Studio 2. 2.30-5.30pm, 7.00-10.00pm. Recording: 'The Beatles' Christmas Record' (unnumbered takes); 'You Really Got A Hold On Me' (take 12); 'I Want To Hold Your Hand' (takes 1-17); 'This Boy' (takes 1-17). Producer: George Martin; Engineer: Norman Smith; 2nd Engineer: Geoff Emerick.
First Christmas record. First session for 'I Want To Hold Your Hand'/'This Boy'. First 4-track Beatles recording.
That's a fucking productive 6 hours. And of course you know
I Want to Hold Your Hand is my all-time Beatles superslice.
The demand was insatiable; in the first three days alone, a quarter million copies had already been sold (10,000 copies In New York City every hour). Capitol was so overloaded by the demand, it contracted part of the job of pressing copies off to Columbia Records and RCA. By 18 January, the song had started its fifteen-week chart run, and on 1 February, the Beatles finally achieved their first number-one in America. The Beatles finally relinquished the number one spot after seven weeks, passing the baton to the very song they had knocked off the top in Britain: "She Loves You". "I Want to Hold Your Hand" sold close to five million copies in the US alone. The replacement of themselves at the summit of the US charts was the first time since Elvis Presley in 1956, with "Love Me Tender" beating out "Don't Be Cruel", that an act had dropped off the top of the American charts only to be replaced by another of their releases.
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