In a break from Iowa, here's a startling event that happened just across the river from me back in 1963: a letter from a 15-year-old girl pushed Capitol Records into releasing the Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand" two weeks earlier than planned, thus precipitating Beatlemania. She'd heard a portion of "She Loves You" played during a December 10 segment of the CBS Evening News, liked it, and wrote a letter to a WWDC disk jockey. He couldn't get that song, but he got a copy of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" from London, hand-carried by a BOAC flight attendant. He put it into rotation, and that started it all in the US.
The song was already No. 1 in England at that point. But Capitol Records had low expectations for the song's performance in the States. After all, the label had previously refused to release Beatles records at all. A notorious 1963 Capitol memo curtly dismissed the group: "We don't think the Beatles will do anything in this market."
I lived in Annandale, just a few miles from the letter-writer; I listened to the radio, but I have no memory of whether it was WWDC or another station. Still, I remember hearing that song played a lot that Christmas season.
Amazing.
Posted by Linkmeister at January 18, 2004 07:37 PMI was 13 when I first heard "I wanna hold your hand" and I still remember my parent's very large radio that I listened to.
The song would be played every night at 7pm. Those guys were the first boys I ever had a crush on...I was in 8th grade Catholic school so I had to hide my feelings for their songs, lest I blush too darkly..amen.
We lived even closer, and I do remember which station I heard it on because WWDC was the one my mother listened to. I was just about to turn 12, and I was in love!
Posted by: Avedon at January 30, 2004 08:04 PM