The Beatles Lyrics, album "The Beatles' Million Sellers"

PAUL 1964: 'Let's see, we were told we had to get down to it.
So we found this house when we were walking along one day.
We knew we had to really get this song going, so we got down in the basement of this disused house and there was an old piano.
It wasn't really disused, it was rooms to let.
We found this old piano and started banging away.
There was a little old organ too.
So we were having this informal jam and we started banging away.
Suddenly a little bit came to us, the catch line.
So we started working on it from there.
We got our pens and paper out and just wrote down the lyrics.
Eventually, we had some sort of a song, so we played it for our recording manager and he seemed to like it.
We recorded it the next day.'

JOHN 1980: 'We wrote alot of stuff together, one on one, eyeball to eyeball.
Like in 'I Want To Hold Your Hand,' I remember when we got the chord that made the song.
We were in Jane Asher's house, downstairs in the cellar playing on the piano at the same time.
And we had, 'Oh you-u-u/ got that something…' And Paul hits this chord, and I turn to him and say, 'That's it!' I said, 'Do that again!' In those days, we really used to absolutely write like that – both playing into each other's noses.'

PAUL circa-1994: ''Eyeball to eyeball' is a very good description of it.
That's exactly how it was.
'I Want To Hold Your Hand' was very co-written.'

JOHN 1972: 'John and Paul, but mainly Paul.'

JOHN 1980: 'That's Paul completely.
Maybe I had something to do with the chorus, but I don't know.
I always considered it his song.'

PAUL 1984: 'We recorded it in France, as I recall.
Went over to the Odeon in Paris.
Recorded it over there.
Felt proud because Ella Fitzgerald recorded it, too, though we didn't realize what it meant that she was doing it.'

PAUL circa-1994: ''Can't Buy Me Love' is my attempt to write a bluesy mode.
The idea behind it was that all these material possessions are all very well but they won't buy me what I really want.'

JOHN 1964: 'George and I play the same bit on the guitar together – that's the bit that'll set your feet a-tapping, as the reviews say.
The middle-eight is the most tuneful part, to me, because it's a typical Beatles bit.'

JOHN 1972: 'This was the first time feedback was used on a record.
It's right at the beginning.'

JOHN 1974: 'I wrote this at a recording session.
It was tied together around the guitar riff that opens it.'

JOHN 1980: 'That's me completely.
Including the guitar lick with the first feedback anywhere.
I defy anybody to find a record… unless it is some old blues record from 1922… that uses feedback that way.
So I claim it for the Beatles.
Before Hendrix, before the Who, before anybody.
The first feedback on record.'

PAUL circa-1994: 'John had a semi-acoustic Gibson guitar.
It had a pick-up on it so it could be amplified… We were just about to walk away to listen to a take when John leaned his guitar against the amp.
I can still see him doing it… and it went, 'Nnnnnnwahhhhh!' And we went, 'What's that? Voodoo!' 'No, it's feedback.' Wow, it's a great sound!' George Martin was there so we said, 'Can we have that on the record?' 'Well, I suppose we could, we could edit it on the front.' It was a found object – an accident caused by leaning the guitar against the amp.
The song itself was more John's than mine.
We sat down and co-wrote it with John's original idea.
John sang it, I'm on harmonies.'