THE BEATLES WROTE THE ROLLING STONES' FIRST HIT 'IN THE CORNER OF A CLUB'

The Beatles and The Rolling Stones are arguably the two biggest bands of all time. Both shot to stardom in the first half of the 1960s, as British music became a cultural force around the world.

As the dominant bands of their era, there was a perceived rivalry between The Beatles and The Stones, with both vying for the top spot. However, that was not the case, as Sir Paul McCartney has explained. In a 2018 interview with WIRED, Sir Paul was asked if the two bands got along.

He said: "We did and we do to this day. Because the thing was, we were all young guys who were just going into the music business, we all had a lot in common.

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"We would meet each other in clubs or on TV programmes that we were all doing and we'd hang out socially. We knew them quite well and had a lot of fun and stuff.

"I don't quite know how the rumour started that we were rivals. Me and John (Lennon) actually wrote their first hit, which was 'I Wanna Be Your Man', so we couldn't have been that much of rivals."

The Stones recorded the Lennon-McCartney-penned 'I Wanna Be Your Man' in October 1963 and it was released the following month. It was the band's second single and their first top-20 hit in the UK, peaking at 12.

However, there are different accounts about how the song - and The Stones' chance to record it - came to be. In a 1980 interview, John Lennon said that he and Sir Paul had the idea for the song and finished it in front of an amazed Mick Jagger and Keith Richards in a London club.

John recalled: "We were taken down to meet the Stones at the club where they were playing in Richmond by Brian and some other guy. They wanted a song and we went to see them to see what kind of stuff they did.

"Mick and Keith had heard that we had an unfinished song – Paul just had this bit and we needed another verse or something. We sort of played it roughly to them and they said, ‘Yeah, OK, that’s our style.’

"So Paul and I just went off in the corner of the room and finished the song off while they were all still there talking. We came back and that’s how Mick and Keith got inspired to write, because, ‘Jesus, look at that. They just went in the corner and wrote it and came back!’ Right in front of their eyes we did it."

However, Sir Paul remembers it differently. He believes that he and John had written the song intending to keep it for The Beatles - with Ringo Starr to sing it - but they offered it to The Stones after Mick Jagger and Keith Richards had driven past them in a taxi.

Sir Paul said: "So they shouted from the taxi and we yelled, ‘Hey, hey, give us a lift, give us a lift,’ and we bummed a lift off them. So there were the four of us sitting in a taxi and I think Mick said, ‘Hey, we’re recording. Got any songs?’ And we said, ‘Aaaah, yes, sure, we got one. How about Ringo’s song? You could do it as a single.’"

After The Stones enjoyed chart success with the song, The Beatles released their version later in November 1963. It featured on the band's second studio album 'With The Beatles', with lead vocals from Ringo.

Though the song featured on Beatles live sets, John was rather disparaging about it. He said in 1980: "It was a throwaway. The only two versions of the song were Ringo and The Rolling Stones.

"That shows how much importance we put on it. We weren’t going to give them anything great, right?"

2024-12-16T14:31:27Z