The best-selling music act of all time, The Beatles have written many songs that would make you cry in an instant. However, even these legends couldn’t resist crying when they came across music that even made their heart move.
Sir James Paul McCartney, who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon, had one song that made him emotional and even cry.
What song that might be? It was none other than the ‘I Want You, I Need You, I Love You, by the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley.
The song was written by Maurice Mysels and Ira Kosloff and was best known for being Elvis Presley’s seventh single released on the RCA Victor label, produced by Steve Sholes. Released in May 1956, the song became Presley’s second number 1 single on the country music charts.
Gaining popularity in the 1950s for his new-wave music and sound, Elvis was loved by many and the Beatles were no exception, especially Paul McCartney let his guard down when he listened to this song.
In an article published by the Reverb, it was revealed that McCartney had an interview with guitar writer Tony Bacon in 1994, in which he had opened up about the Presley song which made him cry.
Talking about the song, he said, “Yeah, I heard them this summer – haven’t heard them for years – and I was blown away. I suddenly realized the last time I listened to this thoroughly was before The Beatles, before all that happened to me, and it just stripped it all away. It was like I was a kid playing snooker again and listening. It actually got me crying, pow. Really did it to me,” he said, per Express.
McCartney continued, “My kids were like, Dad, you know all the words to this stuff? You better believe it. And I thought, ‘Well, I once was a kid like this, before all The Beatles thing, and now you live with the whole legacy of The Beatles, and it’s great. You could do a lot worse. But you know what I mean? Just the idea of that was fantastic – I was 17 again. Not a bad feeling when you’re 52”.
Just from his words, one could guess how much Paul admired the man. Even the Beatles’ fans know how the King of Rock and Roll influenced the band. Luckily they got the chance to meet Presley before he died at the age of 42 in 1977.
Although the Beatles idolized Presley, they remembered being terrified when they first met him. Remembering their first meeting, Paul said, “It was one of the great meetings of my life. I think he liked us. I think at that time, he may have felt a little bit threatened, but he didn’t say anything. We certainly didn’t feel any antagonism.”
He continued, “I only met him that once, and then I think the success of our career started to push him out a little, which we were very sad about because we wanted to co-exist with him. He was our greatest idol, but the styles were changing in favor of us.”
The Beatles were terrified and overjoyed to meet their idol whereas Priscilla Presley, Elvis’s wife stated that because they were so young and nervous, the couple actually found them cute. Describing the night of their interaction and how Elvis joked around the boys, Priscilla added on, “You could hear a pin drop when they walked in. I was amazed by how shy they were.”
