3
“I knew at that moment that this was going to be a good collaboration” —
PLEASE PLEASE ME
W ith the Beatles’ first single, “Love Me Do,” and their first album, Please Please Me , the real Beatles canon begins. Remarkably, given that for many years the Beatles were a “cover” band, the early singles and albums are dominated by songs John and Paul wrote, and this creativity impressed the decisionmakers at EMI and helped the Beatles obtain their first recording contract.
As early as the first albums and singles, all the patterns of Lennon-McCartney songwriting were present. Thoroughgoing collaboration (as in the case of “I Want to Hold Your Hand” or “She Loves You”) is more common now than in any other period. “Finishing” collaboration (in which one writer substantially began a song, and the other helped finish it, as in “I Saw Her Standing There”) is perhaps the most common type of collaboration now, and throughout the Beatles’ career. There is some collaboration with non-Beatles, also a persistent pattern, though this kind of collaboration is usually confined to outsiders filling in holes in a song’s lyrics. In addition, some songs, such as “All My Loving” or “All I’ve Got to Do,” were written entirely separately, by Paul or John alone.
“Love Me Do” doesn’t seem much of a song now, compared to later Beatle masterpieces, but it electrified the young Sting, who first heard it in a changing room at a swimming pool:
We were drying ourselves off and, as was our custom, flicking towels at each other’s genitals. It was at this point that we heard the first bars of ‘Love Me Do’ from a transistor radio in the corner. The effect was immediate. There was something in the sparseness of the sound that immediately put a stop to the horseplay. John’s lonely harmonica and Paul’s bass played ‘two to the bar,’ and then the vocal harmony moved in modal fifths up to minor thirds and back again to a solo voice on the refrain. Not that I could articulate any of this at the time, but I recognized something significant, even revolutionary, in the spare economy of the sound, and the interesting thing is, so did everyone else. [1]
Paul wrote the main part of “Love Me Do,” in 1958, when he was sixteen, [2] in the parlor of the McCartney home, 20 Forthlin Road. [3] Like many early Beatle songs, it was written in the Buddy Holly style of three or four simple chords. [4] According to Paul, “Love Me Do” “was us trying to do the blues.” [5]
Paul then brought the song to John, and they worked on it extensively together, with John contributing especially to the middle part. [6] So it’s an example of a common pattern in Lennon-McCartney songwriting, in fact, probably the most common pattern — collaboration, extensive or limited, after one person started a song.
As primitive as this song is, compared to later Beatle accomplishments, it marked a culmination for the early Lennon-McCartney songwriting partnership. Lennon remembered that it was the first Lennon-McCartney song they dared perform live (a new, traumatic experience). [7] Paul later called it “‘our greatest philosophical song.” [8]
Despite this song being originally written by Paul, John sang the lead for the crucial “Love me do” line until George Martin asked John to play the harmonica part, which required Paul to sing it. [9]
The evidence for the authorship of this song is somewhat contradictory. John’s statements ascribe the song mostly to Paul, Paul’s to collaboration. In 1971, Lennon stated that Paul wrote the “main structure,” of this song when he (Paul) was sixteen, though he thought he (John) had something to do with the “middle.” [10] The following year, he wrote that “Paul started [it] when he must have been about fifteen” but then they collaborated on it, and it became “one of the first ones we wrote.” [11] By 1980, John ascribed the song almost completely to Paul (it was “Paul’s song”) and was less sure that he had contributed anything — he “might” have contributed to the middle section. [12] (Incidentally, John’s use of “middle eight” did not mean a short transitional passage, eight measures, between two major sections of the song, as the name suggests, and as its synonym, “bridge,” also suggests. For the Beatles, middle eight meant a middle, contrasting section, often fairly long. [13] )
In Paul’s earliest comment on the song, in 1965, he reflects his own main authorship: “I wrote a couple of songs. One was ‘Love Me Do.’” [14] However, after this, he generally described the song as a pure 50-50 collaboration. In 1966, also very early, he remembered collaboration: “We started off first with songs like ‘Love Me Do,’ with easy, stupid rhymes that didn’t mean very much.” [15] Paul also described collaboration in 1969: “Yeah, we used to sag off every school day, go back to my house and the two of us would write: ‘Love Me Do,’ ‘Too Bad About Sorrows.’ [‘Just Fun’]. . . .” [16] In 1987, he said, “I know that I sat there and we wrote ‘Love Me Do’.” [17] Two years later, he was asked about early collaboration with Lennon, and said, “The first thing we got, again it wasn’t that good, but it was recordable, was ‘Love Me Do.’” [18]
“‘Love Me Do’ was completely co-written,” he said in 1995. “Some of them were really 50-50s, and I think that one was.” He also floated the possibility that the song may have been started “without either of us having a particularly original idea.” [19] However, here he admitted the possibility that the song might have been his “original idea,” but only as a possibility. [20]
In 2000, Paul remembered collaboration on this, and said that “‘Love Me Do’ and ‘I Saw Her Standing There,’ . . . got the basis of a [songwriting] partnership going.” However, then he added, “One of us would come up with an idea and then it would see-saw. So there was a mild competitiveness in that we were ricocheting our ideas.” [21] So here, Paul emphasizes that, even though this was collaboration, one of the writers would have the original idea. [22]
Ironically, Paul, in 1995, claimed more of a John influence on this song than John did in 1980. John seemed certain that the main song was Paul’s, while Paul emphasized collaboration.
