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12.48pm
25 November 2024
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Good morning. Daily Beatles Song Review Day 8/213: Love Me Do
I’m sure this song is sentimental or nostalgic for many of you, so I’m sorry in advance, but I don’t especially love this one. I should clarify, I do think it’s good, certainly, but not great. I think the strongest element of the song is the harmonica. This is the best use of a harmonica in any Beatles (or solo Beatle) song, and I am not even a harmonica fan (never liked Dylan). It’s so incredibly catchy, one of the stickiest hooks the Beatles ever wrote. The rest of the instrumentation is good too, although less outstanding. Paul’s bass is probably the best implementation of it on the album, and the drumming is good (from Andy White). The guitars are a bit whatever, but it’s not really a guitar driven song so that’s fine. The tambourine, being played by poor Ringo, also sounds quite good with the harmonica.
The vocals are also pretty good. They have a nice, relaxed vibe to them. It sounds effortless, which is great for such a carefree song. However, the biggest issue I have with the song is how basic the lyrics and sentiment are. Even in the earliest days of the Beatles, their love songs usually were more than just “I love you.” I Saw Her Standing There is a story, Misery is about romantic sadness, Please Please Me is mutual love, etc. The lyrics of Love Me Do are, at best, a first draft. I wish it just said… basically anything.
Score: 7/10. Closer to a 6 than to an 8.
Favorite cover: This is one of my favorite covers of an early Beatles song, a reggae version by the group Mellow Mood.
The following people thank Queen Emily for this post:
Timpetus, RichardThere will be an answer; let it be.
2.27am
30 August 2021
Offline Queen Emily said
The tambourine, being played by poor Ringo, also sounds quite good with the harmonica.
Sad for Ringo, but the tambourine makes it so much better. It’s unfortunate that there’s no version with Ringo on drums and . . . someone . . . on tambourine.
The following people thank Mr. Moonlight for this post:
Queen Emily, Rube"Nothing is Beatle-proof."
8.59pm
26 January 2017
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Love Me Do and She Loves You I have appreciation for as early hits that laid the groundwork for the British Invasion and Beatlemania, but both songs are pretty uninteresting, especially when compared to many of the other songs they were writing at the time. The harmonica on Love Me Do is pretty killer, but honestly the lyrics just don’t do it for me. They are repetitive and basic to an extreme. Some of the vocalisms are nice and really every single element of the song aside from the lyrics works pretty well. But its the same exact verse 3 times, and not a very good one at that.
Listening to the album, its interesting that PS I Love You does the same thing on the next song; where the main section is repeated 3 times. That song is much more interesting though because of its brilliant use of reharmonization on the 2nd, and 3rd time, which is one of my favorite examples in all of pop music of simple chord substitutions making an enormous impact on a song, and really the 3rd time through that main part is my favorite moment on the album, and probably my favorite moment of this entire era of their career.
After the intro of Love Me Do , there is very little going on that is interesting, musically or lyrically, so its not my favorite.
"The pump don't work cause the vandals took the handles!"
-Bob Dylan, Subterranean Homesick Blues
"We could ride and surf together while our love would grow"
-Brian Wilson, Surfer Girl
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