Released in 1963, ‘From Me To You’ was The Beatles’ third single, and their first to top all the UK charts.
It could be done as an old ragtime tune… especially the middle-eight. And so, we’re not writing the tunes in any particular idiom. In five years’ time, we may arrange the tunes differently. But we’ll probably write the same old rubbish!
John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote ‘From Me To You’ on 28 February 1963, on a tour bus heading to Shrewsbury.
We were on tour with Roy Orbison [sic] at the time we wrote this. We were all on the same tour bus, and it would stop somewhere so that people could go for a cup of tea and a meal, and John and I would have a cup of tea and then go back to the bus and write something. It was a special image to me, at twenty-one, to be walking down the aisle of the bus and there on the back seat of the bus is Roy Orbison, in black with his dark glasses, working on his guitar, writing ‘Pretty Woman’. There was a camaraderie, and we were inspiring each other, which is always a lovely thing. He played the music for us, and we said, ‘That’s a good one, Roy. Great.’ And then we’d say, ‘Well, listen to this one,’ and we’d play him ‘From Me To You’. That was kind of a historic moment, as it turned out.
The Lyrics: 1956 To The Present
McCartney’s recollection of the song’s genesis is incorrect. The Beatles toured with Roy Orbison in May and June 1963, and ‘From Me To You’ was recorded in March and released the following month.
The song was actually written while the band were on tour with Helen Shapiro. Its title was inspired by From You To Us, the letters section of the New Musical Express.
The night Paul and I wrote ‘From Me To You’, we were on the Helen Shapiro tour, on the coach, travelling from York to Shrewsbury. We weren’t taking ourselves seriously – just fooling around on the guitar – when we began to get a good melody line, and we really started to work at it. Before that journey was over, we’d completed the lyric, everything. I think the first line was mine and we took it from there. What puzzled us was why we’d thought of a name like ‘From Me To You’. It had me thinking when I picked up the NME to see how we were doing in the charts. Then I realised – we’d got the inspiration from reading a copy on the coach. Paul and I had been talking about one of the letters in the From You To Us column.
Anthology
The Helen Shapiro tour took in 14 shows, mostly in theatres, and lasted from 2 February to 3 March 1963. Other names on the tour were Danny Williams, Kenny Lynch, The Kestrels, The Red Price Orchestra, The Honeys and MC Dave Allen.
I remember John and Paul coming up to me to ask if I would like to hear a couple of songs that they had just written. They were looking for opinions because they were undecided about which should be their next single. We crowded around a piano and Paul played, while the two of them sang their latest composition. One was ‘Thank You Girl’, and the other was ‘From Me To You’, which I liked best.
The genesis of ‘From Me To You’ was later recounted by Roger Greenaway of The Kestrels.
The Beatles at this time had had their first number one, and John and Paul were writing songs at the back of the coach. Kenny Lynch, who, at this time, fancied himself as a songwriter, sauntered up to the back of the coach and decided he would help John and Paul write a song. After a period of about half an hour had elapsed and nothing seemed to be coming from the back, Kenny rushed to the front of the coach and shouted, ‘Well, that’s it. I am not going to write any more of that bloody rubbish with those idiots. They don’t know the music from their backsides. That’s it! No more help from me!’ The song that John and Paul were writing at this time was a track called ‘From Me To You’.
Although The Beatles had planned to release ‘Thank You Girl’ as their next single, they swiftly changed their plans after writing ‘From Me To You’.
We’d already written ‘Thank You Girl’ as the follow-up to ‘Please Please Me’. This new number was to be the b-side. We were so pleased with it, we knew we just had to make it the a-side, ‘Thank You Girl’ the b.
Anthology
Lennon and McCartney wrote ‘From Me To You’ in response to a request from George Martin, who told them to come up with more hits once ‘Please Please Me’ became a success.
There was a little trick we developed early on and got bored with later, which was to put I, Me or You in it, so it was very direct and personal: ‘Love Me Do’; ‘Please Please Me’; ‘From Me To You’ – we got two of them in there…That was a pivotal song. Our songwriting lifted a little with that song. It was very much co-written. We were starting to meet other musicians then and we’d start to see other people writing. After that, on another tour bus with Roy Orbison, we saw Roy sitting in the back of the bus, writing ‘Pretty Woman’. It was lovely. We could trade off with each other. This was our real start.
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
Lennon and McCartney were particularly pleased with the song’s middle section.