I think the earliest interviews of John and Paul give clear evidence that this was a song Paul came up with first, then it was finished with extensive collaboration.
The Beatles performed it at the EMI audition on June 6, 1962, with Pete Best on drums; this is available on Anthology 1 . [23] The single version was recorded on September 4 (with Ringo on drums), and can be found on Past Masters 1 . The album version was recorded on September 11 (with session player Andy White on drums, while Ringo played tambourine).
According to John, Paul wrote this song in Hamburg, or on the way to Hamburg (which would be spring or summer, 1962, as they were in Hamburg April 13 to May 31). [24] Paul’s girlfriend at the time, Dorothy “Dot” Rhone, later said that Paul told her that he had written the song for her. [25] It apparently was finished with some polishing from Lennon.
According to one report, Paul and John wrote this when EMI requested new material after they were offered an audition on May 9, 1962. [26] According to Miles, Paul wrote “P.S. I Love You” “not long before the recording test” on June 6. [27] They played it at the June 6 auditions, but that recording has been lost.
The evidence, reflecting both Paul’s writing the song and subsequent collaboration, is not too difficult. John vaguely remembered that the other Beatles contributed to it. “Paul. But I think we helped him a bit.” [28] In 1980, his memories are more vague: “That’s Paul’s song. . . . I might have contributed something. I can’t remember anything in particular. It was mainly his song.” [29]
Paul claimed the song in 1995, though he left open the possibility that John made a slight contribution to it: “I don’t think John had much of a hand in it.” [30] While “Please Please Me” was more John, he said in 2000, “‘PS I Love You’ was more me.” [31] That language “more me” again suggests that John might have made a contribution.
So it was substantially Paul’s song, but there was probably some finishing collaboration with John. [32]
John wrote this in his bedroom at Menlove Avenue, Woolton, his Aunt Mimi’s house. “I remember the day and the pink eiderdown, the bed,” he said in 1980. [33] He wrote it as a slow song, consciously modeling it on Roy Orbison songs such as “Only the Lonely.” The lyrics were also influenced by Bing Crosby’s 1932 hit, “Please.”
After John’s substantial start on this song, he and Paul continued on it together. Two fifteen-year-old girls accompanied John and Paul home from a Cavern performance on June 9, 1962, and watched as the two Beatles developed “Please Please Me” on the piano. They were “mostly working on the chord changes, with a lot of joking and messing about,” said one girl. According to Lewisohn, the teens “dozed under the piano while Lennon-McCartney explored chords above their heads.” [34] Apparently musical elements of the song were not finalized when John brought it in, and they were developed in collaboration.
The Beatles played the song to George Martin, but he thought it was dragging, and was tempted to pass on it. He suggested they speed it up. The band at first resisted the idea, but eventually re-arranged it as a more uptempo song. After they finished recording it, George Martin congratulated them on having produced their first number one hit. He was right. [35] Paul said that this was the first time Martin “really ever showed that he could see beyond what we were offering him.” [36] The Beatles were indeed very fortunate in the producer they found themselves teamed up with. A former producer of Spike Milligan / Goon Show recordings, he understood the Beatles’ off-the-wall humor. As is shown by the Please Please Me album, he was able to bring the Beatles’ power as a rock group to stunning life in the studio. A musician with classical musical training, he later successfully translated the Beatles’ ideas into classical instrumentations. His contribution to selected Beatle songs was so substantial that it raises the question of whether he deserves co-writing credits on some songs.
