On This Day in 1963, The Rolling Stones Recorded a “Throwaway” Beatles Track That Would Become Their First-Ever Top 20 Hit

If ever there were two bands to prove the concept of “iron sharpening iron,” it would be The Rolling Stones and The Beatles. The English rock bands enjoyed a healthy rivalry throughout the 1960s, competing for the same chart positions and public attention to varying degrees of success. To assume there was animosity between the two groups wouldn’t be unreasonable, but it was anything but a cutthroat competition. In fact, The Rolling Stones had The Beatles to thank for what would become their first Top 20 hit. 

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The Stones went into De Lane Lea Studios in London on October 7, 1963, to record “I Wanna Be Your Man”, a song that John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote under their songwriting partnership, Lennon-McCartney. Exact details about when the Beatles wrote it and how the Stones acquired it vary. The song’s chart position, on the other hand, spoke for itself. “I Wanna Be Your Man” peaked at No. 12 on the British singles chart, garnering The Stones their first hit in their native U.K. Soon, the Mick Jagger-fronted band would be racing up the charts neck-and-neck with their Liverpudlian rivals, The Beatles.

Interestingly, Lennon and McCartney both dubbed the track a throwaway, which is condescending to Ringo Starr and The Rolling Stones all at once.

The Rolling Stones’ First Hit Was a Beatles Throwaway Track

According to Paul McCartney, he and John Lennon decided to give The Rolling Stones “I Wanna Be Your Man” after the band gave them an impromptu taxi ride one night on Charing Cross Road in London. But according to John Lennon, he and Paul had a rough idea for the song when they met the Stones at a club in Richmond. The band expressed interest in the song. Lennon remembered he and McCartney then went to a quiet corner of the venue and finished it. “We came back. And that’s how Mick [Jagger] and Keith [Richards] got inspired to write because, ‘Jesus, look at that. They just went in the corner and wrote it and came back!’” Lennon said in one of his final interviews with David Sheff from 1980.

In either sequence of events, the song began as a track Lennon and McCartney intended for their drummer, Ringo Starr. Though rare, the songwriting partners would toss Starr a song that wasn’t particularly difficult to sing. (Or, in the case of “Act Naturally”, paid homage to Starr’s love of country music.) “I Wanna Be Your Man” was one of those songs, which is why they didn’t worry about giving it to The Rolling Stones. “It was a throwaway,” Lennon told Sheff. “The only two versions of the song were Ringo and The Rolling Stones. That shows how much importance we put on it. We weren’t going to give them anything great, right?”

For whatever it’s worth, the song was pretty great for The Rolling Stones. “I Wanna Be Your Man” became the band’s first Top 20 hit, setting off a career that has outlasted The Beatles (of the Fab Four’s volition) by many, many decades.

Photo by Fiona Adams/Redferns