‘Love Me Do’, The Beatles’ debut single, was released in the UK on 5 October 1962.
The song was an early Lennon-McCartney composition from 1958, although it wasn’t recorded by the group for another four years.
Paul wrote the main structure of this when he was 16, or even earlier. I think I had something to do with the middle.
Lennon spoke again of the song in an interview conducted shortly before his death.
‘Love Me Do’ is Paul’s song. He wrote it when he was a teenager. Let me think. I might have helped on the middle eight, but I couldn’t swear to it. I do know he had the song around, in Hamburg, even, way, way before we were songwriters.
All We Are Saying, David Sheff
Despite this, McCartney remembers ‘Love Me Do’ as a joint effort between the two of them, and that it came out of their early songwriting experiments.
‘Love Me Do’ was completely co-written. It might have been my original idea but some of them really were 50-50s, and I think that one was. It was just Lennon and McCartney sitting down without either of us having a particularly original idea.We loved doing it, it was a very interesting thing to try and learn to do, to become songwriters. I think why we eventually got so strong was we wrote so much through our formative period. ‘Love Me Do’ was our first hit, which ironically is one of the two songs that we control, because when we first signed to EMI they had a publishing company called Ardmore and Beechwood which took the two songs, ‘Love Me Do’ and ‘PS I Love You’, and in doing a deal somewhere along the way we were able to get them back.
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
Although The Beatles started out by performing cover versions, as Lennon and McCartney grew as songwriters they began introducing their own compositions into their live shows.
Introducing our own numbers started round Liverpool and Hamburg. ‘Love Me Do’, one of the first ones we wrote, Paul started when he must have been about 15. It was the first one we dared to do of our own. This was quite a traumatic thing because we were doing such great numbers of other people’s, of Ray Charles and [Little] Richard and all of them.It was quite hard to come in singing ‘Love Me Do’. We thought our numbers were a bit wet. But we gradually broke that down and decided to try them.
Anthology
As well as being their debut single, the band also recorded ‘Love Me Do’ eight times for the BBC. A version from 10 July 1963, recorded for the Pop Go The Beatles programme, is available on Live At The BBC.
In 1976, Ringo Starr described how ‘Love Me Do’ was a turning point for the group:
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!
Paul McCartney confirmed that the song was the point at which The Beatles knew they were becoming successful.
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.
Who plays drums on Love Me Do on this album? Pete, Ringo or Andy???
Hi Alker. The information is on page two of the article:
It is White’s version which appears on the Please Please Me album, though Ringo’s drumming can be heard on Past Masters. The recording featuring Pete Best appeared on Anthology 1 in 1995.
I have read somewhere or have heard from a documentary of Ringo’s interview about the Love Me Do version he played in, Ringo mentions that since George Martin didn’t allow him to play the drums during the initial recording of Love Me Do he played the tambourine instead. The first release single of Love Me Do featured Andy White, but the second release featured Ringo. The Andy White version is the version with the tambourine and the version without the tambourine is with Ringo. The bland Anthology version featured Pete Best, you will notice it’s Pete because he likes to do extra drum rolls which George Martin didn’t like. If the drum has extra kicks or rolls in the middle, it’s Pete Best. Andy White actually played in two songs naming Love Me Do and P.S. I Love You. You can clearly hear the difference in the drum beating style if you compare these two songs from the Please Please Me album to other songs where Ringo played in.
Regarding Love Me DO: Which of the three do you prefer? Paul’s bass is really upfront on Past Masters and the drumming by Ringo is solid, but in the background. On Anthology, Pete has his moments, but gets a little sloppy about 2/3’s of the way through. White’s version, on Please Please Me, is very clean, but perhaps uninspiring. With a slight change in Pete’s playing, I think I might like that drumming best. But the best version of the song, for me, is Past Masters.
I think the Andy White’s version sounds great. Certainly outperformed Ringo and Pete for the master take on there first LP.
Paul’s bass is a little out of tune on the Past Masters version. And Pete Best’s drumming on the Anthology version is absolutely appalling. So the Andy White version on Please Please Me is the best, in my view.
its Andy White
The first single release is Ringo
That tape was binned in “63 and the reissues since are from
mint copies of the 7 in single
Album version: Andy White – drums / Ringo – tambourine
Past Masters: Ringo – drums
Anthology: Pete Best – drums
By the tambourine in the background you can tell who played which version.
