| "Can't Buy Me Love" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
.jpg) US picture sleeve | ||||
| Single bythe Beatles | ||||
| from the albumA Hard Day's Night | ||||
| B-side | "You Can't Do That" | |||
| Released |
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| Recorded | 29 January, 25 February 1964 | |||
| Studio |
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| Genre | Rock and roll,[1]pop rock,[2]R&B[3] | |||
| Length | 2:11 | |||
| Label | Parlophone (UK),Capitol (US) | |||
| Songwriter | Lennon–McCartney | |||
| Producer | George Martin | |||
| The Beatles UK singles chronology | ||||
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| The Beatles US singles chronology | ||||
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"Can't Buy Me Love" is a song by the English rock bandthe Beatles that was released in March 1964 as theA-side of their sixth single. It was written byPaul McCartney[4] and credited to theLennon–McCartney partnership. The song was included on the group's albumA Hard Day's Night and was featured in a scene inRichard Lester'sfilm of the same title. The single topped charts in the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, the Netherlands, France and Sweden. In the UK, it was the fourth highest selling single of the 1960s.[5]
While in Paris,the Beatles stayed at the five-starGeorge V hotel and had an upright piano moved into one of their suites so that songwriting could continue.[6] It was here that 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 America. When producerGeorge Martin 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, 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".[7] The song's verse is atwelve-bar blues in structure, a formula that the Beatles seldom applied to their own material.[8]
When pressed by American journalists in 1966 to reveal the song's "true" meaning, McCartney stated: "I think you can put any interpretation you want on anything, but when someone suggests that 'Can't Buy Me Love' is about a prostitute, I draw the line." He went on to say: "The idea behind it was that all these material possessions are all very well, but they won't buy me what I really want."[9] However, he was to comment later: "It should have been'Can Buy Me Love'" when reflecting on the perks that money and fame had brought him.[10]
"Can't Buy Me Love" was recorded on 29 January 1964 atEMI's Pathe Marconi Studios inParis, France[11] where the Beatles were performing 18 days of concerts at the Olympia Theatre. At this time, EMI's West Germany branch,Odeon, insisted that the Beatles would not sell records in any significant numbers in Germany unless they were actually sung in theGerman language[12] and the Beatles reluctantly agreed to re-record the vocals to "She Loves You" and "I Want to Hold Your Hand" prior to them being released in Germany. George Martin travelled to Paris with a newly mastered rhythm track for what was to be"Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand"."Sie Liebt Dich" required the Beatles to record a new rhythm track as the original two-track recording had been scrapped.[11] EMI sent a translator to be present for this recording session which had been hurriedly arranged to tie in with the Beatles' Paris commitments. This was accomplished well within the allotted studio time, allowing the Beatles an opportunity to record the backing track, with a guide vocal, to the recently composed "Can't Buy Me Love".[12][11] At this stage the song included background vocal harmonies, but after listening to the first take, the band concluded that the song did not need them. Therefore, "Can't Buy Me Love" became the first single the Beatles released without their characteristic background harmonies.
McCartney's final vocal was overdubbed atEMI Studios, Abbey Road, London, on 25 February.[10] Also re-recorded on this day at EMI Studios wasGeorge Harrison's modified guitar solo, although his original solo can still just be heard in the background. Harrison said: "What happened was, we recorded first in Paris and re-recorded in England. Obviously they'd tried to overdub it, but in those days they only had two tracks, so you can hear the version we put on in London, and in the background you can hear a quieter one."[13]Helen Shapiro, a friend of the Beatles and present at this overdub session, says thatRingo Starr also added extra cymbals "over the top" and that "apparently this was something he did quite often on their records".[14] "Can't Buy Me Love" is also the only English-language track that the Beatles recorded in a studio outside the UK, although the instrumentation of the band's 1968 B-side "The Inner Light" was recorded in India by Harrison and some Indian classical musicians.
"Can't Buy Me Love" was released as a single, backed byJohn Lennon's song "You Can't Do That". The release took place on 16 March 1964 in the United States and four days later in the United Kingdom. In the US, "Can't Buy Me Love" topped theBillboard Hot 100 chart for five weeks. With the success of the song, the Beatles established fourrecords on the Hot 100:
In the UK, "Can't Buy Me Love" became the Beatles' fourth number 1 and their third single to sell over a million copies. By November 2012, it had sold 1.53 million copies there.[16] As of December 2018, it was the 35th best-selling single of all time in the UK – one of six Beatles songs included on the top sales rankings published by theOfficial Charts Company.[17]
A stereo mix of "Can't Buy Me Love" was first carried out in late June 1964 for inclusion on the Beatles'A Hard Day's Night album. For its sequence in the filmA Hard Day's Night, directorRichard Lester used crane shots to capture the four band members running and leaping in a sports field.[18] In his book on the history ofmusic videos,Money for Nothing, author Saul Austerlitz places "Can't Buy Me Love" at number 33 on the "Top 100 Videos List".[19]
Subsequent album appearances for the song include the compilationsHey Jude (1970; also known asThe Beatles Again), the 1973 double-disc collection1962–1966, the 1982 releaseReel Music, which features songs from the Beatles' feature films; the 1982 compilation20 Greatest Hits and the 2000greatest hits album1; a composite of takes one and two of "Can't Buy Me Love" was included on theAnthology 1 compilation in 1995.Rolling Stone ranked "Can't Buy Me Love" at number 295 on its list of the500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2010.[20]
In September 2015, the Beatles donated the use of their recording of the song toPeople for the Ethical Treatment of Animals for a television commercial.[21]
McCartney opened his 2022 "Got Back" Tour gigs with the song.
Ella Fitzgerald recorded the song for her 1964 albumHello, Dolly. This version was also released as a single, peaking at number 34 in the UK in June 1964, spending five weeks on the chart.[22]Alex Petridis ofThe Guardian cites Fitzgerald as an example of how several artists, responding to the composition'sswing-like rhythmic quality, issued "parent-friendly jazz covers" of "Can't Buy Me Love", and how the song was "key to establishing the Beatles' cross-generational appeal".[23]
R&B groupBlackstreet recorded a slower-tempo cover of the song for their 1996 albumAnother Level.[24][25][26]
According toIan MacDonald:[27]
Weekly charts[edit]
| Year-end charts[edit]
|
| Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom (BPI)[47] | Silver | 1,547,454[46] |
| United States (RIAA)[49] | Gold | 2,100,000[48] |
| Summaries | ||
| Worldwide | — | 6,000,000[48] |
This disc golds the record to date for the biggest advance sale of any single – 2,100,000 in the U.S.A., on the Capitol label, and over one million in Britain … it topped the charts all over the globe. World sales have been estimate at between five and six million