The evidence for the authorship of “Please Please Me” is slightly contradictory, as John sometimes claimed 100% songwriting credit for the song. In John’s earliest comments, in January 1963, however, he reflected both his original writing of the song, and the collaboration. “I tried to make it as simple as possible. Some of the stuff I’ve written has been a bit way out.” However, then he switches to “we”: “But we did this one strictly for the hit parade.” [37] The following year, Lennon again ascribed this to collaboration: “We did . . . ‘Please Please Me.” [38] Paul’s earliest comment on the song, in 1963, also recorded collaboration: “We wrote ‘Please Please Me’ but that hasn’t exhausted our supply of compositions.” [39] In another early statement, in 1965, Paul stated that Lennon wrote it “almost on his own” [40] — “almost” shows that there was some slight collaboration.
By 1971, John claimed “Please Please Me” as entirely his own: “I wrote all of this one. I was trying to do a Roy Orbison,” [41] and after this he continued to claim it as his song. [42] In late interviews, Paul also affirmed John’s primary authorship. In 1989 he said: “John had this quite slow song called ‘Please Please Me’.” [43] However, his latest statement, in 2000, while restating John’s main authorship, allowed for the possibility that he (Paul) made some minor contribution: “‘Please Please Me’ was more John than me; I didn’t have such a hand in it.” [44]
While this is definitely a song by John, the earliest evidence suggests that he also worked on the music with Paul.
This was another song begun by John, and finished with collaboration, perhaps as early as 1960. [45] The evidence for authorship is flatly contradictory. John, in 1971, claimed complete responsibility for the song (“I wrote all of that . . . I wrote it.”). [46] Paul, in 1962, apparently wrote, “John did write Ask Me Why.” [47]
However, in 1995, Paul ascribed the genesis of the song to John, but also remembered a collaboration session: “It was John’s original idea and we both sat down and wrote it together, just did a job on it. It was mostly John’s.” [48] I lean toward viewing this as John’s song with minor collaboration following. In the early Beatles period, collaboration is often the norm.
This has historical interest, as the first cover of a Beatle song ever released. For full treatment of the song, see Please Please Me album, below.
The first Beatles album was revolutionary in many ways. Remarkably enough, it was mostly recorded in one day. In 1965, Norman Smith, the engineer at Abbey Road, said that the recording session was “A tremendous day’s recording . . . an all-time record for the Beatles. We did thirteen titles in ten hours — all for the first LP. A day of musical excitement. Their voices must have been rasping.” [49]
It was in essence a live album, though recorded in the studio, as the group needed an album quickly so decided to simply perform some of the best songs from their live show. Paul said, in 1989, “We could have played that in Hamburg, or the Cavern. And we would have just done an hour’s show . . . of good numbers that people liked, not numbers that everyone had recorded, because of our policy of sort of looking for offbeat things.” [50]
Therefore, except for the songs from the two previous singles, all of it was recorded on February 11, 1963.
Paul came up with the idea of this song, and its beginning, when he was driving home from a concert in Southport, about fifteen miles north of Liverpool. [51] “I did it going home in a car one night,” he said in 1965. [52] Thirty years later, he said that the song “was my original, I’d started it and I had the first verse, which therefore gave me the tune, the tempo, and the key. It gave you the subject matter, a lot of the information, and then you had to fill in.” [53] In 2000, he listed it as one of “my first songs.” [54]
After this car ride, Paul arrived in Hurricaneville, the house of Ma Storm, mother of Rory, leader of Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, whose drummer was one Ringo Starr. Paul grabbed a guitar, and started developing the song, as Rory watched. The next day, Paul and his then girlfriend Celia Mortimer hitchhiked to London to see his friend Ivan Vaughan, and Paul was “humming it and singing it and fleshing out the words” throughout the day. At one point, according to Mortimer, Paul asked, “‘What rhymes with “We danced through the night”?’ and I came up with ‘We held each other tight.’” [55] This is an early example of a friend who happened to be present during a Beatle song’s gestation helping to supply a line. Though Paul never said it explicitly, Mortimer felt the song was about them.
