Daily Song Discussion: I Saw Her Standing There (Day One)
Inspired by the Paul McCartney subreddit, I’ve decided to create a place to discuss every Beatles song! I’ll be going in chronological* order every day through the bands extensive catalog, providing the context behind each track and any fun facts I uncover along the way. Feel free to comment below!
*Singles released by the band that were later released on albums will be discussed in correlation with their album release. A few important unreleased/proto Beatles songs will be included as bonus discussions after the official catalog is complete.
While not the main goal of these posts, feels free to rate each song on a scale of 1-10, with one being an abomination, 5.5 being completely average, and 10 being perfection. I will average out the ratings for each song to give a community consensus score.
I Saw Her Standing There, originally titled “Seventeen”, was first thought up after a Beatles concert in Southport by Paul McCartney, likely in late July of 1962. He was inspired by the traditional folk song “As I Roved Out,” in which the male love interest pines over a 17 year old girl, but decides he must remain faithful to his wife (in most versions). Work on the song officially began on October 22nd, when McCartney started creating the arrangements for “Seventeen” at Rory Storm’s house, who shared a band with Ringo Starr from 1960 to early 1962.
Things picked up the following month when John Lennon was introduced to the song. Lennon‘s most famous influence was convincing McCartney to change the opening line of “She was just seventeen, never been a beauty queen“, which later became the iconic “She was just, seventeen, if you know what I mean.” McCartney around this time decided to copy Chuck Berry’s bass riff from his 1961 record “Talkin’ About You”, with McCartney later saying, “I played exactly the same notes as he did and it fitted our number perfectly…. I maintain that a bass riff hasn’t got to be original.”
The song was first debuted December of 1962, in which a bootleg recording of a rehearsal at a Cavern Club performance exists. At this stage, the song was slower, contained a fairly prominent harmonica, and had a few subtle lyric changes from what would appear on the official recording. After more performances over the next few weeks, the tempo picked up, the harmonica was shelved, and the lyrics solidified.
In early 1963, George Martin, the new producer of The Beatles, wanted to capitalize on the growing success of the band (spearheaded by the recent release of “Love Me Do) by releasing a full album (Please Please Me) consisting of popular Beatles concert songs performed in studio. The Beatles recorded the song on the morning of February 11th, 1963 near the beginning of their single-day recording blitz. Nine takes of the song were made, of which take one was deemed best. The opening count-in was from take nine, however, and was later spliced together with the original take. Martin kept the count-in, an unusual practice then and now, to create the effect that this was the beginning of a rocking live concert.
I Saw Her Standing There is often considered to be about Paul McCartney’s early 1960s girlfriend Iris Caldwell (sister of Rory Storm), who he had a volatile relationship with. Some have disputed this, however, with another former girlfriend of McCartney’s, Celia Mortimer. claiming that Paul McCartney shared the song with her in late October of 1962. Both Caldwell and Mortimer were seventeen in 1962, while McCartney was 20.
I Saw Her Standing There has been reviewed as one of the greatest songs of all time by various websites, and is often regarded as one of the best intros to any Beatles album. John Lennon notably played the hit track in a concert of his in 1974, despite his avoidance of playing McCartney-led songs after the Beatles breakup.
OP Score: 9.5/10