Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 6 June, 4 and 11 September 1962
Producers: Ron Richards, George Martin
Engineer: Norman Smith
Released: 5 October 1962 (UK), 27 April 1964 (US)
Paul McCartney: vocals, bass
John Lennon: vocals, harmonica, acoustic rhythm guitar
George Harrison: acoustic rhythm guitar
Ringo Starr: drums, tambourine
Pete Best: drums
Andy White: drums
Available on:
Please Please Me
Past Masters
1
Anthology 1
Live At The BBC
Love Me Do, The Beatles' debut single, was released in the UK on 5 October 1962.
The song was an early Lennon-McCartney composition from 1958, although it wasn't recorded by the group for another four years.
Paul wrote the main structure of this when he was 16, or even earlier. I think I had something to do with the middle.
Lennon spoke again of the song in an interview conducted shortly before his death.
Love Me Do is Paul's song. He wrote it when he was a teenager. Let me think. I might have helped on the middle eight, but I couldn't swear to it. I do know he had the song around, in Hamburg, even, way, way before we were songwriters.
All We Are Saying, David Sheff
Despite this, McCartney remembers Love Me Do as a joint effort between the two of them, and that it came out of their early songwriting experiments.
Love Me Do was completely co-written. It might have been my original idea but some of them really were 50-50s, and I think that one was. It was just Lennon and McCartney sitting down without either of us having a particularly original idea.We loved doing it, it was a very interesting thing to try and learn to do, to become songwriters. I think why we eventually got so strong was we wrote so much through our formative period. Love Me Do was our first hit, which ironically is one of the two songs that we control, because when we first signed to EMI they had a publishing company called Ardmore and Beechwood which took the two songs, Love Me Do and PS I Love You, and in doing a deal somewhere along the way we were able to get them back.
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
Although The Beatles started out by performing cover versions, as Lennon and McCartney grew as songwriters they began introducing their own compositions into their live shows.
Introducing our own numbers started round Liverpool and Hamburg. Love Me Do, one of the first ones we wrote, Paul started when he must have been about 15. It was the first one we dared to do of our own. This was quite a traumatic thing because we were doing such great numbers of other people's, of Ray Charles and [Little] Richard and all of them.It was quite hard to come in singing Love Me Do. We thought our numbers were a bit wet. But we gradually broke that down and decided to try them.
Anthology
As well as being their debut single, the band also recorded Love Me Do eight times for the BBC. A version from 10 July 1963, recorded for the Pop Go The Beatles programme, is available on Live At The BBC.
In 1976, Ringo Starr described how Love Me Do was a turning point for the group:
For me that was more important than anything else. That first piece of plastic. You can't believe how great that was. It was so wonderful. We were on a record!
Paul McCartney confirmed that the song was the point at which The Beatles knew they were becoming successful.
In Hamburg we clicked. At the Cavern we clicked. But if you want to know when we 'knew' we'd arrived, it was getting in the charts with Love Me Do. That was the one. It gave us somewhere to go.
Related articles:
- Recording: PS I Love You, Love Me Do, Please Please Me
- UK single release: Love Me Do
- Line-ups 1957-1970
- Please Please Me
- I Should Have Known Better
Who plays drums on Love Me Do on this album? Pete, Ringo or Andy???
Hi Alker. The information is on page two of the article:
It is White's version which appears on the Please Please Me album, though Ringo's drumming can be heard on Past Masters. The recording featuring Pete Best appeared on Anthology 1 in 1995.
I have read somewhere or have heard from a documentary of Ringo's interview about the Love Me Do version he played in, Ringo mentions that since George Martin didn't allow him to play the drums during the initial recording of Love Me Do he played the tambourine instead. The first release single of Love Me Do featured Andy White, but the second release featured Ringo. The Andy White version is the version with the tambourine and the version without the tambourine is with Ringo. The bland Anthology version featured Pete Best, you will notice it's Pete because he likes to do extra drum rolls which George Martin didn't like. If the drum has extra kicks or rolls in the middle, it's Pete Best. Andy White actually played in two songs naming Love Me Do and P.S. I Love You. You can clearly hear the difference in the drum beating style if you compare these two songs from the Please Please Me album to other songs where Ringo played in.
I have the 7" demo version of Love Me Do.
I believe this is now quite collectable but have no way of playing it (no turntable).
If I was to sell it what version would I quote? From your details would think Ringo on drums?
The Anthology version contains harmonica so by the time they recorded the Past Masters version and the Please Please Me version - after all those rehearsals and takes - Paul can't possibly still have been nervous, yet he claims he can hear his nerves on the recording.
Paul was nervous on the Anthology version of Love Me Do because it was their first recording session with George Martin (their potential producer at that time) You will notice how basic the entire song was and how plain it is by simply comparing it to the well known versions.
It's too bad that EMI destroyed the 4 September tapes in which Ringo played drums.
And also it's bad that there's really no stereo version of this song.
Only Duophonic.
And also, all the master tapes we're destroyed :/
I don't think this is paul's viola bass, must be his "prototype" bass with the 3 piano strings...
"Initial copies of the single had Ringo on drums, though the Andy White version became the preferred version from the release of the Beatles Hits EP on 6 September 1963"
If I had a cent for every time I read this I would be richer than Paul McCartney.
I have yet to find ANY evidence to support this 'fact' nor has any one been able to give me any other than to quote that is what 'Lewisohn' said.
The matrix in the dead on the Original Demo, Red label and 4 Black label variations pressed in the 1960's are ALL the same - 7XCE 17144-1N, the stampers change but not the master.
If you listen to each pressing they ALL have the Ringo version.
In 1976 the single was reissued with the Andy White / Tambourine version with a matrix of
7XCE 17144-2.
Why not pick up an original 'Black label' pressing and help re-write history before the 50th anniversary of the single release.
Could you and Mark Lewisohn both be correct? He said that EMI destroyed the four-track master tape of the Ringo version, which implies that in 1963 they no longer thought it was good enough to use. But the various 1960s pressings, like you say, could have come from the original stamper anyway, which wouldn't, in practice, have make Andy White's one the preferred version.
"4 Black label" - do you mean the style with the large 45 printed on it?
BTW, you must have heard this fact around 73,000,000,000 times. I feel sorry for you!
Hello Folks, i want to know who plays the drums on "Love Me Do", on the canadian Capitol LP "twist and shout"?? many thanks
The Please Please Me album was recorded in a day and there are no know re-take of the songs of the album with the exception of Love Me Do. As I remember, they recorded twist and shout in one go for the last time because John can only sing one last song on that session before his vocal chords rip apart. According to Ringo's recollection, he played on all the songs in the Please Please Me album except for the songs Love me do and P.S. I love you.
I find it interesting how simple this song is, but how much different it could be in arrangement. Before George Martin made the switch to McCartney bringing in the "Love Me Do" vocal solo, Lennon was doing it, w/o the harmonica solo, which would have given it a completely different sound.
Also, the harmonica & bass dominates the solo, so is Harrison playing a standard acoustic sound here? Because in the videos I've seen of them performing it, John is always either not playing guitar at all and just singing/harmonica, or barely strumming along. I wonder was it different in studio.
At any rate, classic is an understatement to this track & it serves as both the first large scale sound they made & it's simplicity is striking as a bookend to what they'd become relativitely soon in real time after making this humble start.
I recently heard a song in french which is identical in terms of music to "love me do", only I could not understand the lyrics. do you know of this song?
Someone Probably Translated the Lyrics to French.
No, it wasn't a translation. To my understanding it was same music-different lyrics. It was 60s french girl pop style. A very nice version actually.