So he had the music, the main structure of the song, but when he sang it for John, his friend erupted in laughter at the second line of the song, “she’d never been a beauty queen.” [56] So Paul and John sat down and worked out a better line. “We eventually got ‘You know what I mean’, which means nothing. . . . completely nothing at all,” Paul said. [57] But at least, as Derek Taylor said, it wasn’t embarrassing. [58] Mike McCartney has a photo of a McCartney-Lennon work session on this song. [59]
When the Beatles started arranging the song, Paul appropriated the base line from Chuck Berry’s 1961 song “I’m Talking About You” for it. “I played exactly the same notes as he did and it fitted our number perfectly,” he said. [60] In 1990, he described the whole song as a nick of Berry’s song, another witness of Chuck Berry’s influence on him. [61]
So this is basically a song by Paul, finished with collaboration. It shows John polishing the lyrics of a song mostly by Paul, an important pattern. The evidence for this picture is not too problematic, though sometimes Paul or John would emphasize the beginning by Paul, or the collaboration. Often Paul emphasized the collaboration, while John emphasized Paul’s original authorship.
For example, in 1964, Paul said, “We spend a lot of time trying to write a real rocker. Something like “Long Tall Sally”. . . . “I Saw Her Standing There” was the nearest we got to it.” [62] “I wrote it with John in the front parlour of my house in 20 Forthlin Road, Allerton,” he said about twenty-five years later. He also remembered: “We sagged off school and wrote it on guitars and a little bit on the piano that I had there.” [63] And again, in 1995: “So it was co-written, my idea, and we finished it that day.” [64] In 2007, he emphasized the collaboration: “I have fond flashbacks of John writing — he’d scribble it down real quick, desperate to get back to the guitar. But I knew at that moment [that the beauty queen line was replaced] that this was going to be a good collaboration.” [65]
John, however, could say, in 1980, “That’s Paul — doing his usual good job of producing a good, as George Martin used to call them, ‘potboiler.’” [66] And in the same year, he asserted: “Paul’s song.” [67] But he did remember some collaboration: “I helped with a couple of the lyrics, a couple of lines here and there … I think he wrote the whole melody.” [68] This is precisely what happened, based on Paul’s 1965 memories of writing the song.
In early 1963 the Beatles were preparing to go on tour with Helen Shapiro, a successful English pop singer, and her producer, the legendary Norrie Paramor, asked them to write a song for her. [69] Paul and John began writing “Misery” on January 26, 1963, “before a gig at the Kings Hall, Stoke-on-Trent,” Staffordshire, and finished it at the McCartney home at Forthlin Road. [70] Apparently, the Hollies helped brainstorm on some of the words — an early example of Paul and John turning to whatever friends happened to be around to finish lyrics. Allan Clarke, one of the Hollies, said, “It was just four guys together sitting in a room. John and Paul were plunking along writing this song and we helped with a couple of words.” [71]
Paramor turned down the song without even showing it to Helen Shapiro! But singer Kenny Lynch, also on the tour, recorded it, and his single (see above) appeared a week before the Beatles’ version on Please Please Me .
Both Paul and John agree that the song was co-written, but they disagree on the extent of collaboration, as John sometimes described it as a co-written song he had dominated, while Paul sometimes saw it as a more 50-50 song.
The earliest comment on the song, in 1963, describes the two Beatles hashing it out together. Journalist Alan Smith reported that Paul and John, “were composing a song for Helen to record when she goes to Nashville shortly. Said Paul: ‘We’ve called it ‘Misery’, . . . and we think Helen will make a pretty good job of it.” [72] Much later, in the mid nineties, Paul said, “We wrote it for Helen Shapiro because we were going on tour with her . . . being young lads with an eye for an opportunity. . . . It was co-written. I don’t think either of us dominated on that one.” [73] And in 1988, he said, “John and I were a songwriting team, and what songwriting teams did in those days was wrote for everyone. . . . ‘Misery’ was for Helen Shapiro.” [74]
John, in 1971, ascribed it to “Both of us,” but then added, “this was mainly mine, though, I think.” [75] However, he softened that in 1980, stating that “it was kind of a John song more than a Paul, but it was written together.” [76]
So we have a clear contradiction: John says “both of us” but “mainly mine” (adding “I think”); Paul says “It was co-written. I don’t think either of us dominated on that one.” I believe that the evidence clearly shows extensive collaboration. Then you have John tentatively claiming some domination, though Paul denies this.
