These two songs are German translations of She Loves You and I Want To Hold Your Hand. They were recorded under unusual circumstances while the Beatles were on tour in Paris in January 1964. The Beatles sang the German words to the existing backing track to I Want To Hold Your Hand, while they apparently re-recorded the translated She Loves You as the backing track was not available. They also recorded Can’t Buy Me Love at the same session.
The Beatles BibleA German language version of ‘She Loves You’, ‘Sie Liebt Dich’ was recorded by The Beatles in Paris in January 1964, along with ‘Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand’, a similar reworking of ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’.
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WikipediaThe Beatles Bible‘Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand’, a German-language version of ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’, was recorded by The Beatles in Paris in January 1964, along with ‘Sie Liebt Dich’, a similar reworking of ‘She Loves You’.
Continue reading on Beatles Bible →WikipediaThe Beatles weren’t pleased to be given this extra chore and initially rebelled by not showing up to the session. Producer George Martin had to go to their hotel to collect them, and gave them a good telling off. George Martin’s version of the story is nicely explained in the beatlesbible.com articles (themselves quoting from Mark Lewisohn’s “Complete Beatles Recording Sessions”):
“I fixed the session for late-morning. Norman Smith, myself and the translator, a chap names Nicolas, all got to the studio in time, but there was no sign of the Beatles. We waited an hour before I telephoned their suite at the George V hotel. Neil Aspinall answered, ‘They’re in bed, they’ve decided not to go to the studio.’ I went crazy – it was the first time they had refused to do anything for me. ‘You tell them they’ve got to come, otherwise I shall be so angry it isn’t true! I’m coming over right now.’ So the German [translator] and I jumped into a taxi, we got to the hotel and I barged into their suite, to be met by this incredible sight, right out of the Mad Hatter’s tea party. Jane Asher – Paul girlfriend – with her long red hair, was pouring tea from a china pot, and the others were sitting around her like March Hares. They took one look at me and exploded, like in a school room when the headmaster enters. Some dived onto the sofa and hid behind curtains. ‘You are bastards!’ I screamed, to which they responded with impish little grins and roguish apologies. Within minutes we were on our way to the studio.”
It’s interesting in terms of what it tells you about the Beatles relationship with Martin (at this time still an authority figure who commanded a degree of impish/roguish respect) and about the task of doing this particular session (“it was the first time they had refused to do anything for me”). As Martin puts it:
“They were right, actually. It wasn’t necessary for them to record in German, but they weren’t graceless, they did a good job.”
I think I’d heard it said that the decision to record these tracks was a tribute to their German fans (before making any records the Beatles had played at least as much in Hamburg as in Liverpool), but I don’t think that’s right. As the beatlesbible.com article explains it was then a common occurrence, and George Martin had been persuaded that this was the only way they’d sell records in Germany. I imagine that seemed far more important before their February 1964 appearance on the Ed Sullivan show, than after it.