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The Beatles · S5 E1
Please Please Me
The second single hits number one. Then the album: recorded in a single marathon session on February 11, 1963, finishing with John's shredded voice on Twist and Shout
February 11, 1963. The Beatles walk into Abbey Road at ten in the morning and George Martin tells them they're not leaving until they've recorded an entire album.
The Beatles, Please Please Me (1963). Originally written as a slow Roy Orbison-style ballad, then transformed after George Martin told them to pick up the tempo. The result was the single that took the Beatles from a regional act to a national obsession.
Please Please Me, The Beatles (1963)
John wrote this in his bedroom at Mendips, inspired by the wordplay in Bing Crosby's 'Please': 'Oh please, lend your little ear to my pleas.' The original version was slow and dreamy, but George Martin heard something more urgent inside it and told them to double the tempo. The harmonica intro mirrors 'Love Me Do,' but everything around it is tighter, more confident, more desperate. It reached number one on the NME and Melody Maker charts, making it their first chart-topper.
Sources
Lewisohn, Mark. "The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions." Hamlyn, 1988/2018.
The Beatles. "The Beatles Anthology." Chronicle Books, 2000.
“Gentlemen, you've just made your first number one record.”
— George Martin, through the Abbey Road control room intercom after hearing the playback, November 26, 1962 (Mark Lewisohn, The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, 1988)
Please Please Me: The Album
Twelve Hours, Fourteen Songs
George Martin books a single day to record the debut album because Parlophone's budget won't stretch further. The Beatles treat it like a Cavern gig: they play the songs live with minimal overdubs, finishing each track in a handful of takes. By the evening, John's voice is nearly gone from a head cold and twelve hours of nonstop singing, and they have one song left to record.
Sources
Lewisohn, Mark. "The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions." Hamlyn, 1988/2018.
Martin, George. "All You Need Is Ears." St. Martin's Press, 1979.
TAP TO REVEAL: Why was 'Twist and Shout' recorded last?
Baby It's You, The Beatles (1963)
A Burt Bacharach and Hal David song, originally recorded by The Shirelles in 1961. John sings it with a vulnerability that cuts through the album's relentless energy, and George Martin's celesta overdub gives it a dreamlike quality. Recorded during the same February 11 marathon, this is the sound of a band finding tenderness between the chaos.
Baby It's You, The Beatles (1963)
Read the lyrics while you listen. John delivers someone else's words with more conviction than most singers bring to their own. In the middle of a twelve-hour sprint to make a debut album, he slows down for three minutes and means every syllable.
In what year was the single 'Please Please Me' actually recorded?
'Please Please Me' makes them famous, but the next single makes them unstoppable. On July 1, 1963, John and Paul record 'She Loves You,' and the yeah-yeah-yeahs will be heard around the world.
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