This marvelous song was a 1962 single for rhythm and blues singer Arthur Alexander, a favorite of the Beatles. [77]
This was a hit for the Cookies, a rhythm and blues girl group, in 1962. Paul said that the Beatles had a “policy of sort of looking for offbeat things. Like George did ‘Chains.’” [78]
This was a song by the Shirelles, another rhythm and blues girls group, the B-side of their famous “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” single, released in November 1960. Ringo used to sing this as far back as his years with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. [79] Paul said, “And Ringo used to sing ‘Boys,’ another Shirelles number. It was so innocent. We just never even thought, ‘Why is he singing about boys’? We loved the song.” [80]
See “Please Please Me” single, above.
See “Please Please Me” single, above.
SIDE TWO
See “Love Me Do” single, above.
See “Love Me Do” single, above.
Another Shirelles record, which had been released in 1961.
John’s mother would sing him “I’m Wishing” from Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves when he was little, and this song led him to write “Do You Want to Know a Secret.” He said the song “was from a Disney movie — [singing ] “Want to know a secret? Promise not to tell. You’re standing by a wishing well.” [81] It was written very soon after John’s marriage to Cynthia Powell on August 23, 1962. After he got the beginnings of the song, it was finished with collaboration.
Once again, John and Paul disagreed on the exact details of how this song was written. John claimed it in 1971: “Me — I wrote this for George.” And at about the same time, he asserted, “I wrote this one.” [82] Paul agreed that the song started with John, but remembered collaboration. In 1995, Miles wrote that “Based on an original idea by John, it was essentially what Paul calls a ‘hack song’, a 50-50 collaboration written to order.” [83] Paul also described the songwriting as collaborative in 1984 and 2000. [84]
John probably wrote the beginnings of the song, then there was collaboration, a typical pattern for the early Beatles.
This song was originally used as an instrumental for the Broadway play A Taste of Honey , in 1960, and Bobby Scott released it on his album of the same name that year. The Beatles followed Lenny Welch’s 1962 vocal version of it. [85]
Just as “Do You Want to Know a Secret” came from a movie song, so did “There’s a Place,” according to Paul. He owned the record, West Side Story , that had “There’s a Place for Us” on it, which inspired the title. After Paul started on the song, it was finished in a songwriting session with John at Forthlin Road. [86]
Once again, there is contradictory evidence for authorship. John claimed the song in 1971, [87] and nine years later, he even pointed to typical Lennon ideas in the lyrics: “‘There’s a Place’ was my attempt at a sort of Motown, black thing,” he said. “But it says the usual Lennon things, ‘In my mind there’s no sorrow’ . . . It’s all in your mind.” [88] But according to Miles, it was “co-written, co-sung but with a bias towards being Paul’s original idea.” [89]
Despite the contradictory evidence, I believe the collaboration pattern is typical of the early Beatles, and Paul’s memories of starting the song from West Side Story are convincing.
This was first recorded (as “Shake It Up Baby”) by the Top Notes in 1961, but the Beatles followed the Isley Brothers’ classic 1962 version. John’s epic vocal performance for this has become legendary. After the Beatles’ twelve-hour recording marathon for Please Please Me , Norman Smith remembers, “John suddenly thought of ‘Twist and Shout’ and said he wanted to do it. We felt sure his voice would never stand it. But it was done in one ‘take.’ No over-dubbing. Just one straight take.” [90]
This is an example of a cover that John and the Beatles and George Martin took possession of so thoroughly that they virtually recreated the song. It almost raises the question of whether a major reinterpreter of a song should get co-writing credit. In addition, by including a cover on a Beatle album, the group made the song part of a long-form work of Beatle art.
[1] Sting, Broken Music: A Memoir , 80.
[2] Lennon, in Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror. Miles, Many Years from Now , 37. See also p. 83, for the story of how the Beatles recorded “Love Me Do” as their first single, instead of George Martin’s choice, the cover “How Do You Do It.”
[3] Pete Best has different memories: “The number was conceived in the course of one afternoon in our flat opposite the club.” Beatle! The Pete Best Story (1985), 155-56.