That middle eight was a very big departure for us. Say you’re in C then go to A minor, fairly ordinary, C, change it to G. And then F, pretty ordinary. But then it goes, ‘I got arms…’ and that’s a G minor. Going to G minor and a C takes you to a whole new world. It was exciting.
The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, Mark Lewisohn
Another key feature of ‘From Me To You’ was the falsetto “Whoo!”, which swiftly became a Beatles trademark. Although the group had previously used the motif on ‘Twist And Shout’, on the Please Please Me LP, ‘From Me To You’ was the first single to feature it. The group repeated the trick on their next single, ‘She Loves You’.
I can’t believe there are no comments on this great song!! To me this is an important song in the history of the Beatles…it was their first no 1 & proved they were not a one hit wonder.
‘From Me To You’ is my fave Beatle song. I remember hearing it on my TRANSISTOR radio! I always think of John singing the opening da da da’s. He sounds, to me, so coy and flirty. I still love that song…it is as fresh today as it was all those years ago.
one of the first songs of theirs i ever heard. always liked it too
For Part 2 of 5 see “Blue Jay Way.”
How [not] to interpret a Beatles’ song, Part 3 of 4: Enjoy the small things.
Not long after The Beatles released “From Me To You,” Paul McCartney had one of the most rewarding moments of his career: “I’d come back from a club and I was just getting to bed and I heard the milkman whistling ‘From Me To You.’ I thought ‘That’s it, I’ve arrived – the milkman’s whistling my tune.’” The lyrics are affable enough, but what really made the song was that simple, catchy tune: “Da-da-da, da-da-dun-dun, dah.”
It is both comical and frustrating that John had to remind us in a 1970 interview that The Beatles were just a band who made it “very, very big, that’s all.” “I Feel Fine” is another lyrically affable song, but it’s got that riff “that’ll set your feet a-tapping, as the reviews say,” quoth Lennon. The Beatles were a dance band designed to delight audiences and get them moving to the beat. More often than not, the meaning, significance or point of a song is something very simple and small. Usually the delight is in the sound, as when George put a sitar on “Norwegian Wood” or when John played a recording of a guitar riff backward in “I’m Only Sleeping.” Sometimes the catchy detail is a turn of phrase, like the image of “kaleidoscope eyes” in “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” or the feel of the phrase “crabalocker fishwife” in “I am the Walrus.” What is the meaning of “crabalocker”? Is it an adjective or a noun? Its context confounds construal, suggesting that its entire significance lies in the simple pleasure of its sound, the feel of the word as it crumbles out of your mouth – especially when the crunchiness of the word is followed by the flimsy “fishwife.”
Songwriters are artists whose canvass is sound and whose colors and textures come from things that make sound, including vocal chords. A painting needn’t have any point or meaning other than its beauty; the same is true of a song. Sometimes the meaning lies in nothing more profound than a colorful drum fill, a wailing guitar riff, a perplexing patch of pompous prose, or even in something as simple as the whistling of a milkman.
For part 4 of 5, see “She Loves You.”
I think it´s one of the most remembered tunes ever written by the Beatles. It´s so much simple and so much beautiful. I love it.
Good song! Stands the time..still good taste as it was from the beginnig, Beatles were bluesy right from the start in their songs..Love Me Do..even Please Please me on the maj7 tone (last-) night is a bit a hint of a bent five scale seventh to me.. and this one FMTY and It Wont Be Long, All I Got To Do and many more. Thank you Beatles for all the good songs you made!
So right Jan. Back then it was about the single… the song. The song itself would market and pay the bills.
This became the challenge for these guys and they continued that format until they decided to make an
Album with depth and understanding which started a whole new approach in records.
George did not sing in this. I have listened hard and I can only hear two voices and in the live performances George doesn’t sing.
First number one?? No, that honor goes to Please Please Me. Also, From Me To You is a good example of how much better the mono mixes are. Sounds FAB in mono, awful in stereo, yuk.
It is a technical point, but “From Me to You” was, indeed, their first number one.
At the time in the UK there was three different charts. The “Record Retailer” chart, which was compiled for the trade paper of the UK music industry. Plus the two national music papers, “New Music Express” and “Melody Maker” ran their own charts – with the NME chart being the most widely recognised.
When creating the weekly television chart programme “Top of the Pops” in late 1963 (it was first broadcast on 1 January 1964), they had to settle on a chart to use, and they adopted use of the “Record Retailer” chart. By the end of 1964 the “Record Retailer” chart was recognised as the official chart, from which all chart statistics would be drawn, dating back to its creation in 1959.
