Today marks 57 years since the Beatles released their Can’t Buy Me Love. Here’s ten things to know about the record!

1. The basic track for the Beatles sixth British single was recorded at the Pathé Marconi Studios in Paris on January 29, during the Beatles mammoth nineteen-day series of shows at the Olympia Theatre.

2. The session was also booked to record German versions of She Loves You and I Want To Hold Your Hand (Sie Liebt Dich and Komm Gib Mir Deine Hand) for the Odeon Label in Berlin, George Martin flying in especially to produce the recording.

3. Originally the song had a simpler bluesy arrangement but then developed into a ‘call and response’ number with backing vocals by John and George; the idea was soon dropped – as was the key from D to C – and completed in four takes.

4. It was from George Martin’s suggestion that Can’t Buy Me Love started with the chorus – exactly the same idea that Martin had put forward for She Loves You.

5. On 25^th February Paul’s final vocals and George’s guitar solo (you can still hear part of Harrison’s original Paris solo on the finished record) were overdubbed back at EMI Studios in London. It was George’s 21^st birthday. In between the Paris and Abbey Road Can’t Buy Me Love sessions the hard-working Beatles had spent two weeks in the U.S.A., being seen by 73 million people on the Ed Sullivan Show and winning the hearts of American public.

6. It’s the first Beatles single to feature only one vocalist – albeit a double-tracked Paul.

7. When the song was being mixed for stereo it was discovered that the master tape was damaged and had affected Ringo’s Hi Hat sound over a small section of the backing track. As the Beatles were busy filming A Hard Day’s Night, EMI engineer Norman Smith (a talented percussionist) overdubbed Ringo’s playing to patch up the damage!

8. In their film A Hard Day’s Night, the song is used as a backdrop for the Beatles’ ‘escape’ sequence shot at Thornbury Playing Fields in Isleworth. John had to leave early that day as he had been invited to the Dorchester Hotel Foyles Literary bash – which is why there are only three Beatles in the scene with the disgruntled groundsman ‘Sorry we hurt your field, mister!’.

9. The release of Can’t Buy Me Love in the US was significant. Initially charting at No.27, seven days later making the largest ever leap of any disc in the Stateside chart history, shooting up to number the No.1 spot on April 4 1964.  This gave the Beatles the complete US Billboard top 5, the single selling two million copies in the first week across the pond and over a million in the UK. Gold discs all round!

10. The Beatles’ Can’t Buy Me Love was released on 20 March 1964 and within a month the jazz great Ella Fitzgerald (who was in London at the time) responded to the song’s underlying swing rhythm and recorded her own big band version, complete with an arrangement by George Martin himself. This was a key moment in the Beatles establishing their worldwide cross-generational appeal, Paul McCartney regarding it ‘an honour’. Her single of the number got to #34 in the UK Hit Parade