Paul McCartney played this classic Beatles song for the first time in 62 years at Taylor Swift's wedding

6 July 2026, 11:55 | Updated: 6 July 2026, 14:06

Sir Paul McCartney rolls out a Beatles song he last played in 1964.

Taylor Swift married her boyfriend Travis Kelce on Friday (July 3), and she had one hell of a party.

The ceremony took place at Madison Square Garden in New York and the guestlist was an incredible who's who of musicians and other celebrities.

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And among the pop royalty in attendance was none other than Sir Paul McCartney, who even performed for the newlyweds.

Sir Paul's back catalogue is packed with romantic tunes he could have chosen, but he surprised everyone by going way back in time for one of his biggest songs that he's not actually played live for over six decades.

A source told People that McCartney serenaded Swift, Kelce and their many guests with a run through 'I Want To Hold Your Hand'.

The Beatles - The Beatles - I Want To Hold Your Hand (Live on The Ed Sullivan Show)

The performance is said to have taken place after the main ceremony on a stage in the reception room especially set up for the occasion.

Taylor Swift's good friend Stevie Nicks is also said to have performed during the ceremony.

According to our notes, the last time Paul played 'I Want To Hold Your Hand' in public was also in New York - on September 20, 1964 at New York's Paramount Theatre.

'I Want To Hold Your Hand' was firmly wedged into The Beatles' setlist after its release as their fifth single in November 1963 (and a month later in the US).

But by the time The Beatles released Beatles for Sale in late 1964, the song had been nudged out of their live plans.

Two years after that, the band played their last ever concert on August 29, 1966 in Candlestick Park, San Francisco.

When Paul McCartney launched Wings, they initially avoided playing any Beatles numbers,.

The only nod to Sir Paul's past life in those eaarly shows was a cover of Little Richard's 'Long Tall Sally', a regular in the Fab Four's live set and the title track of their 1964 EP.

That changed on the Wings over the World tour in 1975 when Sir Paul introduced a number of Beatles hits into his live set, with 'Yesterday', 'The Long and Winding Road', 'Lady Madonna', 'I've Just Seen a Face' and 'Blackbird' regularly featuring.

And when Sir Paul went fully solo, he fully embraced his past, with a vast number of his most-played songs over the years being Lennon-McCartney numbers.

But – if you ignore a tiny snippet of the song played by Denny Laine during a Wings show in Boston in 1976 – 'I Want To Hold Your Hand', was never in his setlist.

That's despite the song being a number one hit in both the UK and US on its release that went Gold on both sides of the Atlantic.

Pop Culture Rewind: The Beatles' Chart Achievements | Billboard News

The song nestled in fourth spot on April 4, 1964, when The Beatles held the top five positions on the Billboard Hot 100 (with 'Can't Buy Me Love', Twist and Shout', 'She Loves You' and 'Please Please Me' being the others).

As for why Macca hasn't played the song for over 60 years, it's not completely clear.

Sir Paul naturally tends towards the songs that he wrote for The Beatles under the Lennon/McCartney name rather than John's.

He had played some of the true co-writes over the years, like 'She's Leaving Home', which married McCartney's verses to a chorus by Lennon.

While there was the odd quibble about who wrote what in The Beatles' back catalogue. both John and Paul spoke in the past about how 'I Want To Hold Your Hand' was properly written together.

"We wrote a lot of stuff together, one on one, eyeball to eyeball," John told Playboy in 1980. "Like in 'I Want to Hold Your Hand,' I remember when we got the chord that made the song.

"We were in Jane Asher's house, downstairs in the cellar playing on the piano at the same time... In those days, we really used to absolutely write like that – both playing into each other's noses."

In 1994, McCartney agreed, saying in Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now: "Eyeball to eyeball' is a very good description of it. That's exactly how it was. 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' was very co-written."

Still, he's avoided playing the song in front of anyone else for well over half a century... until now.