"I Want to Hold Your Hand" (file info)
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"I Want to Hold Your Hand" is a 1963 Beatles song that was written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and started the British Invasion of the United States music charts. It was the first Beatles record to be made using four-track equipment and the Beatles' first number-one song on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, heralding nineteen more number-one singles by the Beatles in the United States. It also held the top spot in the United Kingdom charts, a million copies of the single had already been ordered on its release. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" became The Beatles' best-selling single worldwide.
McCartney and Lennon did not have any particular inspiration for the song, unlike some of their later hits such as "Yesterday", "Hey Jude" and "Strawberry Fields Forever". Instead, they had received specific instructions from manager Brian Epstein to write a song with the American market in mind. The song was also recorded in German as "Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand" ("Come, give me your hand"), one of only two times the Beatles recorded a song entirely in a language other than English (the other being "She Loves You").