The Beatles, album "The Beatles' Hits"

SP - collections - Studio Parlophone - 1963
mono: 06.09.1963

The Beatles' Hits

1. 02:05 From Me to You (John Lennon and Paul McCartney) - 24.10.1963

   PAUL 1964: ''From Me To You.' 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.
   (jokingly) But we'll probably write the same old rubbish!!'

   JOHN 1980: 'We were writing it in a car, I think… and I think the first line was mine.
   I mean, I know it was mine.
   (humms melody) And then after that we just took it from there.
   We were just writing the next single.
   It was far bluesier than that when we wrote it.
   The notes, today… you could rearrange it pretty funky.'

   PAUL circa-1994: 'The thing I liked about 'From Me To You' was it had a very complete middle.
   It went to a surprising place.
   The opening chord of the middle section of that song heralded a new batch for me.
   That was a pivotal song.
   Our songwriting lifted a little with that song.
   It was very much co-written.'

2. 02:04 Thank You Girl (John Lennon and Paul McCartney) - 13.03.1963

   JOHN 1980: ''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.'

   PAUL 1988: 'We knew that if we wrote a song called, 'Thank You Girl' that alot of the girls who wrote us fan letters would take it as a genuine thank you.
   So alot of our songs were directly addressed to the fans.'

3. 01:59 Please Please Me (John Lennon – John Lennon and Paul McCartney) - 11.09.1962

   JOHN 1963: 'Our recording manager (George Martin) thought our arrangement was fussy, so we tried to make it simpler.
   We were getting tired though, and just couldn't seem to get it right.
   In the following weeks we went over it again and again.
   We changed the tempo a little, we altered the words slightly, and we went over the idea of featuring the harmonica just as we'd done on 'Love Me Do.' By the time the session came around we were so happy with the result, we couldn't get it recorded fast enough.'

   JOHN 1980: ''Please Please Me' is my song completely.
   It was my attempt at writing a Roy Orbison song, would you believe it? I wrote it in the bedroom in my house at Menlove Avenue, which was my auntie's place.
   I heard Roy Orbison doing 'Only The Lonely' or something.
   That's where that came from.
   And also I was always intrigued by the words of 'Please Lend Your Ears To My Pleas,' a Bing Crosby song.
   I was always intrigued by the double use of the word 'please.' So it was a combination of Bing Crosby and Roy Orbison.'

   PAUL 1988: 'It's very Roy Orbison when you slow it down.
   George Martin up-tempo'd it.
   He thought it was too much of a dirge, and probably too like Orbison.
   So he cleverly speeded us up… and we put in the little scaled riff at the beginning, which was very catchy.'

4. 02:32 Love Me Do (John Lennon and Paul McCartney) - 06.06.1962

   JOHN 1963: 'It came to the charts in two days.
   And everybody thought it was a 'fiddle' because our manager's stores send in these… what is it… record returns.
   And everybody down south thought, 'Aha! He's just fiddling the charts.' But he wasn't.'

   JOHN 1972: 'Paul wrote the main structure of this when he was sixteen, or even earlier.
   I think I had something to do with the middle.'

   RINGO 1976: 'The first record, 'Love Me Do,' for me that was more important than anything else.
   That first piece of plastic.
   You can't believe how great that was.
   It was so wonderful.
   We were on a record!'

   JOHN 1980: ''Love Me Do' is Paul's song.
   He had the song around in Hamburg even, way, way before we were songwriters.'

   PAUL 1982: 'In Hamburg we clicked… At the Cavern we clicked… but if you want to know when we 'knew' we'd arrived, it was getting in the charts with 'Love Me Do.' That was the one.
   It gave us somewhere to go.'

   PAUL 1984: ''Love Me Do' …the first song we recorded, like, for real.
   First serious audition.
   I was very nervous, I remember.
   John was supposed to sing the lead, but they changed their minds and asked me to sing lead at the last minute, because they wanted John to play harmonica.
   Until then, we hadn't rehearsed with a harmonica; George Martin started arranging it on the spot.
   It was very nerve-wracking.'

   PAUL 1988: ''Love Me Do' was us trying to do the blues.
   It came out whiter because it always does.
   We're white, and we were just young Liverpool musicians.
   We didn't have the finesse to be able to actually sound black.
   But 'Love Me Do' was probably the first bluesy thing we tried to do.'

   PAUL circa-1994: 'George Martin said, 'Can anyone play a harmonica? It would be rather nice.
   Couldn't think of some sort of bluesy thing, could you John?' John played a chromatic harmonica… I actually had one too but he'd been clever – he learned to play it.
   John expected to be in jail one day and he'd be the guy who played the harmonica.
   The lyric crossed over the harmonica solo, so I suddenly got thrown the big open line, 'Love me do,' where everything stopped.
   Until that session John had always done it.
   I didn't even know how to sing it… I can still hear the nervousness in my voice.'