October 1962–August 1963
I have been unable to find a handwritten version of the words to ‘Love Me Do’–not a good start to this venture. Paul originally jotted down the words in a school notebook. They had been singing it together for at least four years, from Liverpool to Hamburg and back, and the words are simple and repetitious. It’s hard to forget them, even after a few drinks or some funny pills, so no need to write out any copies.
Considering the simplicity of the song, the recording history of ‘Love Me Do’ is complicated. It was one of thirty-three numbers that Brian Epstein typed out and offered to George Martin for their EMI audition on 6 June 1962.
I have always called it an audition, which is how the Beatles approached it, but Mark Lewisohn in volume one of his masterly history of the Beatles (The Beatles Tune In, 2013) says that EMI had already signed the Beatles. Behind the scenes, their publishing company (Ardmore and Beechwood) had heard the tapes of the Beatles’ failed Decca audition and liked the sound of their original compositions, such as ‘Like Dreamers Do’, and wanted to acquire publishing rights, so George Martin was being leaned on to sign them up.
Despite all this, listening to them in the studio, George would presumably still have decided he personally did not want to work with them, if he had considered they were rubbish.
For the test recording, which is what we shall call it, Brian Epstein suggested a play list including seven original numbers, five of which feature Paul as the main singer, so we must presume he wrote them: ‘PS I Love You’, ‘Love Me Do’, ‘Like Dreamers Do’, ‘Love of the Loved’ and ‘Pinwheel Twist’. There were also two to be sung by John: ‘Ask Me Why’ and ‘Hello Little Girl’. The rest were all well-known standard pop numbers of the day–or in some cases, yesterday. At the top of the page, Brian suggested a medley of three as their opening offering–none of which were written by them.
During the session, they recorded four songs in all: the first number on Brian’s list, ‘Besame Mucho’, and three of their original compositions: ‘Love Me Do’, ‘P.S. I Love You’ and ‘Ask Me Why’.