Readers' Poll: Your Favorite British Invasion Songs

"I Want to Hold Your Hand" was the first Beatles song to break big in America. "I remember when we got the chord that made that song," John Lennon said. "We were in Jane Asher's house, downstairs in the cellar playing on the piano at the same time.  And we had, 'Oh you-uu . . . got that something . . .' And Paul hits this chord and I turn to him and say, 'That's it!' I said, 'Do that again!' In those days, we really used to absolutely write like that – both playing into each other's nose. We spent hours and hours and hours . . . We wrote in the back of vans together . . . The cooperation was functional as well as musical." They played the song on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 16th, 1964. About 10,000 rock bands formed the next day.