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In the studio
The Beatles recorded Love Me Do over three sessions. The first was at their EMI audition on 6 June 1962, featuring Pete Best on drums.
They returned to the song during the 4 September session, where it was considered for release along with How Do You Do It. The group tackled it again on 11 September, after which it was deemed good enough for release as a single.
Although Ringo Starr had played drums on 4 September, George Martin brought in a session drummer, Andy White, for the subsequent recording; Ringo was relegated to tambourine.
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. I think it's because of that that George Martin used Andy White, the 'professional', when we went down a week later to record Love Me Do. The guy was previously booked, anyway, because of Pete Best. George didn't want to take any more chances and I was caught in the middle.I was devastated that George Martin had his doubts about me. I came down ready to roll and heard, 'We've got a professional drummer.' He has apologised several times since, has old George, but it was devastating - I hated the bugger for years; I still don't let him off the hook!
Anthology
The presence of the tambourine is the easiest way to distinguish the two recordings. 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. To consolidate the decision EMI destroyed the master tapes of the 4 September recording.
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.
George got his way and Ringo didn't drum on the first single. He only played tambourine.I don't think Ringo ever got over that. He had to go back up to Liverpool and everyone asked, 'How did it go in the Smoke?' We'd say, 'B-side's good,' but Ringo couldn't admit to liking the a-side, not being on it.
Anthology
The relegation of Ringo wasn't the only change made by George Martin to the song.
George Martin said, 'Can anyone play harmonica? It would be rather nice. Couldn't think of some sort of bluesy thing, could you, John?' John played a chromatic harmonica, not a Sonny Boy Williamson blues harmonica, more Max Geldray from the Goon Show...The lyrics crossed over the harmonica solo so I suddenly got thrown the big open line, 'Love me do', where everything stopped. Until that session John had always done it; I didn't even know how to sing it. I'd never done it before. George Martin just said, 'You take that line, John take the harmonica, you cross over, we'll do it live'...
I can still hear the nervousness in my voice! We were downstairs in number two studio and I remember looking up to the big window afterwards and George Martin was saying, 'Jolly good.'
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
Chart success
The single reached number 17 in the UK charts, with sales mainly concentrated in and around Liverpool.
There were enough fans of The Beatles around because we were playing all over the Wirral, Cheshire, Manchester and Liverpool. We were quite popular, so the sales were real.First hearing Love Me Do on the radio sent me shivery all over. It was the best buzz of all time. We knew it was going to be on Radio Luxembourg at something like 7.30 on Thursday night. I was in my house in Speke and we all listened in. That was great, but after having got to 17, I don't recall what happened to it. It probably went away and died, but what it meant was that the next time we went to EMI, they were more friendly: 'Oh, hello lads. Come in.'
Anthology
There were persistent rumours that Brian Epstein had bulk-bought around 10,000 copies to increase its chart ranking, but these remain unproven.
The best thing was it came into the charts in two days and everybody thought it was a fiddle, because our manager's stores sent in these returns and everybody down south though, 'Ah-ha, he's buying them himself or he's just fiddling the charts.' But he wasn't.
Anthology
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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.