An obviously posed photograph of The Beatles – in their Pierre Cardin style collarless suits.
Note that Ringo’s hairstyle is now matching the other Fab Four members. Also note that his prematurely grey thatch on his right-side temple is missing.
Whilst “Please Please Me” went to #1 on most of the charts in the UK, it didn’t make #1 on the most popular UK chart – the UK Record Retailer Chart. For this reason, it didn’t make The Beatles 1 album released on 13 November, 2000. A bit mean.
The first Beatles song to hit #1 on the UK Singles Chart was “From Me To You”. It was released on 11 April, 1963 and made #1 on 2 May, 1963. It remained at #1 for 7 weeks and stayed in the charts for 21 weeks.
The cover art for ‘The Beatles One’
After the “Please Please Me / Ask Me Why” single release the next single released by The Beatles was “From Me To You” b/w “Thank You Girl”. It was released on 11 April, 1963 and peaked at #1 on the UK Record Retailer Chart (later to become the UK Singles Chart). It made #9 on the Australian Kent Music chart. In the USA it failed to sell more than 4,000 copies when it was released on Vee-Jay records. Embarrassingly, a cover recorded by Del Shannon performed better in the US than the original recording by The Beatles. Del had heard The Beatles play this song when they were on a tour together in the UK.
From Me To You was written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney on the tour bus on the Helen Shapiro tour on 28th February, 1963. John later realised that he had been unconsciously motivated to the song title by the column which was published in the New Musical Express – “From You to Us”. The recording session was booked for 5 March, 1963. So less, than 5 days after composing the song The Beatles were in the studio recording it. John came up with the first line and he and Paul completed the lyric and melody by the time they arrived at their destination.
Amazingly, there were less than 3 weeks separating the 12 hour marathon session for the Please Please Me LP and this recording session. The Please Please Me L.P wouldn’t be released until 22 March, 1963. During the incredibly short period between sessions Lennon and McCartney had written a new smash hit and an equally mesmerising B side – and were ready to record it. Such was their proclivity in these early Beatle days.
Beatles Fact: George Martin notes that he originally wanted to call their first album ‘Öff the Beatle Track”, with an LP cover taken at London Zoo, but the London Zoological Society refused, “quite out of keeping with the good taste of the Zoological Society of London”. Thanks goodness. The photographs taken by Angus Macbean in the stairwell of EMI Manchester Square were innovative and created the basis for many innovative, and in some cases revolutionary, LP covers to come. Another first. There were some earlier photographs taken by John Dove – the EMI staff photographer, of The Beatles with a parking meter, on the Manchester Square spiral stair descending to a small courtyard and jumping up and down on the EMI Studios entrance stairs. The Beatles clearly were unimpressed with these stock photo ideas and rejected them. Angus Bean had been used by George Martin on other LP covers and had worked with the British Royal Family, His cover photos were fresh and artistic.
The Please Please Me LP remained top of the UK Record Retailer charts for 30 weeks, an unprecedented record for any performer but for a group who had only two singles out and had never recorded an LP before, it was extraordinary. One of many first’s for The Beatles.
The Beatles recording session for “From Me To You” started at 2.30pm. They recorded 13 takes, but these included a number of intro overdubs such as the “da da da da da dum dum dah” vocal start – done in both normal and falsetto voices, as well as harmonica intro’s and edit pieces throughout the song. They also hummed a version of the intro as well. The song proper was completed in 7 takes. From take 1 to take 7 the recordings were not widely dissimilar. The first take had a number of George Harrison licks which were later eliminated to pare the song down to the essential elements.
Remember, they had only written this song 5 days earlier. Yet it was basically a great recording from take 1. The Beatles had already mastered recording techniques in a very short period of time.
Interestingly, when the song was released, there were at least three different versions released. There is one with just the ““da da da da da dum dum dah” start, another with just the harmonica intro and another with both. The latter version is the one I recall as a young boy, but it has proved to be the hardest to locate in stereo. There is no Parlophone / Apple release in stereo of the combined vocal/ harmonica introduction that I can find. There are a number of very good bootleg variations and some on YouTube as well.
It was originally released in fake stereo on the Australian only LP “The Beatles Greatest Hits – Volume One”. An excellent mono version is available on The Beatles Greatest Hits EP CD.
From Me To You / Thank You Girl was the first of eleven consecutive #1 hits by The Beatles. Paul McCartney is reported as saying “the first time I thought that we really had made it was when I was lying in bed early in the morning and I heard the milkman whistling “From Me To You”. He also swears that he heard a bird whistling it as well!
Beatles Fact: The best sounding mixes on CD are those on The Beatles EP’s made by EMI England. Some of these are, in my view, the definitive recordings reproduced to CD. Most of the mixes are in mono with the exception of one CD which has a version of She’s A Woman in stereo with a count in. Strangely, the count in must be from another song as it doesn’t appear on the session tapes of the recording of this song.
Having completed “From Me To You” The Beatles moved on to “Thank You Little Girl” (the working title of “Thank You Girl”). The Beatles had been thinking of this as a single but couldn’t make up their minds, so John and Paul played both of them on the piano to Helen Shapiro and asked her. She chose “From Me To You”. Both are pop masterpieces. I actually prefer “Thank You Girl” it is bit rockier, especially if you hear them do it in a live recording e.g the Easy Beat version on Live at The BBC Volume One.
“Thank You Girl” only took six takes to record, there were then six edit pieces which were the harmonica edit pieces, and the ending, where Ringo struggled to get the drum flourishes right. John Lennon returned to the studio on the 13thMarch to work further on the harmonica edits.
Notwithstanding that they had already cut two sides for their new single The Beatles decided to work on into the evening to record a very old song of John’s “One After 909”. If you listen to the recording sessions on Anthology Volume One, you can hear that this session didn’t go well. John remonstrates Paul for playing his bass poorly, only for Paul to attempt to deflect blame onto Neil Aspinall for not bringing in his plectrum. Neil will have none of this and quickly reminds Paul that the fault is all his for not responding to him when he asked him whether he wanted him to bring his cases in. John also makes a mistake coming in halfway through the solo.
Later on, John also remonstrates George for a particularly flakey solo – “what kind of solo was that? The Beatles recorded four takes, but they only managed to get through one complete take. Eventually a finished version was made for Anthology Volume One. The Beatles would come back to this song for the Get Back sessions. A live version is available on Let It Be LP and a studio version on the super deluxe Let It Be sessions anniversary release CD.
It was intended at this session for The Beatles to work on another song “What Goes On” They didn’t have time. It eventually was regurgitated as a song for Ringo on Rubber Soul – and on Yesterday and Today in the USA.
“From Me To You/Thank You Girl” was released on 11 April, 1963 and went to #1. On 22 March, the Please Please Me LP was released. It also went to #1 on the LP charts. In fact, it was the most successful LP release of 1963 and the biggest selling LP in Britain since the soundtrack of South Pacific. This was particularly important for The Beatles. Pop artists had, until The Beatles, mostly relied on singles – the album was usually a cheap follow up with many filler tracks. Another first.
