My song today is ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’. This song was written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney in October 1963.
With advance orders exceeding one million copies in the United Kingdom, ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ would have gone straight to the top of the British record charts on its day of release had it not been blocked by the group's first million-seller ‘She Loves You’.
It was also the group's first American Number 1 hit, entering the ‘Billboard Hot 100’ chart on 18 January 1964 at Number 45 and starting the ‘British Invasion’ of the American music industry. By February 1st, it had topped the ‘Billboard Hot 100’ chart and stayed there for seven weeks before being replaced by ‘She Loves You’. ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ became the Beatles' best-selling single worldwide selling more than 12 million copies. In 2018, Billboard magazine named it the 48th biggest hit of all time on the ‘Billboard Hot 100’.
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Having been in lockdown for many months now, so many of you, like me, will not have seen your loved ones or have been able to hug them or even hold their hand. Let us pray for a speedy normalisation for us to again have all that essential contact which is vital to our health, happiness, and wellbeing.
I am 77 years of age now, and unless one is a pensioner, it becomes a necessary requirement to be a natural body contortionist in order to perform all the different sexual positions expected of the younger participant lover today.
The young person may not regard the holding of another’s hand as the holding of any particular significance for them, yet it is one of the first acts in which we demonstrate love and exploration of another person, and in turn, have love demonstrated to us. The very first act of a loving parent towards their newly born infant, and vice versa, is the gentle finger-tip holding of their hands together.
If you should ever observe two lovers sitting together in the corner of the pub, you will frequently see their tender reaching out to touch each other’s hands across the table where they are sitting. It is such a natural thing for the loving couple got to do that they may not be conscious of how often they do so.
It is no mere coincidence that at the other end of one’s life, when the sexual act between a loving couple no longer includes coitus, that it is a tender touch, a gentle kiss, a soft cuddle, and the tactile holding of hands which takes the prominent place in the romantic lives of the retirees. Holding hands with one’s partner and soul mate as they walk down the street together is the sole demonstration of their love that is required to tell all others that ‘they walk together’ through this life as one loving unit.
Love and peace Bill xxx