Note the misspelling of Paul McCartney’s name on the composer attribution above.
Love Me Do was a composition, mostly composed by Paul McCartney, which John Lennon and Paul had worked on for some time – mostly at Paul’s home at 20 Forthlin Road, Allerton, Liverpool – playing truant from school in 1958-59. Paul’s home is now a National Trust heritage site and visits can be arranged. It is surreal to sit in front of the gas fire where John and Paul wrote I Saw Her Standing There and upstairs in Paul’s room where Love Me Do was mostly written. There is actually a photograph above the gas fire, taken by Mike McCartney, of John and Paul actually writing I Saw Her Standing There in a school book.
Paul wrote the basic song, with a fairly simple chord structure of G7 / C and D. John Lennon wrote the middle eight (the bridge), and contributed the harmonica introduction and fills, which really bring out the original sound. George Harrison plays a Gibson J160e acoustic guitar to great effect. John is alleged to have purloined the harmonica from a music store whilst The Beatles were on their way to Hamburg.
John and George each bought Gibson J160e acoustic guitars from Rushworth’s in Liverpool for the later session – 10 September, 1962. Well they didn’t actually buy them, Brian Epstein actually paid. They were used in the Please Please Me and With The Beatles sessions as well.
Beatles Fact: John’s guitar was left behind at a gig in 1963. It was later sold at auction for $2.41 million.
As to the drumming, well that is a separate and legendary story all on its own – which we will soon address dear readers.
Three separate recordings were made by The Beatles at EMI.
The First Love Me Do Session – with Pete Best
The Beatles first recording of Love Me Do was made on 6th June 1962. It was an “Artist Test” for the purpose of George Martin determining whether The Beatles could be recording artists. This version has Pete Best on drums. It can be heard on The Beatles Anthology Volume One CD. It is in a slightly different tempo to the later recordings and has a skip beat for the middle eight which sounds quite out of place in the song. It was after this session that George Martin informed Brian Epstein that The Beatles would need another drummer for the recording sessions, but that they could keep Pete Best for concert work. The Beatles took this comment as the impetus to jettison Pete Best and recruit Richard Starkey AKA Ringo Starr, from Rory Storm and The Hurricanes, who were playing at a Butlins holiday camp in Wales. They knew Ringo – he had sat in for Peter in Hamburg. It is stated that George Harrison was the main catalyst for the move. He was of the view that as soon as Ringo joined they just jelled as a band. He was right. The other issue with Pete was that he was not part of the gang. He did not hang out with John, Paul and George in Hamburg. He was more of a loner.
(There was a further complication in the sacking of Pete Best, namely that The Beatles stored all of their equipment at Pete’s mother’s house (Mona Best), and that The Beatles road manager, Neil Aspinall, was in a relationship with Peter’s mother, eventually fathering a child with her. Talk about complicated.)
On this session The Beatles also recorded Besame Mucho, Ask Me Why and PS I Love You. Only Besame Mucho and Love Me Do survive from this session. (Besame Mucho (“Kiss Me A Lot” in Spanish) was originally composed by Consuelo Velasquez, a Mexican 15 year old, in 1941! It has numerous cover versions including Frank Sinatra and Andrea Bocelli.)
The First Love Me Do Session – with Ringo
So, newly minted as a Beatle, Ringo arrives for the second Beatles session with a view to recording their first single. This session was 4th September, 1962.
The Beatles arrived in the afternoon, having flown down from Liverpool in very bad weather. They arrived early and practiced Love Me Do, Please Please Me, and How Do You Do It? The latter was a composition from Mitch Murray, which George Martin had selected as a potential single, as he did not have much faith in the Lennon/McCartney songwriting ability. This was not uncommon. Most songs were written by other composers and selected by the artist and repertoire manager for artists to record. It was, at this time, quite unusual to have artists who composed their own material.
In the evening session The Beatles did 15 takes of Love Me Do. Ringo was decidedly nervous as this was his first ever recording studio experience. They also did a recording of Please Please Me, which was a little slower than the final release, and lacked the urgency of that later recording. They had hopes for it being a B side.
In addition, they recorded How Do You Do It? Whilst The Beatles did a creditable recording of How Do You Do It?, it lacked impact. Eventually, George Martin agreed, and The Beatles got their way in releasing Love Me Do as the first Beatles single – but there was still more to do.
In this photo George is facing away from the camera to hide his black eye, given to him by a disgruntled supporter of Pete Best at the Cavern Club.
