On this day in music history: March 16, 1964 - “Can’t Buy Me Love” by The Beatles is released. Written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, it is issued in both the US and the UK as the official follow up to “I Want To Hold Your Hand”. The single earns a place in the Guinness World Book Of Records when it racks up sales of over 2.1 million copies in advance orders. It enters the chart on March 28, 1964 at #27 and leaps to #1 the following week, making history again for the fastest rise to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 where it spends 5 weeks, residing over a top five in which the other four singles are also by The Beatles. Queens Litho in New York print up a picture sleeve to go along with the single, using the same photo of the band included on the sleeve for “I Want To Hold Your Hand”, packaging them with copies of the single manufactured at Capitol Records’ east coast pressing plant in Scranton, PA. The picture sleeve is printed in relatively small quantities with the Los Angeles plant not manufacturing the sleeve, opting to ship them in generic Capitol sleeves. Over the years, it becomes the rarest commercially issued Beatles picture sleeve with near mint copies valued at nearly $1000 today. Backed with the track “You Can’t Do That” (#48 Pop), both songs make their album debut on the soundtrack to the bands’ first film “A Hard Day’s Night” in June of 1964. In 2011, US retail chain Target issues a limited edition reissue of the 45, complete with a reproduction of the picture sleeve, packaged in a box with a T-shirt.

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