I saw her standing there was an ideal song to be the opener of the Beatles first album as it gave an impression of what the group were really about at the time, with it giving an instant impression of the sweaty clubs that the group frequented full of dancing teenage girls having a great night out.

The song itself is a simple tale of a boy spotting a beautiful girl on the dance floor and deciding that she is the girl for him. The song is quite cocksure in its nature as there is no way in the boys’ mind that the girl would not consider dancing with him!

I saw her standing there was originally worked on by Paul, who wanted to write a song that the Beatles teenage girl audience could relate to. The song was originally going to be called Seventeen, I saw her standing there; and the original lines were “she was just seventeen, never been a beauty queen”. John Lennon thought that this rhyme was awful, and after much deep thinking by the pair, John came up with “you know what I mean”, a nice rhyming sexual innuendo. Paul openly admits that the Bass riff was taken from “I’m talking about you” by Chuck Berry.

During the count off to the song, (the lyrics 1-2-3-4), it is thought by many that McCartney actually replaces the word four with the f word.

There was a chance that I saw her standing there could have been recorded by an artist other than the Beatles! Paul was dating a girl called Iris Caldwell the sister of the Rory and the Hurricanes singer Rory Storm. Paul wanted to give the song away but Brian Epstein would not hear of it.

The song was one of those chosen by the Beatles to be played on the Ed Sullivan show.

Beatles part in I Saw Her Standing There

John Lennon: Harmony vocals, rhythm guitar.

Paul McCartney: Lead vocals, Bass guitar.

George Harrison: Lead Guitar

Ringo Starr: Drums

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