Later on George Martin had Gerry and the Pacemakers record How Do You Do it? They used The Beatles arrangements, but speeded it up and added piano. It made #1 on 11 April 1963, being replaced at the number one position by From Me To You.
Beatles fact: Interestingly, The Beatles added the harmonica to Love Me Do as they wanted to give the song a bluesy feeling, and also to be the first pop record with that sound, in Britain. In this regard, they had been influenced by the recording of Hey Baby by Bruce Channel – released in December 1961. Have a listen to this record and you will hear the influence. The Beatles shared a bill with Bruce Channel at The New Brighton Tower Ballroom on 21 June, 1962, where John was impressed by Bruce’s harmonica playing. John also played harmonica when The Beatles played Frank Ifield’s I Remember You in performance. George Martin later stated that it was the harmonica sound which really convinced him to release Love Me Do.
Apparently, George Martin was not happy with the 4 September recording. Accordingly, he arranged another recording session for 11th September, 1962, a week later.
Imagine Ringo’s chagrin when he arrives at EMI Studios in St John’s Wood only to find a studio session drummer, Andy White, setting up his kit. He hadn’t been informed that he would not be required at the session. Most disconsolate he retreated to the control room and sulked. Eventually, Ron Richards (George Martin hadn’t turned up) relented and suggested he go down to the session and add tambourine. It is the tambourine which is the main difference between the 4th September and 11th September sessions. In fact, Ringo pounds the tambourine so hard you can barely hear the drums.
So, another first, Andy White is the first – and only – musician every to replace a Beatle on a recording session. Andy was a professional studio musician. He learnt the tracks The Beatles intended to record and played a good version. To him it was just another session, another day of work. But it inexorably placed him in the history books as a major figure in The Beatles recording history.
The next song The Beatles recorded on the 11th September sessions, was PS I Love You – mostly a McCartney composition. It was recorded in 11 takes. Ringo is on maracas on this recording. You can hear the studio pro influence of Andy White here, he gives the song a distinctly non Beatles Latin flavour.
It is said that Ringo never forgave George Martin for this slight on his part, namely engaging Andy White.
Beatles Fact: Ringo has a distinctive style of drumming. This is partly because he is a natural left hander playing a right hand set of drums. This makes his timing different to most natural right handed drummers. Another serendipitous move by The Beatles.
Note the grey streak in Ringo’s hair on the right. Also his hair had yet to be trained to resemble that of his other Beatle colleagues – there was still a little teddy boy rocker.
The First Single Release – Parlophone R4949
Notwithstanding the two recordings made of Love Me Do, the 4th September and the remake on 11th September, either by design or mistake the original Ringo recording of 4th September was the one released as the first Beatles single in the UK and Canada.
Regrettably, EMI subsequently destroyed the original tape of this recording, keeping only the later Andy White recording. The only version available on CD is on Past Masters and represents a digital version taken from a pristine collector’s original vinyl single. The publisher of these two songs was Ardmore and Beechwood an EMI subsidiary. Whilst they did a good job in plugging the song, George Martin and Brian Epstein thought that Dick James would be a better publisher and he was subsequently brought in for the later singles and album releases, until Northern Songs Ltd was formed.
One of the issues that may have contributed to the problem with Ardmore and Beechwood is that they misspelt McCartney’s name on the initial single release – McArtney rather than McCartney – see photo above.
*It should be noted that the original publishing rights contract credited these two compositions to Lennon-McCartney, but Brian Epstein changed this to McCartney-Lennon, as McCartney had been the major contributor to the two compositions. This practice didn’t last long and eventually, at John’s insistence, it became Lennon-McCartney and remained so, until the pop writing duo split in 1970.
John Lennon had lived with his Aunt Mimi for most of his youth years, as his mother had remarried – (Julia Lennon was sadly killed by an off duty drunken police officer when he was sixteen). When The Beatles recorded Love Me Do John proudly took it home for Mimi to listen to – after listening to it she said “Well, if you think you’re going to make a fortune with that, you’ve got another thing coming”. Within a very short space of time all of The Beatles became multi- millionaires and were the largest pop phenomenon that the world had ever seen.
With the advent of digital extraction technology, the mono only recordings of The Beatles – Love Me Do, PS I Love You, She Loves You and I’ll Get You, are now available in stereo. Get onto Youtube and search them out – they are a revelation. Also listen to the similar treatment of early Elvis. Amazing.
