Although they passed on "Love Me Do", "Please Please Me", "From Me To You", and "She Loves You", USA's Capitol Records didn't skimp when it came to promoting The Beatles once they did concede to issue "I Want To Hold Your Hand" and Meet The Beatles.
As part of their media blitz, a Capitol rep traveled to London and interviewed the group at EMI Studios in the first week of 1964. The recording was pressed on a 7" disc distributed to American disc jockeys, with "I Want To Hold Your Hand" following the chat, and "This Boy" and "It Won't Be Long" (both from the LP) on the B-side.
The interview was "open-ended", which means only The Beatles' answers are heard, allowing any DJ to read the questions from the script provided on the sleeve. This way, local stations could claim "exclusive" interviews with their on-air talent, or even better, claim that The Beatles had dropped by their very own station!
The promotion was successful enough for Capitol to repeat in April upon the release of The Beatles' Second Album. The second "open-end" interview was a different edit of the same January recording, with a bit of overlap in content, and was followed by "Roll Over Beethoven". Side B contained "Please Mr. Postman" and "Thank You Girl".
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