How Do You Do It?

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How Do You Do It? is a 1962 song written by Mitch Murray. The Beatles played it live in the summer of 1962. Also, they recorded it during the session for their first single, though it was not realeased until 1995.

Contents

Live Performances

Though The Beatles were extremely opposed to recording the song in their Love Me Do single session, they did play the song a number of times in the summer of 1962.

Recording

George Martin had wanted How Do You Do It? to be The Beatles' first single, though the band made it clear that they didn't want to record it. They did, but they eventually convinced Martin to have Love Me Do as the first single instead. Martin recalls, "It was common in those days to find material for artists by going to Tin Pan Alley and listening to the publishers' wares. That was a regular part of my life: I spent a lot of time looking for songs, and what I wanted for The Beatles was a hit. I was convinced that How Do You Do It was a hit song. Not a great piece of songwriting, not the most marvellous song I had ever heard in my life, but I thought it had that essential ingredient which would appeal to a lot of people." The song, written by Mitch Murray, was first heard by Ron Richards, Martin's deputy, who suggested that a faster version would be sucessful. Richards recalls, "How Do You Do It was brought into my office by the man who wrote it, Mitch Murray, along with Barry Mason, later to write a number of hits himself. They offered me first option on the recording and played me Mitch's demonstration acetate. I liked it so much that I immediately called Dick James, the singer turned music publisher, and he signed the song up straightaway. But the acetate stayed in my desk for a long time after that. We didn't know who to give it to. Much later, when George was pondering about The Beatles' first record, I played him Mitch's acetate. He felt that it would be ideal for them and sent a copy to Liverpool right away so that they could learn their parts." At the time, Martin was unsure of John Lennon and Paul McCartney's songwriting abilities. Because he had already taken the chance of agreeing to release a single by The Beatles, he was under obligation to make sure it sold well. Paul McCartney recalled, "He knew it was a number one hit so he gave us it on a demo, a little white acetate. We took it back to Liverpool and said, 'What are we gonna do with this? This is what he wants us to do, he's our producer, we'll have to do it, we'll have to learn it.' So we did, but we didn't like it and we came back to George and said, 'Well it may be a number one but we just don't want this kind of song, we don't want to go out with that kind of reputation. It's a different thing we're going for, it's something new'. I suppose we were quite forceful really, for people in our position. And he understood. George later took our demo and played it to Gerry [and the Pacemakers] and said, 'They don't want it, it's a major hit, you do it,' and Gerry leapt at the chance. He kept it very similar in tempo to our version which was quite changed from the original demo because it was our arrangement, basically." The Beatles recorded their version of How Do You Do It? on September 4, 1962, though they didn't seem to put much effort into it. They quickly recorded it, leving more time for Love Me Do. The session began at 7:00 PM, after a studio rehearsal from 2:30 to 5:30 PM. In that time, they rehearsed six songs, including How Do You Do It?. Paul McCartney recalls, "John took the lead. They didn't like doing it, but we made a good record." It is unknown how many takes were recorded, but Take 2 was mixed into mono and cut onto acetate. He made copies of these acetates for himself and Brian Epstein to listen to and decide the next day which song to release as a single. If The Beatles had released the song, they would have likely lost popularity among their fans because it was such a breezy pop song. McCartney commented, "At least there was some credibility in the fact it [Love Me Do] was a bluesy song rather than How Do You Do It. So that was it, we were started and our credibility as songwriters had started then." George Martin, after being convinced to release Love Me Do, still considered releasing How Do You Do It as The Beatles' second single. Martin remembers, "In the first year, I had the final decision on songs, but they persuaded me to let them have their own songs on both sides of their first single. I was still thinking that we should release their recording of How Do You Do It. They said, 'Couldn't we do one of our own, Please Please Me?'" The Beatles' version of the song surfaced on bootlegs in the 1970's and was officially released on the Anthology 1 collection in 1995.

Recording Sessions


Gerry and The Pacemakers Version

After The Beatles turned down How Do You Do It?, it was given to Gerry and The Pacemakers. They released their version in March 1963. It topped the UK singles charts for three weeks, eventually being knocked off by The Beatles' From Me To You.

Personnel

The Beatles

Production

Available Versions

Known Unavailable Versions

Available On

Sources

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