Mar. 16, 1964 - On sale today is the Beatles’ new single, “Can’t Buy Me Love.” The B-side is “You Can’t Do That.”
While in Paris for a series of performances, the Beatles stayed at the five-star George V hotel and had an upright piano moved into one of their suites so their songwriting could continue. It was here that Paul McCartney wrote “Can't Buy Me Love.” The song was written under the pressure of the success achieved by “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” which had just reached number one in the U.S.
When George Martin, the Beatles’ producer, first heard “Can’t Buy Me Love,” he felt that the song needed changing.
“I thought that we really needed a tag for the song’s ending,” said Martin, “and a tag for the beginning; a kind of intro. So I took the first two lines of the chorus and changed the ending, and said ‘Let's just have these lines, and by altering the second phrase we can get back into the verse pretty quickly.’ And they said: ‘That's not a bad idea, we'll do it that way.’”
“Can’t Buy Me Love” was recorded on January 29 at EMI’s Pathe Marconi Studios in Paris. McCartney’s final vocal was overdubbed at EMI Studios in London on Feb. 25.
