A Taste Of Honey | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

BeatOfTheBrass said 

I never liked Paul doing that “schweeter than wine” vocal affect, though.  It detracts from the sophistication of the song’s slightly naughty undertone.

 I particularly enjoy the vocal effect. It adds a playfulness that I find enhances the “naughty undertone.”

Also, the “sh” vocal effect is not just unique to this song but can be found in a lot of the Beatles’ early tracks. A lot of the time, I’ll listen for the effect in their songs just because I find charming and fun. It also carries a particular purpose. 

Geoff Emerick talks about in his book Here, There, and Everywhere (a personal favorite of mine): 

“As I listened to the playbacks of ‘Misery ‘ that afternoon, I was also struck by the way John and Paul sang the word ‘send’ as ‘shend’ (‘Shend her back to me…’). Changing an ‘s’ to an ‘sh’ was an affectation you heard on some American records, so it helped make the Beatles sound more like their musical idols, plus it removed any kind of potential ‘de-essing’ problems, where, if there was too much top end (treble), the sound on vinyl would distort. That was a great little vocal trick, and they used it on a lot of their songs from then on, most notably on ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand ‘ (‘When I / shay that shomething…’).”