Paul McCartney’s Dad Wanted to Change a Lyric in The Beatles’ ‘She Loves You’

“She Loves You” is one of The Beatles’ biggest hits. The repetitive and catchy chorus, “She Loves You/ Yeah, yeah, yeah,” is what makes this song so infectious. However, Paul McCartney’s father wasn’t as into the chorus as the rest of The Beatles and wanted to make a small change that would have been significant.

Paul McCartney’s dad suggested a small but notable change to The Beatles’ ‘She Loves You’

“She Loves You” was released by The Beatles as a single in 1963. John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote the track. In Anthology, McCartney said he wanted to do an “answering song” in the style of Bobby Rydell’s “Forget Him”. They did abandon the idea, but they had a template for “She Loves You”. 

We were in a van up in Newcastle. I’d planned an ‘answering song’ where a couple of us would sing ‘She loves you…’ and the other one answers, ‘Yeah, yeah,’” McCartney said. “We decided that that was a crummy idea as it was, but at least we then had the idea for a song called ‘She Loves You’. So we sat in the hotel bedroom for a few hours and wrote it.”

Paul McCartney’s dad, who showed a passionate interest in The Beatles, wasn’t thrilled by the “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” In his appearance on Carpool Karaoke, the former Beatle told James Corden that his dad suggested changing it to “Yes, yes, yes,” but they all believed it sounded worse. 

“We’d just written ‘She Loves You’, which was to be a big Beatles hit. My dad’s in there. We’re just finishing it up in here, John and I,” he explained. “So, I said ‘We should go and play it to me dad,’ because he was a musician. He played piano. We said, ‘Hey dad! Hey dad! Listen, do you wanna hear a song?’ (sings ‘She Loves You’) He listened to the whole song, and he said, ‘It’s very nice, but son, there’s enough of these Americanisms around. Couldn’t you sing ‘She Loves You/ Yes, yes, yes?’’ and we went, ‘No.’ And we did not heed his advice.”

How did ‘She Loves you’ perform on the charts?

“She Loves You” performed incredibly well on the charts and is one of the earliest singles that launched Beatlemania. It was a No. 1 hit in the U.K., Sweden, Norway, Canada, and Denmark. While it did reach No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, it did have an odd journey getting there.

When the song was released in 1963, it didn’t garner much airplay, and it only sold around 1,000 copies. However, a piece on Beatlemania aired on the CBS Evening News that heavily featured “She Loves You”. Pair that with the release of “I Want to Hold Your Hand” in Nov. 1963, and there was a renewed interest in “She Loves You”. These two singles both held the top two spots on the Billboard Hot 100, leading to the launch of the “British Invasion”, where British rock bands dominated the U.S. charts.