The Beatles‘ “I Saw Her Standing There” is one of the best teen pop songs ever. Teen pop icon Tiffany said she’ll always sing it. Despite this, she didn’t even want to sing it in the first place.

Why Tiffany hesitated to cover The Beatles’ ‘I Saw Him Standing There’

During the 1980s, the 1960s were in style again. Tiffany took advantage of this on her debut album, which includes covers of Tommy James and the Shondells’ “I Think We’re Alone Now” and The Beatles’ “I Saw Her Standing There.” During a 2017 interview with SongFacts, Tiffany revealed she hesitated to record the latter. “I’m a Beatles fan, and I was like, ‘I don’t know if this is a good idea,’” she said. “My producer talked me into it.” She gender-flipped the song to “I Saw Him Standing There.”

Tiffany will be singing “I Saw Him Standing There” until her last breath. “I always have ‘I Think We’re Alone Now’ in my shows and ‘Could’ve Been’ and ‘All This Time’ and ‘I Saw Him Standing There,’” she said. “Those are my hits, it’s what I’m known for, and I never will have a time where I perform and don’t sing those songs because I’m a fan, and I know when you go to see people you want to hear those songs that made you connect with them in the beginning, and sometimes when I go to certain artists’ concerts and they don’t sing those songs I’m bummed. I want to have that moment with them, and if it doesn’t happen, I feel a little cheated. So, I never want to do that to my fans.”

How ‘I Saw Him Standing There’ compares to ‘I Saw Her Standing There’

Say what you want about Tiffany’s take on the Fab Four, she didn’t just regurgitate the Fab Four’s hit. While “I Saw Her Standing There” is a rock ‘n’ roll song with just a hint of country music, “I Saw Him Standing There” is a dance-pop song. Tiffany’s version adds an intro with some sweet ’80s saxophone that sounds nothing like the original. Tiffany also sings the song with a much more aggressive undertone than Paul McCartney ever did. The fact that Tiffany spends the song getting an unwitting guy on the dance floor makes her cover sound the musical equivalent of a Sadie Hawkins dance.

While nothing can replace a Beatles song, it’s not hard to see the appeal of “I Saw Him Standing There.” Tiffany got older listeners interested by covering a classic and younger listeners interested by making it sound contemporary. Also, a teen pop star like Tiffany singing about someone who was “just seventeen” sounds a lot better than 21-year-old Paul doing the same thing. 

What Tiffany’s cover did for The Beatles

So, was “I Saw Him Standing There” worth it? It’s not a great cover, though it’s certainly not the worst Beatles cover out there. Its legacy is that it helped keep The Beatles’ music in the public consciousness in the 1980s, the same way that The Beatles Anthology did in the 1990s and Across the Universe did in the 2000s. Hopefully, Peter Jackson’s Get Back will keep the group in the public consciousness for many years to come.

Tiffany didn’t create a certain Beatles song, but it will always be part of her set.