[4] Read, “McCartney on McCartney,” episode 1.
[5] “The Paul McCartney Interview,” (1988), 7.
[6] Garbarani, “Paul McCartney: Lifting the Veil,” (1980), p. 49: “When we started with the Beatles, John and I sat down and wrote about fifty songs, out of which I think ‘Love Me Do’ is the only one that got published.”
[7] Anthology , 68.
[8] Aldridge, “Beatles Not All That Turned On,” 143.
[9] McCartney, Letter to John on John’s Induction (1994). Miles, Many Years From Now , 91.
[10] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror.
[11] Anthology , 68.
[12] Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 23.
[13] For form in Beatles songs, see Everett II, 15-16; Covach, “From ‘Craft’ to ‘Art’”; Fitzgerald, “Lennon‐ McCartney and the “Middle Eight.” Fitzgerald emphasizes that the Beatles often used the AABA form (in which B is the “middle eight,” an extended middle section) typical of many Tin Pan Alley songs, rather than “verse-chorus” songs with added “middle eight” as a short bridge (C after repetitions of AB) leading from the chorus back to the main verse melody.
[14] Wyndham, “Paul McCartney As Songwriter.”
[15] Lydon, Flashbacks: Eyewitness Accounts of the Rock Revolution , 12.
[16] Cott and Dalton, The Beatles Get Back , 85. A similar statement from Paul from the same period in Aldridge, Beatles Illustrated Lyrics, 92.
[17] Interview, June 1987, in deCurtis, In Other Words , 61.
[18] Read, “McCartney on McCartney,” episode 1. Cf. Garbarani, “Paul McCartney: Lifting the Veil,” (1980), 49.
[19] Miles, Many Years from Now , 36.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Anthology , 23.
[22] One of the Beatles’ friends, Bernie Boyle, remembers Paul and John working on this song together in Hamburg. Lewisohn, Tune In , extended, 2:1196.
[23] Pawlowski, How They Became the Beatles , 74. They played four songs: “Besame Mucho,” “Love Me Do,” “P.S. I Love You,” and “Ask Me Why.” Only “Besame Mucho” and “Love Me Do” survive, and both appear on Anthology 1 .
[24] Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 178.
[25] Shea and Rodriguez, Fab Four FAQ , 362.
[26] Lewisohn, Tune In, extended, 2:1192-93.
[27] Miles, Many Years From Now , 90.
[28] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror.
[29] Lost Lennon Tapes, Oct. 21, 1991, cf. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 178.
[30] Miles, Many Years From Now , 38.
[31] Anthology , 94.
[32] Bernie Boyle, one of their early friends, also remembered Paul and John working on this in Hamburg. Lewisohn, Tune In , extended, 2:1196.
[33] Lost Lennon Tapes, Oct. 21, 1991, cf. The Playboy Interviews, 179.
[34] Lewisohn, Tune In , extended, 2:1235.
[35] Smith, “Beatles Almost Threw ‘Please Please Me’ Away.” Gambaccini, “The Rolling Stone Interview” (1973); Read, “McCartney on McCartney,” (1989), episode 2. Cf. Lewisohn, “The Paul McCartney Interview” (1988), 7; Miles, Many Years from Now (1995), 91-92. According to Martin, he “told them what beginning and what ending to put on it,” Martin, All You Need is Ears , 130. He also said that he demanded that they speed up the song. Irvin, “George Martin” (2007).
[36] Gambaccini, “The Rolling Stone Interview” (1973).
[37] Alan Smith, “At a Recording Session With the Beatles” (1963).
[38] Roberts, “How to Write a Hit,” 11.
[39] Smith, “You’ve Pleased — Pleased Us! say the Beatles.”
[40] Wyndham, “Paul McCartney As Songwriter.”
[41] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What.”
[42] In 1971, John wrote, in a postcard to George Martin/Richard Williams, “I wrote Please Please Me alone. It was recorded in the exact sequence in which I wrote it.” Davies, The John Lennon Letters , 197. See also in 1980, Sauter, “One John Lennon,”cf. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews , 179.
[43] Read, “McCartney on McCartney,” episode 2. Miles, Many Years from Now , 91-92. See also The Beatle’s Book 136 (Aug. 1987), 39; Anthology video, “This is one John had just written.”
[44] Anthology , 94.
