"Love Me Do"

Song: “Love Me Do”
Album: Please Please Me (1963)

Released in October 1962 (B-sided by “P.S. I Love You”), “Love Me Do” was the first Beatles single, peaking at number 17 in the U.K. and number 1 in the U.S. (but not until 1964). It’s a song that fits the model of early Beatles lore well: McCartney wrote it while skipping school at 16 (John contributed the middle eight) probably putting it down in a notebook with “Another Lennon-McCartney Original” scrawled atop the page (as was their practice at the time). It was originally envisioned as an Everly Brothers-style harmonizing piece. And they do harmonize on “please,” but because John couldn’t sing and play the harmonica (a major fixture in many of their early tunes), Paul took the solo “love me do.” The harmonica was originally overdubbed (so John could sing the line, too), but it was too loud and overpowering in the final recording so John instead played it while Paul sang.

The song was first recorded in June of 1962 with Pete Best on drums. It was recorded again in September with Ringo, as producer George Martin did not like Best’s drumming. But Martin wasn’t happy with Starr’s drumming either, and the Beatles recorded the song a third time (again in September) with session drummer Andy White (with Starr playing the tambourine—so the Ringo and White versions can be easily distinguished by the presence or absence of a tambourine). The Starr version was the one first issued as a single, but the White version was used for Please Please Me and most other releases of the song. The Pete Best version was not released until 1995’s Anthology 1 volume.

Aside from just his pickiness about the drumming, Martin was not yet impressed with the songwriting prowess of the newly signed Beatles (who were picked up primarily for their charisma). He selected this as their first single because he didn’t feel they had any better material at the time. But the band really wanted to record their own song for their first single, which was unusual at the time, especially for a new artist. And Martin probably deserves the credit for giving them a shot.

The original master of “Love Me Do” from the first September session (with Ringo as drummer) no longer exists. Two-track session tapes for singles were often erased after being mixed down to a master so its no surprise the original tapes are gone, but the master was lost at some point, too. EMI probably wasn’t too concerned about it as the later recording (with White) was the master used for most releases of the song. But in the early 1980’s, a new master was struck from a mint 45 from a private record collection and has been the “official” master ever since.