‘Thank You Girl’ was originally intended to be The Beatles’ third single, until they came up with ‘From Me To You’.
‘Thank You Girl’ was one of our efforts at writing a single that didn’t work. So it became a b-side or an album track.
As with ‘From Me To You’, it was a collaboration between Lennon and Paul McCartney, written “head-to-head”. It’s likely that Lennon was mainly responsible for the verses, with McCartney contributing the chorus and middle eight.
We’d already written ‘Thank You Girl’ as the follow-up to ‘Please Please Me’. This new number [‘From Me To You’] 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
Originally titled ‘Thank You, Little Girl’, the song was intended as a message of gratitude for the support from the group’s fans. As McCartney explained, “We knew that if we wrote a song called ‘Thank You Girl’ that a lot of the girls who wrote us fan letters would take it as a genuine thank you. So a lot of our songs were directly addressed to the fans.”
In many of their early songs, such as ‘Love Me Do’, ‘Please Please Me’, and ‘PS I Love You’, the two songwriters used the trick of including ‘I’, ‘me’ or ‘you’ in the title, to make it seem more personal.
These early songs were wonderful to learn by and were good album fillers. [‘Thank You Girl’] was pretty much co-written but there might have been a slight leaning towards me with the ‘thank you, girl’ thing, it sounds a bit like me, trying to appease the mob. A bit of a hack song really, but all good practice.
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
In the studio
The recording of ‘Thank You Girl’ mainly took place on 5 March 1963. The song was recorded in six takes. Seven additional edits were then recorded.
Mark Lewisohn, in The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, suggested that these edits were for the ‘guitar flourish’ at the end; in Revolution In The Head, Ian MacDonald claims they were, in fact, for Ringo Starr’s closing drum fills.
‘Thank You Girl’ was completed on 13 March 1964, with the addition of the harmonica overdub. This was recorded in 15 takes by John Lennon.
BBC recordings
The Beatles recorded ‘Thank You Girl’ on three occasions for BBC radio. The first was on 1 April 1963 for the Side By Side show, and was first broadcast on 13 May.
In addition to ‘Thank You Girl’, The Beatles taped versions of ‘Long Tall Sally’, ‘A Taste Of Honey’, ‘Chains’, ‘Boys’, and ‘From Me To You’.
The second BBC recording was for Steppin’ Out. It was taped on 21 May 1963 and broadcast on 3 June. During the session The Beatles also recorded ‘Please Please Me’, ‘I Saw Her Standing There’, ‘Roll Over Beethoven’, ‘From Me To You’, and ‘Twist And Shout’.
The final BBC radio version was for Easy Beat. It was recorded in front of a live audience on 19 June 1963 at the Playhouse Theatre in London, and broadcast four days later.
The four songs recorded on that day were ‘Some Other Guy’, ‘A Taste Of Honey’, ‘Thank You Girl’, and ‘From Me To You’. The versions of ‘Some Other Guy’ and ‘Thank You Girl’ were included on 1994’s Live At The BBC, while ‘A Taste Of Honey’ was included on the 2013 digital download collection Bootleg Recordings 1963.
According to Beatlesebooks.com, George Martin apparently decided that some extra harmonica overdubs weren’t needed for the mono mix of Thank You Girl, so they were left off during that mixing session. That’s because they were added later for the stereo mix.
I prefer the mono mix. But I wonder which is the most popular version.
The extra harmonica overdubs weren’t needed period.
This song is better in mono. Its not Let It Be.
Hear here!
most early songs were better in MONO. this is one of my fav Ringo drumming songs, especaily at the end, it jsut gives me goose bumps.
But that indicates they were planning an album version of the song. Thats what the stereo mixes were for. But Lennon said they did not want to put single tracks on albums.
BBC version communicates the excitement of an authentic live performance — not a tribute band, but the real thing.
Priceless
Dear Mike, I’m also astonished that McCartney keeps dwelling on songwriting credit on Beatles songs! I believe Paul is being petty. I understand John and Paul would credit their creations “LENNON/MCCARTNEY’. I believe their publishing name is “MACLEN MUSIC”. Did you notice how John credited his Plastic Ono Band composition “GIVE PEACE A CHANCE” ~ “Lennon/McCartney” and Paul credited his Beatles composition ~ “COME AND GET IT” “Paul McCartney” on the Badfinger single, Magic Christian and on a Beatles album!!! ~ ANTHOLOGY 3!!! Paul violated his agreement with John!!! McCartney received all the royalties!!! Both “Give Peace A Chance” and “Come And Get It” were written whilst John and Paul were members of The Beatles!
Paul is not being petty and I don’t see why individual writing credits on their songs would’ve been an issue, even in The Beatles days – to clarify this statement, I’m not referring to songs that were genuine writing collaborations between them, but rather, the songs that were actually written by either man self-reliantly with no input whatsoever from the other.