While “Please Please Me” reached No. 1 on both the NME and MM charts, it only reached No. 2 on the “Record Retailer” chart – meaning, officially, it was not a No. 1, and making “From Me to You”, which did reach No. 1 on the “Record Retailer” chart, their first official No. 1.
This also explains the reason why “Please Please Me” was not included on the “1” album.
Please Please Me was on their 14 track first album called strangely, “Please Please Me”. This song was on side one, track 7. The LP was released in the UK on the 22 March 1963 and subsequently world wide, except for the US.
Also, the two songs are on the same 45. Please, Please Me was the A side. From Me To You was the B side…in America.
One thing I’ve always wondered about was why Capital never released “From Me to You” on their label. It seems to me they would have stuck it on “The Early Beatles”, “Meet the Beatles” or “The Beatles 2nd Album” if they had the rights to the song. Was it an issue with rights to the song?
Capitol did briefly issue this song on its Oldies label, Starline, along with “Misery” and “There’s A Place” in October, 1965. The singles were deleted a few months later, and “From Me to You” was not available on an American record again until 1973, when it appeared on the Red Album. The other two songs remained unavailable in the US until 1980, when they appeared on the American “Rarities” LP.
I don’t understand why Capitol allowed these three Lennon-McCartney songs to be unavailable for so long. As fab4ever says, it would have made sense to put them on the “Early Beatles” LP. Wouldn’t fans have preferred these original compositions to some of the cover versions on that album?
Try this: sing along with “From Me to You”, except, when it comes to the bridge (“I’ve got arms that long to hold you, etc.) sing the bridge from “Consider Yourself” from the musical Oliver! (1960):
“If it should chance to be we should see some harder days
Empty larder days, why grouse?
Always-a-chance we’ll meet
Somebody to foot the bill, then the drinks are on the house!”
Notice any similarity?
Yes indeed–good observation! I guess that’s why the bridge to FMTY has a bit of a show-tuney qualtity.
I did a google search looking for similarities of Consider Yourself and From Me to You and your comment popped up. Your comment was 9 years ago. Haha. We heard the same thing!
Hard to believe that Thank You Girl was ever being considered for the A side of a single. That is surely one of the weakest Beatle songs out there. Thankfully they came up with From Me to You instead…
I was a huge Del Shannon fan (as were the Beatles I think), and was blown away by his summer 1963 release, FMTY. It didn’t get a whole of air play in the US, and I was even more upset that WMCA radio in New York City started playing this other version, by some group called- the Beatles. Was said to be number one in England, but I was not impressed. Hah- little did I know….
Hah, indeed, Walt! Little did you know? Me too. FMTY was the very first Beatles song I ever heard, before that I knew it as a Del Shannon song. And then the Beatles version came blasting out of my little Astor Mickey valve radio (this was Perth, Western Australia, late 1963, I think) and I was totally knocked out by their sound. I remember sending a note to a girl I liked in class saying, ‘Have you heard of these guys called the Beetles?’ And the world was changed forever.
Like CH (above) I first heard FMTY in late spring or early summer 1963. I was 13 years old, and I really liked the song. However, the weekly top-40 list published by the the local radio station (KCBQ–San Diego) spelled their name “The Beetles”–also like CH encountered. So, I thought they were a black group–you know, the black beetles. And the use of the harmonica cinched it; after all, blues harmonica playing was in the black domain at the time (with apologies to Paul Butterfield). Since “black” was not yet politically/socially correct usage, it was dropped from the name (yet implied). I was shocked when I found out in fall 1963 that they were white. When FMTY was released I could not find anyone else I knew who liked the song–just me. It did not go below #38 in San Diego and was soon dropped from the play list. It is still one of my favorite Beatles song–probably for the effect of the harmonica on a 13-year-old boy just beginning to explore blues and folk music. BTW, I was excited when I read that someone else (CH) first experienced The Beatles as The Beetles. I’ve never seen any other reference to this misspelling in the record charts, though I am familiar with “Silver Beatles”. Thanks for the memory.
The Beatles second number one hit in March 1963. The A-bit is composed by Lennon and the middle part is by McCartney. Ian MacDonald writes in his Revolution in the Head: “Bluesily horizontal in its intervals, From Me To You clearly grew from an original Lennon phrase”.
