I Saw Her Standing There

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I Saw Her Standing There is a song off The Beatles' 1963 debut album, Please Please Me. It was written mostly by Paul McCartney, with help from John Lennon.

Contents

[edit] AKA and Working Titles

[edit] Writing

Paul had gotten theidea for I Saw Her Standing There after a concert in Southport. He would complete the song with John in the front room of his house on 20 Forthlin Road in September 1962. Paul recalls, "I wrote it with John in the front parlour of my house in 20 Forthlin Road, Allerton. We sagged off school and wrote it on guitars and a little bit on the piano that I had there." Paul also recalled, "Sometimes we would just start a song from scratch, but one of us would nearly always have a germ of an idea, a title or a rough little thing they were thinking about and we'd do it. I Saw Her Standing There was my original, I'd started it and I had the first verse, which therefore gave me the tune, the tempo and the key. It gave you the subject matter, a lot of the information, and then you had to fill in... It was co-written, my idea, and we finished it that day." Paul had written the lyrics in an exercise book from the Liverpool Institute. In Mike McCartney's book, Remember, there is a photo of John and Paul working on the song, playing it while looking at the book which it was written on. Paul recalled, "We were learning our skill. John would like some of my lines and not others. He liked most of what I did, but there would sometimes be a cringe line, such as, 'She was just seventeen, she'd never been a beauty queen.' John thought, 'Beauty queen? Ugh.' We were thinking of Butlins so we asked ourselves, what should it be? We came up with, 'You know what I mean.' Which was good, because you don't know what I mean." It was apparently written about Iris Caldwell, Rory Storm's (whose real name was Alan Caldwell) sister. She recalled, "We dated for a couple of years but it was never serious. We never pretended to be true to each other. I went out with lots of people. I was working away in different theatres at the time but if I was back home then we would go out. There were never any promises made or love declared." They broke up shortly after Paul met Jane Asher. Caldwell would go on to marry Shane Fenton (AKA Alvin Stardust). This song was not the first Paul had written about Iris Caldwell. He had also written another one called I Fancy Me Chances, which went: "I fancy me chances with you… I fancy me chances with you… When I’m at the dances, I fancy me chances, I fancy me chances with you" In addition to dating Paul McCartney and Alvin Stardust, she had also dated George Harrison. Her mother recalled, "He used to come and watch TV three times a week. He and Iris used to sit there holding hands. It was the first time that either of them had ever taken any interest in the opposite sex." As soon as I Saw Her Standing There was written, it quickly became part of their set in Hamburg, where it sometimes lasted over ten minutes thanks to additional guitar solos.

[edit] Recording

The earliest recorded version was recorded during a band rehearsal in an empty Cavern Club in late 1962. This version is available only on bootlegs, and features John playing harmonica only instead of playing rhythm guitar. The next recorded versions were recorded live at the Star Club on December 25, December 28, and December 31, 1962. The album version was recorded on February 11, 1963, when most of the album Please Please Me was recorded. It was recorded under the working title of Seventeen. Nine takes of the song were recorded in the morning, with Take 1 being deemed best. In the afternoon, they overdubbed handclaps. The album version is Take 1 with the count-in from Take 9 edited in. Paul McCartney has said that the bass part from the song was stolen from Chuck Berry's I'm Talking About You, a February 1961 single. "I played exactly the same notes as he did and it fitted our number perfectly. Even now, when I tell people about it, I find few of them believe me. Therefore I maintain that a bass riff doesn't have to be original." The song was recorded for BBC Radio several times, the first of which being Saturday Club on March 16, 1963 and the last of which being From Us To You on May 1, 1964.

[edit] Recording Sessions


[edit] Participants

[edit] The Beatles

[edit] Production

[edit] Available Versions

[edit] Available On

[edit] Cover Versions

  • Allister
  • Alvin and The Chipmunks
  • Jose Feliciano
  • Charly Garcia
  • Peter Grant
  • Johnny Hallyday
  • David Hernandez
  • Billy Joel
  • Elton John (featuring John Lennon)
  • Laurence Juber
  • Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard
  • MxPx
  • The Smithereens
  • Soda Stereo
  • Swinging Blue Jeans
  • Tiffany
  • The Tubes
  • The Who

[edit] Source

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