The Beatles: Can't Buy Me Love (1964)

Sixty years ago this week the Beatles were in New Zealand for their only tour. Beatlemania ensued.

The story of how they came to be here and the details of that Australasian tour are told in When We Was Fab, a new and thorough book by Andy Neill and Greg Armstrong.

It is more than just an eye-witness account from scores of sources but a well-illustrated social history which also goes behind the scenes and screaming into the business of securing the band and keeping the tour on track.

The single the band released a couple of months before the tour was one of their finest from the Beatlemania period, Can't Buy Me Love which captured the energy and spirit of the times.

The backing track and a guide vocal were recorded in a studio in Paris when they had a residency at the Olympia Theatre and McCartney's final vocal was added when they were back in Britain.

What's also of interest is that you can hear George Harrison's original Parisian guitar solo behind his new one which was also laid down in London.

The song had a second life when it was featured in the playful, running-jumping (and standing still) sequence in A Hard Day's Night released a few months later and it appeared on the soundtrack album, their third album and the first to feature solely Lennon-McCartney songs.

The flipside of the single was one of Lennon's best early songs and addressed a theme that would run through much of his work in this period (and sometimes appeared later in his career): themes of jealousy and pride.

You Can't Do That

Both songs appeared in their set list (just 11 songs) on their New Zealand tour.

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For more oddities, one-offs or songs with an interesting backstory check the massive back-catalogue at From the Vaults.