I think the initial interval resembles the beginning of Tomorrow Never Knows. McCartney always only praises the middle part, so you can be sure, he did the middle part.
And you know this about the middle part and state it as fact because…..?
As you know, Robert, it’s because Johan fabricated this out of his uncontrollable love for Lennon and uncontrollable dislike of McCartney. That’s all he needs.
mmmm. Paul died and the replacement was disliked
But what is the key takeaway from the notes on this song? “McCartney’s recollection of the song’s genesis is incorrect.” and Lennon’s recollections were correct.
I’m waiting for Paul to say – Pretty Woman was 40% me and 60% Roy.
“Pretty Woman” (later known as “Oh, Pretty Woman”) wasn’t recorded & released by Roy Orbison until Aug. 1964… Makes me wonder if that was the actual song he was writing in the back of the tour bus over a year earlier.
Johan,
John Lennon From his quote: “I think the first line was mine and WE took it from there.” The Song “From Me To You” was written by BOTH of them, 50/50!
Love this song.Great opening. Lennon and McCartney collaboration in terms of writing and vocally. As I said earlier it is the punch in the opening vocals and they drive furiously until the end. No wonder “From Me To You” was number one in Britain. It was the right choice as the A side, but unlike others I have always loved the catchy B side “Thank You Girl”.
Although I recognize that FMTY is a technically “better” song, I much prefer listening to TYG.
I don’t know why, but FMTY just never grabbed me. I don’t listen to it much and never have.
The production suffered from a lack of energy.
It has always sounded limp like a wet fish.
Paul McCartney is quoted as saying, “There was a little trick we developed early on and got bored with later, which was to put I, Me or You in it, so it was very direct and personal …”
“From Me To You” was early Beatles’ musical magic. With this song, in my opinion, they found their “sound” which in turn paved the way for “She Loves YOU”, “All MY Loving”, “I Want to Hold YOUR Hand”, and “I Saw Her Standing There”, etc.
I mean, it just doesn’t get any better than this! Amazing! What a sound!
I think that George’s use of “I, Me, Mine”, from the Let It Be album, conveys an entirely different message and it would be good fodder for future discussions.
I really enjoy this site!
The listing of who played what is incorrect.
“George Harrison: harmony vocals, lead guitar”
There isn’t any GH harmony on this song, not in the studio and not live.
That’s true – if George had been singing backup vocals, then his voice would’ve been obvious.
Here’s some trivia about the song’s guitar parts: John and George utilized their Gibson J-160E acoustic guitars in electric mode, not their Rickenbacker 325 and Gretsch Duo Jet, hence the unique hybrid electric/acoustic sound, and even session photographs confirm this fact.
With the Gibson J-160E, it can be played either in standard acoustic mode or electric mode when plugged into an amplifier and the player has a choice as which mode to use.
I was 8 years in 1963 when I heard this song played on the radio in the Detroit area. It sounded so unique, so different from any of the other hit makes of the day like Ricky Nelson, Bobby Rydell, etc. I loved and hated the song at the same time. Part of the melody (major to minor chord transition) was beautiful while other parts (usually the 7th chords) sounded dissonant to my ear. I had the same experience with I Want to Hold Your Hand in December of 1963. But the song grew on me.
From Me To You is a good song that suffered from weak production. It is just too tame. I would say it has the weakest production values out of all The Beatles singles. The energy and excitement is somehow lacking.
Regardless of the song itself, From me to you set off Beatlemania as it spread from hard core to everywhere. What cinched it was my second form music teacher going through it in class. She loved it and when we all went oooo it was obvious the Beatles were very special; She loves you, I want to hold your hand and It won’t be long simply cemented their status. Their songs from 63 and 64 were the high points, so full of energy and togetherness. The arty types can like their later stuff, but they weren’t there at the start in 1963. The excitement was unbelievable.
Newly discovered recordings of The Beatles performing “From Me To You” – then unreleased – along with “Please Please Me”, at EMI House, Manchester Square, London, on April 5, 1963. The single with “From Me To You/ Thank You Girl” ” would not be released until April 11, 1963.
Wonderful document
The best pop-rock love song ever composed
This is one of George Martins productions that has aged badly; the original mono 7″ single is punchy and powerful, whilst the stereo remaster falls flat. ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ and ‘Paperback Writer’ suffer the same fate.
A great song which is still regularly covered, even today. Saw this Beatles tribute band play the song in Jakarta, Indonesia.