Please Please Me (song)

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Please Please Me is a song off The Beatles' 1963 album of the same name. It was also released as their second single. It was written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon/McCartney.

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[edit] Writing

Please Please Me was originally written as a slower, bluesy song in the style of Roy Orbison. George Martin suggested that they speed up the song to make it more commercial. This worked, as Please Please Me became their first number one hit in the UK. John Lennon said in 1963, "We'd had a top 30 entry with Love Me Do and we really thought we were on top of the world. Then came Please Please Me - and wham! We tried to make it as simple as possible. Some of the stuff we've written in the past has been a bit way-out, but we aimed this one straight at the hit parade." John wrote the song in his Aunt Mimi's house on Menlove Avenue in Liverpool. John told Playboy in 1980, "I remember the day I wrote it. I remember the pink eiderdown over the bed, sitting on one of the bedrooms in my house on Menlove Avenue, my auntie's place. I heard Roy Orbison doing Only The Lonely on the radio." John had also been influenced by the Bing Crosby song Please, which began with the lines "Oh, please, lend your little ear to my pleas." Please Please Me, howevere, is thought to be less innocent, with some interpreting the song to be about wanting oral sex.

[edit] Recording

John said in 1963, "We almost abandoned it as the b-side of Love Me Do. We changed our minds only because we were so tired the night we did Love Me Do. We'd been going over it a few times and when we came to the question of the flipside, we intended using Please Please Me. Our recording manager, George Martin, thought our arrangement was fussy, so we tried to make it simpler. We were getting very tired, though, and we just couldn't seem to get it right. We are conscientious about our work and we don't like to rush things." They first recorded Please Please Me during the session where they recorded Love Me Do and P.S. I Love You on September 11, 1962. Ringo Starr recalled, "On my first visit in September we just ran through some tracks for George Martin. We even did Please Please Me. I remember that, because while we were recording it I was playing the bass drum with a maraca in one hand and a tambourine in the other." Even though they recorded Please Please Me, George Martin still preferred the Mitch Murray song How Do You Do It?, which he made The Beatles record in a previous session. Maritn recalls, "At that stage Please Please Me was a very dreary song. It was like a Roy Orbison number, very slow, bluesy vocals. It was obvious to me that it badly needed pepping up. I told them to bring it in next time and we'd have another go at it." It had been thought for many years that the recordings made on September 11 had been destroyed, although a take of Please Please Me from this session was rediscovered in 1994 and was included on Anthology 1. This version, athough not the Roy Orbison style version, has significant differences from the released version, mainly the lack of harmonica and less backing vocals. On November 26, 1962, they did 18 takes of a remake of the song, with John overdubbing harmonica onto the last of these. Paul McCartney remembers, "We sang it and George Martin said, 'Can we change the tempo?' We said, 'What's that?' He said, 'Make it a bit faster. Let me try it.' And he did. We thought, 'Oh, that's all right, yes.' Actually, we were a bit embarrassed that he had found a better tempo than we had."

[edit] Performances

This song was the only one to be performed on The Beatles' national UK TV debut on Thank Your Lucky Stars. This appearance was recorded on January 13, 1963 and broadcast on January 19. The Beatles would perform it live from 1962 to 1964.

[edit] Release and Reaction

At the end of the session that produced Please Please Me, George Martin announced to The Beatles, "Congratulations, gentlemen, you've just made your first number one." Please Please Me was released as a single on January 11, 1963 in the UK, with Ask Me Why as the B-Side. Britain at the time did not have a main singles chart, although Please Please Me got to number one on the charts of Melody Maker, New Musical Express and Disc within six weeks. In the Record Reatiler chart, it stopped at number two. The Beatles would not have a number one on all British charts until From Me To You. Many in the UK took notice of The Beatles because of this single, though it did not do nearly as well in the US. The same single was released in the US on Vee-Jay on February 25, 1963. The first pressing of the US single credited the band as The Beattles. It sold about 7000 copies. Because of this single's UK success, Dick James asked The Beatles to found the publishing company Northern Songs. The success inspired George Martin to ask Brian Epstein to take them off the Helen Shapiro tour for a day to record their first studio album, Please Please Me. Please Please Me would be reissued with From Me To You as the B-Side on January 30, 1964, shortly after the large success of I Want To Hold Your Hand in the US. This reissue, despite still being on the small Vee-Jay label, made it to number three on the Billboard Hot 100.

[edit] Personnel

[edit] The Beatles

[edit] Production

[edit] Available Versions

[edit] Available On

[edit] Cover Versions

[edit] Source

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