Swan Beatles She Loves You
US release September 16, 1963
Ed Sullivan’s supercharge
Americans typically consider the Beatles starting point in the US as their debut on the Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964. That so many people watched that evening is a great demonstration that the Beatles’ popularity already existed. The show supercharged that popularity.
Swan Beatles She Loves You
Crickets at US start
The Beatles recording presence in the United States had begun in 1963, but to little acclaim. The UK release of “Please Please Me” had been on January 11, 1963. It hit #1 there on February 22.
The US release was on February 7, but the single hardly charted. It only reached No. 35 on the local WLS-AM (Chicago) music survey in March and did not chart at all on Billboard. The Vee Jay label even misspelled their name.
Swan Beatles She Loves You
From a slow first release to…
…a slower second release
When Vee Jay signed an agreement to release “Please Please Me” it also got the right to first refusal. Even though the song did poorly, Vee Jay chose to release “From Me To You” and did that on May 27, 1963. It did even more poorly. By the end of June, “From Me to You” had sold fewer than 4,000 copies and had failed to chart anywhere.
At least Vee Jay spelled the band’s name correctly.
Swan She Loves You
Brian Epstein chose “She Loves You” for the next release. Vee Jay declined. EMI was the Beatles UK label; Capital Records EMI’s US counterpart. Capital refused.
Persistent, Brian Epstein licensed the song to Swan Records, a Philadelphia-based label. Few US radio stations picked it up.
The song’s poor US showing was definitely a surprise. EMI had released the song in the UK on August 23, 1963. It had what would become their trademark “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” It contained their equally famous trademark of the high pitched “Whoooo.”
In the UK, it had had 500,000 advanced orders. It hit #1 on September 14 and was on the charts for 31 consecutive weeks, It was the best-selling single of 1963. “She Loves You” built Beatlemania.
Swan Beatles She Loves You
NBC News
NBC news had a piece on the Beatles on November 18, 1963. It may have helped light the US Beatlemania fuse, but even such national coverage didn’t tip things their way. The link below does work despite its appearance.
Swan Beatles She Loves You
CBS News
CBS broadcast a piece about the Beatles the morning of November 22, 1963 intending to rebroadcast it that evening. Obviously, the assassination of President Kennedy cancelled that broadcast.
Swan Beatles She Loves You
Jack Parr Show
On January 3, 1964 the Jack Paar program showed film footage of The Beatles performing “She Loves You,” but Jack Parr’s demographic did not reach out to those Baby Boomer buyers. It is interesting to note Parr’s claim to have been the first to show the band on American TV. Apparently his fact-checkers, if they existed, missed the two November news reports.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqll7MBaCOY
Swan re-release
Swan re-released “She Loves You.” It hit Billboard #1 on March 21 and remained there until April 3 when the now-wiser Capital Record release, “Can’t Buy Me Love,” replaced it. [Beatles Again site story of various labels]
Jim, you may already know of this but if not here is some information that may help you for songs ((no, I don’t think that you need help, just as an aid to be able to do more).
I currently have a library of over 16,000 songs. I am including in their information as accurate a history as possible including 45 releases. Here is one and a great source to see the last you have here (She Loves You ) by the Beatles – http://www.45cat.com/record/r5055
It will give you the 45 with info and a blog that can be very historically interesting and further down the page all the different 45 releases around the world; pictured. You may have to get an account with them which is easy peazy. There are times I will get lost in some of the information contained on the blogs as it can get extremely detailed in certain specific ways. Further, I have other sites that I need to use to get accurate info on say the older blues artists from pre- 1940. Though it doesn’t get anywhere as descriptive or isn’t as easy to use. With this site you can look up a song by title, composer or band and get releases from the first to into the 80’s or 90’s and often by different artists as time progresses. Well, I hope that this is helpful. Love your articles!
Sorry I forgot to add you can actually get to see and copy, if you know how the original Swan release.
Below is the link to the Swan release;
http://images.45cat.com/the-beatles-she-loves-you-swan-3.jpg