The Beatles song George Martin couldn’t live without: “I knew there was something there”
“I fell in love with them, it’s as simple as that.” That’s what George Martin said about meeting The Beatles. While often labelled as the ‘fifth Beatle’ for his vital contributions to the band as their producer, working with them from the very start to the very end, his role in their lives and their role in his was more complex than that. That was until this essential track that locked in joint legacy.
It’s easy to forget that when The Beatles started, no one wanted them. Brian Epstein was failing at every single turn as labels up and down the country turned the band down. No doubt they all kicked themselves now, and saying no to the group went down as some label executives’ biggest regrets, but at the time, no one was fussing about them. Either they didn’t like their rough demo tape or simply didn’t want to take a shot on four young lads from Liverpool, but whatever the reason, door after door shut in their faces.
George Martin nearly slammed his, too. “I brought them down from Liverpool because I wasn’t too impressed with the tape Brian Epstein sent me,” he recalled on the BBC’s Desert Island Discs. He, too, wasn’t sold on their sound. In fact, he didn’t really like it. On that demo tape, and even when the band were playing in front of him at their infamous EMI audition, he didn’t immediately have the lightning bolt moment that it may be expected he might have. There was no big grand revelation that this band were the future and would make history. Instead, he just heard a drummer who couldn’t drum telling them they needed to fire Pete Best and a group that couldn’t seem to figure out what they were doing.
It was confusing to Martin, though, as he’d never seen or heard anything like it. “When I met them, I wasn’t very impressed with their music still and I couldn’t really make out for myself what I was listening for, because I was so conditioned to a solo singer and a backing group,” he said. But the soon-to-be Fab Four were doing something different as Lennon and McCartney shared lead vocal duties, and Harrison also occasionally stepped up to the mic, with Martin stating, “Here I had four people who were all doing all sorts of things.”
“I knew there was something there, but I couldn’t work out whether it was worthwhile or not,” he said about the ultimate dilemma that could have changed music forever had he said no. But what swayed him was not the music, it was the people making it. “They did have tremendous charisma,” he said, adding tenderly, “They were the kind of people that when you’re with them, you are all the better for being with them, and when they leave you, you feel a loss.”
And so their working relationship began. During the making of their debut album, it was one big process of figuring out their sound, their collaboration and how to make it work. The Beatles had to learn how to work in a professional studio and listen to a producer, and their producer had to learn how to adapt to work with a different sort of rock band. They pulled it off, though, making one of the most influential debut records ever put to tape.
But it was the song that came after that stood out to Martin as the song he couldn’t live without, choosing it as one of his essential tracks as it marked the biggest breakthrough moment for the band.
“For the first time, we knew we’d made it big,” he said about the moment they got a call during a recording session, telling them that ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ had hit number one in America. It topped the charts in the UK, Australia, Denmark, New Zealand, Sweden and many more places too, but America was the pinnacle. The band had officially cracked the states, opening up a whole new world and establishing themselves as not just another British band doing well but as the band of the future who would make a real, serious wave in history.
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out Beatles Newsletter
All the latest stories about The Beatles from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.