With a hit like that, you know you should be glad

Published on Monday 31 August 2009 19:35

IT WAS only their second No 1, issued as Beatlemania was in its infancy – but newly compiled figures show She Loves You to be the biggest selling Fab Four track ever released in the UK.

The 1963 single topped a chart of the band's top sellers, pushing the follow-up, I Want To Hold Your Hand, into second spot.

The Official Chart Company – which puts together the weekly Top 40 – has trawled its records to pull together an all-time best-seller list of the band's singles, including the many re-releases over the years. The chart was broadcast for the first time yesterday by BBC Radio 2 during The Great Beatles Songbook: Volume 1, which was presented by Ken Bruce.

Despite the later acclaim for the Liverpool group's innovations and experimentation during the studio-bound years, the list is dominated by tracks up to and including 1965.

As well as She Loves You and I Want To Hold Your Hand, the top five is made up of Can't Buy Me Love, I Feel Fine and the double A-side Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out.

The figures also show that Love Me Do, the band's first chart hit which only reached No 17 on its initial release, went on to outsell the No 2 hit that followed it, Please Please Me, as well as later number ones such as The Ballad of John and Yoko.

Yesterday – often cited as the most covered song of all time – figures at No 24, even though the track was never issued as a single in the UK during the band's lifetime.

It was not released until 1976 and only made No 8 in the chart at the time.

Similarly, Back In The USSR (ranked 29) was issued in 1976, as was a version of Strawberry Fields Forever.

The original had been a double A-side with Penny Lane, which had stalled at second place in the Top 10, ending the band's huge run of chart-toppers – it was held off the No 1 spot by Engelbert Humperdinck's Release Me.

Ken Bruce said: "The song that gave us 'yeah yeah yeah' has obviously been getting the seal of approval from the public ever since."

The list formed part of Radio 2's Beatles bank holiday programmes over the weekend and it was put together to tie in with a major re-examination and celebration of the band.

The Beatles' entire back catalogue has been re-mastered and is due to be released on 9 September, the same day the Beatles edition of the video console game Rock Band hits the shelves.

The BBC is presenting a season of programmes to tie in the releases with documentaries and themed shows on BBC2 and BBC4 from Saturday.

FAB THIRTY

The Top 30 biggest-selling Beatles songs:

1. She Loves You

2. I Want To Hold Your Hand

3. Can't Buy Me Love

4. I Feel Fine

5. Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out

6. Hey Jude

7. From Me To You

8. Help!

9. Hello Goodbye

10. Get Back

11. Paperback Writer

12. All You Need Is Love

13. Yellow Submarine/Eleanor Rigby

14. Ticket To Ride

15. Magical Mystery Tour EP

16. A Hard Day's Night

17. Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever

18. Lady Madonna

19. Love Me Do

20. Please Please Me

21. The Ballad Of John And Yoko

22. Let It Be

23. Free As A Bird

24. Something/Come Together

25. Beatles Movie Medley

26. Yesterday

27. Real Love

28. Baby It's You

29. Back In The USSR

30. Strawberry Fields Forever (re-issue)