continuing Lennon/McCartney credit. "That's Paul's completely," Lennon told David Sheff in All We Are Saying. "Maybe I had something to do with the chorus, but I don't know. I always considered it his song."

Source: ultimateclassicrock.com

Read More<<<