A Song Paul McCartney Wrote for Peter Asher Knocked The Beatles’ ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ off the Charts
Paul McCartney wrote a song for Peter Asher, and it did so well that it knocked The Beatlesā āCanāt Buy Me Loveā off the charts. Asher got to know Paul well when he started dating his sister, Jane, in the early 1960s. Thanks to Paul and his song, Asherās career skyrocketed.
Paul McCartney wrote many early Beatles songs while living with Peter Asher and his family
In The Beatlesā early career,Ā their manager, Brian Epstein, arranged for them to move into a London apartment. However, Paul thought it was miserable.
InĀ The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, Paul wrote that his then-girlfriend Jane Asher and her family mustāve invited him to live in their fancy home in Marylebone after hearing him complain that the apartment āhad no soul.ā Paul wrote, āThis gesture was in the long tradition of giving a garret room to a starving artist.ā
Paul lived in the attic next to Asher. He said it was a real eye-opening experience because heād never been around classy people. Paul wrote, āThe family knew all about art and culture and society, whereas Iād never known anyone who knew about going for auditions, or had an agent.
āIt was really nice staying in that house. Lots of books to read, art on the walls, interesting conversations; and Margaret was a music teacher. It was at least a home, and Iād sorely missed that since Iād come down from Liverpool and since my mum had died six or seven years before.ā
Living at the Ashers,ā Paul wrote many of The Beatlesā early songs, including one for Jane, āAnd I Love Her.ā Asher got to see the singer-songwriter in action.
Asher told Forbes, āIt all goes back to Paul living at our family home in London, when he was going out with my sister. He and I shared the top floor. He was in the guest bedroom. We obviously got to know each other, and I heard a number of songs in various stages of being written.ā
Another song Peter heard Paul work on was āA World Without Love.ā
Paul McCartney gave Peter Asher a song that knocked The Beatlesā āCanāt Buy Me Loveā off the charts
In The Lyrics, Paul wrote that āCanāt Buy Me Loveā was a big deal for The Beatles. It reached No. 1 in the U.K. and the U.S. However, it was knocked off the No. 1 spot in the U.K. by āA World Without Love,ā a song Paul wrote for Asher.
āIām pretty sure it made number one in the U.S. too,ā Paul wrote. āThat was a song Iād written when I was sixteen at home in Liverpool.
āI didnāt think it was strong enough for The Beatles, but it did pretty well for Peter and Gordonās career. The song starts off with the line āPlease lock me away,ā and when I would play it, John would respond, āYes, okay,ā and weād joke that that was the end of the song.ā
Peter told Forbes that after The Beatlesā label, EMI, signed Asher and Gordon Waller, Asher remembered that Paul and John had the unfinished āA World Without Love.ā He asked Paul for the song, but the bassist had to finish the missing bridge.
āWhen the session was just a few days away, I had to nudge him,ā Peter said. āFinally, he went into his room for an amazingly short eight minutes and came out with the bridge, āAnd so I wait, and in awhile/ I will see my true love smile.ā It went on our list, and that was that.ā
Asher has Paulās handwritten lyrics of āA World Without Loveā
In 2018, Asher told Express that Paul wrote the lyrics and chords of āA World Without Loveā on a piece of paper for him. Asher joked that if things in the music business turn sour, heāll sell them for a large sum.
āYouād better believe Iāve locked it away in a safe for the time when the music business goes completely to hell and I can run to Sothebyās like the wind,ā he laughed. Joking aside, Asher said, āI owe Paul a huge debt of gratitude and it changed my life forever.ā
Asher said he and Paul donāt see each other very often, but when they do, itās āvery friendly.ā The last time they met, he recalled, āI said to him āDo you realise itās 50 years since you gave us āWorld Without Loveā? If Iāve forgotten to thank you in the interim, let me thank you now. Who knows what my career would be were it not for that song?'ā
Paul was glad that Peter and Gordon got the success they deserved with āA World Without Love.ā However, he definitely learned to make sure the songs he gave away and Beatles tunes didnāt come out simultaneously.