‘It’s a more expansive, inclusive version’: how women reshaped the history of the Beatles

For decades, academic appreciation of the fab four was an overwhelmingly male pursuit. Meet the female scholars, musicians and podcasters redressing the balance

For teenager Janice Mitchell, hearing the Beatles’ I Want to Hold Your Hand on US radio in December 1963 affected her in ways she still can’t quite articulate. “How do you explain why [you were] electrified when you were struck by lightning?” she says, laughing.

I Want to Hold Your Hand didn’t just sound more interesting than the other songs in rotation on her home town station, the single represented an escape from a difficult childhood. Mitchell, of Cleveland, Ohio, grew up with neglectful parents who eventually abandoned her and two younger siblings. And 1963 had been another hard year. Mitchell was reeling from the death of a beloved great uncle, one of the few adults who had shown her kindness.