She Loves You / I'll Get You

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Release

UK

On 23 August 1963, the “She Loves You” single was released in the United Kingdom with “I’ll Get You” as the B-side. The songwriting credit on the label was switched to “Lennon–McCartney” for this release – a switch from the “McCartney–Lennon” order of nearly all prior Beatles releases – and would remain this way during the remainder of the band’s tenure.

There was tremendous anticipation ahead of the release – thousands of fans had ordered the group’s next single as early as June, well before a title had been known. By the day before it went on sale, some 500,000 advanced orders had been placed for it. The single set several British sales records. It entered the charts on 31 August and remained in the charts for 31 consecutive weeks, 18 of those weeks in the top three (including every week of the months of September, October, November and December 1963). During that period, it claimed the ranking of number one on 14 September, stayed number one for four weeks, dropped back to the top three, then regained the top spot for two weeks starting on 30 November. This re-gaining of the top spot was very unusual at the time. It then made its way back into the charts for two weeks on 11 April 1964, peaking at 42. It passed sales of a half million copies by early June and a million by late November, whereupon it was awarded a gold record. The song’s run on the charts coincided with the 13 October 1963 performance of the group on Sunday Night at the London Palladium and the emergence of full-blown Beatlemania in the United Kingdom.

It was the best-selling single of 1963, and is the Beatles’ all-time best-selling single in the UK. It was the best-selling single of any artist in the United Kingdom for 14 years until it was surpassed by “Mull of Kintyre” by Wings (written by Paul McCartney and Denny Laine). As of November 2012, it is the eighth best-selling single of all time by any artist in the UK, with sales of 1.9 million copies.

US

The group’s lack of success in the US puzzled the Beatles’ producer George Martin and manager Brian Epstein given their huge hits in the UK. Their only United States release that had charted was “From Me to You“, which lasted three weeks in August 1963, never going higher than number 116 on the Billboard Hot 100. Capitol Records had been stubborn in turning down the chance to become their record label in the US, and consequently the Beatles had been with Vee-Jay Records until that label failed to pay their royalties on time. Transglobal Music, an affiliate of EMI, held the licenses to their output in the US, and promptly ordered Vee-Jay to halt their manufacturing and distribution of Beatles records. Epstein, who needed a record label to release “She Loves You” in the United States, asked Transglobal to find another label for him, and Transglobal came up with Swan Records. To avoid potential disagreements and lawsuits, the contract signed with Swan licensed to them only “She Loves You” and “I’ll Get You“, enough only for the A- and B-sides of a single – and only for two years.

When “She Loves You” came out as a single in the US on 16 September 1963, it received a positive notice in Billboard, but garnered very little radio airplay. New York disc jockey Murray the K saw it place third out of five in a listener record contest, but it failed to take off from that. The song was also featured as a part of the Rate-a-Record segment of American Bandstand where it scored in the low 70’s, noticeably lower than those songs considered to score well. Overall, it sold about a thousand copies and completely failed to chart on Billboard.

In January 1964, the Beatles released “I Want to Hold Your Hand“, which quickly climbed all the way to number one, launching the “British invasion” of the American music scene and paving the way for more Beatles records and releases by other British artists. In the wake of that success, the Swan “She Loves You” single re-emerged, and entered the Billboard chart on 25 January 1964. Beatlemania took hold of America, spurred by the group’s appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show in February, where they performed this among other songs. “She Loves You” spent five weeks at number two, behind “I Want to Hold Your Hand“, then replaced it for two weeks at number one beginning on 21 March. The Beatles are one of only two artists ever whose first two Hot 100 singles held the top two positions simultaneously on that chart. During its fifteen-week run on the American charts, “She Loves You” was joined by four other Beatles songs at the top five in the American charts and became part of the group setting several all-time records for the Hot 100. Billboard ranked the record as the No. 2 song of 1964, behind “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” making the Beatles the second act to hold the top two year-end record positions since Elvis Presley did it in 1956 with “Heartbreak Hotel” and “Don’t Be Cruel.”

When Beatlemania reached the US, the record labels holding rights to Beatle songs re-released them in various combinations. Swan claimed to own the rights to “Sie Liebt Dich“, the German version of “She Loves You“, although they did not. On 21 May 1964, “Sie Liebt Dich” was released by Swan in the US, featuring “I’ll Get You” on the B-side, just like the English language single. American consumers bought “Sie Liebt Dich” in quite modest numbers, leading to a chart peak at number 97 on 27 June.

“She Loves You” was included on Capitol Records’ US album, The Beatles’ Second Album, which overtook Meet the Beatles! on 2 May 1964, reaching the top spot in the album charts. It was the first time an artist had replaced themselves at the summit of the American album charts, and this provided a hint of the successes the Beatles would continue to achieve.

Other countries

Unlike Capitol Records’ reluctance to proceed with the Beatles in the U.S., Capitol of Canada went ahead with the group, and “She Loves You” was released there in September 1963. It was played by Ontario radio station CKWS the next month, and entered the national CHUM Chart on 2 December 1963. It reached the top five on 23 December, a full month before any Beatles single would do the same in the U.S. charts. It then spent nine weeks at number one in the early part of 1964.

“She Loves You” became the first Beatles record to sell well in continental Europe and led to a Beatles tour of Sweden in late October 1963. Prior to The Beatles’ breakthrough with “She Loves You“, British acts had only managed sporadic successes in continental European markets. […]

Last updated on February 6, 2016