[45] Winn, Way Beyond Compare , 3.
[46] Unpublished section of interview with Mike Hennessey for Record Mirror , Oct. 2, 1971, as cited in Lewisohn, Tune In , extended, 2:1573n15.
[47] As cited in Lewisohn, Tune In , extended, 1573n15.
[48] Miles, Many Years from Now , 92.
[49] Goodman, “Norman Smith Continues Talking About Balancing the Beatles,” 15.
[50] Read, “McCartney on McCartney,” episode 2. Tobler and Grundy, “George Martin.”
[51] McCartney, date unknown, in Badman, The Beatles Off the Record , 50. Paul says the concert was in Southport, but Lewisohn gives Widnes, southeast of Liverpool, and the date of first composition as October 22, 1962. Lewisohn, Tune In , extended, 2:1432.
[52] David Hull and Derek Taylor, “The Beatles: Let’s Talk With Paul.”
[53] Miles, Many Years from Now , 93-94.
[54] Anthology , 20.
[55] As quoted in Lewisohn, Tune In , 748.
[56] McCartney, date unknown, in Badman, The Beatles Off the Record , 50.
[57] Hull and Taylor, “The Beatles: Let’s Talk With Paul” (1965).
[58] Ibid.
[59] Mike McCartney, Remember , 107.
[60] McCartney, in Beat Instrumental , (1964?) (repr. in The Beatles Book 2001), see Flippo, Yesterday , p. 197, quoted in Miles, Many Years from Now , 94 and in Turner, A Hard Day’s Write, 18. Miles, Many Years from Now , 93-94.
[61] Flanagan, “Boy, You’re Gonna Carry That Weight,” 44.
[62] Ray Coleman, interview with the Beatles, in Melody Maker , Oct. 17, 1964 (Sandercombe, The Beatles: Press Reports , 94).
[63] Lewisohn, “The Paul McCartney Interview” (1988), 9.
[64] Miles, Many Years from Now (1995), 93-94.
[65] Doherty, “Pete Doherty meets Paul McCartney” (2007).
[66] Lost Lennon Tapes, Sept. 23, 1991, cf. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews , 203. See also Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror ( 1971).
[67] Peebles, The Lennon Tapes , 19.
[68] Lost Lennon Tapes, Sept. 23, 1991, cf. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews , 203.
[69] Smith, “You’ve Pleased-Pleased Us.” The tour went from February 2 to March 3, 1963.
[70] Miles, Many Years from Now , 94.
[71] Quoted in Turner, A Hard Day’s Write , 20. Tony Bramwell agrees, ibid.
[72] Smith, “You’ve Pleased-Pleased Us.”
[73] Miles, Many Years from Now (1995), 94-95.
[74] Lewisohn, “The Paul McCartney Interview,” 8-9.
[75] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror.
[76] Lost Lennon Tapes, Sept. 9, 1991, cf. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 180.
[77] For Alexander, see Haglund, “The Forgotten Songwriter.” Lewisohn, Tune In , extended, 2:1131-32, 1498-99.
[78] Read, “McCartney on McCartney,” episode 2. For Goffin and King’s impact on the Beatles, see my comments on the Decca Audition, above.
[79] Harry, “Cilla Black.”
[80] Miles, Many Years From Now , 82.
[81] Lost Lennon Tapes, Oct. 21, 1991, cf. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews (1980), 175; Aldridge, Beatles Illustrated Lyrics , 220. George, on the other hand, felt that the song was a “nick” from “I Really Love You” a 1961 hit by the Stereos. White, “George Harrison Reconsidered” (1987), 55.
[82] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror. Aldridge, Beatles Illustrated Lyrics , 220. Similar: Sheff, The Playboy Interviews , 175, in 1980.
[83] Miles, Many Years From Now , 95.
[84] “Paul and Linda McCartney Interview,” Playboy , 104. Anthology , 96.
[85] See on “Till There Was You,” below.
[86] Miles, Many Years From Now , 95.
[87] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror.
[88] Lost Lennon Tapes, Sept. 23, 1991, cf. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 203.
[89] Miles, Many Years From Now , 95.
[90] Goodman, “Norman Smith Continues Talking About Balancing the Beatles” (1965), 15. Cf. Norman Smith, in Lewisohn, Beatles Recording Sessions , 27.