Paul did not “violate” any agreement with John and John himself stated that the Lennon/McCartney credit was never a legal deal, just an unwritten agreement made when they were teenagers.
The Lennon/McCartney tagline might not
have been very important economically since they wrote about an equal amount of songs. However it had a symbolic importance, indicating a sense of brotherhood. Paul understandably felt frustrated to be perceived as the second fiddle in the band. Especially towards the end when he worked much harder than John. Still I don’t think it was a good look for him to ”unilaterally” break the dual credit tradition with the mentioned songs.
I’m sorry, but I disagree – when Paul reversed the credits order for five Beatles songs on “Wings Over America”, neither John nor Yoko publicly voiced any disapproval, and John was still alive then.
The five songs in question were, in fact, written by Paul self-reliantly and John had next to no input deemed sufficient to warrant a join credit.
John himself stated that the Lennon/McCartney credit was never contractually obligated, let alone a legal deal, just an agreement that they made as teenagers.
John’s “oh’s” totally make this song for me.
Both Mark Lewisohn and Ian MacDonald are right. John and Paul messed up on vocals, George did something slightly different on guitar and Ringo needed some extra practise on his drum solo. It was not one persons fault.
Why do you think they messed up? I really like John’s rough voice and Paul high vocal harmony to back it up.. Fits perfectly IMO. Guitar IMO has good rhythm and was a nice add up to a slighty slow song.
Great song, as are all Lennon/McCartney Compositions!!! By the way a song called “Post Acid” by Wavves sounds like this, look it up!
Sometimes when I hear this song (on stereo, not entirely sure) Ringo misses the beat once, I have trouble noticing, but it does happen
Should’ve been included on the Please Please Me album. It would’ve been a good semi-closer in the vein of the Sgt pepper reprise, like “Thank you girl for all your support and love, sadly, this is our last number for now”, then launches into Twist & Shout
I am always astonished over McCartney´s attemps to get the credit of what Lennon composed, especially about the songs from 1963-1965, or before Yesterday. During that time Lennon was the dominant composer, and that embarrasses McCartney tremendesly. This song was written in March 1963. It starts with the often use of the same note, and that is very typical Lennon. And then the middle part with the long serie of falling notes, so typical Lennon! almost exact the melody as the beginning of Lennon´s Please Please Me! Even Ian MacDonald writes in his Revolution in the Head, that at least the verse is composed by Lennon.
And McCartney dared saying — after Lennon´s death — that “there might have been a slight leaning towards me with Thank You Girl”.
Always astonishes me that some people treat Lennon as some “god’. Lennon himself said McCartney was head and shoulders beyond him in him musical abilities, particularly in the early years. The song is very much “Mac”. Why can’t some “fans” just acknowledge that McCartney was certainly Lennon’s equal. Lennon did.
Yawn…not another whine letter from you JC, is it?
Further, Paul doesn’t take credit for the song he suggests that the phrase within the song “thank you girl” may have been more of him. Is that a possibility? If your contention that John was the dominant composer is true then it also means he wasn’t the only composer. Give Paul some credit or a little crumb with this major Lennon composition. Thanks!!!
I’m always astonished how you, in your John-love and Paul-hate, seem incapable of understanding what you’ve just (supposedly) read, not to mention your cherry-picking and flat-out misrepresenting quotes. Luckily, people here seem to understand your emotional problems and strong, irrational biases for what they are.
This is a lovely catchy number, that I first heard on my eldest sisters copy of The Beatles Hits E.P.I agree with one of the other contributors , this would have been great on the Please Please Me album. It is an early example of the great quality of Beatles B-sides that they kept up till the very end.
my humble opinion is that the reverb-soaked harmonica parts MAKE the song. So there.
One of the best John-Paul vocal harmonies from the early Beatles period, a la Everly Bros.
I have a question regarding the CD 1 of the Mono Masters. The sound quality on the following songs seemed to drop below the usual standard:
“From Me to You”: the intro seems to have a little bit of hiss and or slightly distorted or clipped.
“Thank You Girl”: sound quality overall seemed more muffled than the rest of the tracks or like it has noticeably less treble.
“She Loves You”: similar to From Me to You. Sounds a bit distorted/clipped or hiss at the start.
When I compared them to the ones from the 1988 CD issue (a copy made in Canada), the sound quality on those tracks from this older pressing seemed superior. The pitch in “Sie Liebt Dich” seemed slightly different.
Also, do all mono mixes of “Slow Down” have a slight drop out on the drums during the second verse?
It would be nice if anyone could comment on this.
I prefer the version on “THE BEATLES SECOND ALBUM & PAST MASTERS with the extra Harmonica!