I have the 7″ demo version of Love Me Do.
I believe this is now quite collectable but have no way of playing it (no turntable).
If I was to sell it what version would I quote? From your details would think Ringo on drums?
it would be the second version
The Anthology version contains harmonica so by the time they recorded the Past Masters version and the Please Please Me version – after all those rehearsals and takes – Paul can’t possibly still have been nervous, yet he claims he can hear his nerves on the recording.
Paul was nervous on the Anthology version of Love Me Do because it was their first recording session with George Martin (their potential producer at that time) You will notice how basic the entire song was and how plain it is by simply comparing it to the well known versions.
I read somewhere (the Davies book maybe) that Paul was nervous because it was John’s song but he had to take the ‘Love me do’ line so that John could get his harmonica (I think it’s not a harp in love me do) into his mouth. Of course the album version has mostly the two harmonies and Paul alone sings ‘love me do’ (at least I’m pretty sure). But then, that was way before the Past Masters.
You speak of ‘recording’ the Past Masters. To me this sounds like the band recorded them, which I know didn’t happen.
BTW, there is a great youtube with segments of all 3 versions, comparing them, with some commentary by some drummer. It’s really worth watching for folk like us.
John said, It was Paul Song that he wrote when was 16 or Earlier.
MattBusby, …….John said, “Paul wrote the main structure when he was 16, or even earier. I think I had something to do with the middle”. John 1972
John said, ” Love me Do is Paul ‘s song. He wrote it when he was a teenager. Let me think, I might have helped on the middle eight, I couldn’t swear to it. I do know he had the song around, in Hambugh, even, way way before we were songwriters”. John Lennon 1980
“Love me Do” is Paul’s song not John’s
Paul can’t possibly been nervous? That is a daft thing to say. I would think he would be nervous when being asked to sing a part he wasn’t use to .Isaw him in a interview talk about singing the long do in love me do. This was because he was use to John singing it so great and was nervous to take over. Boom. He was nervous
I read that originally John sang the lead but when they decided to use the harmonica at the same time as the vocal solo, George Martin told Paul to sing it. Paul was so nervous he pointed to George Harrison and said let him sing it. Martin said no, he can’t sing. I guess Harrison proved him wrong later on. Good song but not one of their best.
I agree, compared with most of their future output this pales a little. However you have to hear this in the context of what was in the charts at the time. By those standards it was quite revolutionary and it did stand out to those with ears to hear.
On there very first LP it’s Ringo. Just after Pete Best departed they recorded the master take with Ringo. John thought Pete was a lousy drummer and the rest was history.
It’s too bad that EMI destroyed the 4 September tapes in which Ringo played drums.
And also it’s bad that there’s really no stereo version of this song.
Only Duophonic.
And also, all the master tapes we’re destroyed :/
For purists like me its great that there was no stereo version of Love Me Do. At this time and really up to Revolver and probably Sgt Pepper little attention was paid to the stereo versions of Beatles’ material. In the UK stereo reproducers were not common until the late 60’s and all the engineering attention went into mixing tracks which would give maximum sound reproduction on small mono record players which most teenagers had in their bedrooms. So George Martin would have been most keen to closely supervise the final mixes of the mono versions of the songs because these would be listened to by the vast majority of the record buying public. He may have even farmed out the stereo mixing to an assistant or if he did do it himself it would not have been a meticulous process. All that changed with Sgt Pepper although even here to my ears the mono mix is the superior sound.However it was totally different in the US. I may be wrong but I believe that none of The Beatles’ material was released in mono format and so US fans had to wait till the mono box set or purchase UK vinyl versions to catch up on the way most of us this side of the pond first heard The Beatles’ music.
Nope, we had mono records over here in North America right up to and including ‘Magical Mystery Tour’. The ‘white album’ was the first Beatles album that was unavailable in mono in North America (except obviously as an import from the UK – if you could get one). It is somewhat interesting though – I don’t think that there were any intentional mono reissues in North America, so if you have a mono copy of any North American Beatles album, it is the original pressing.
Also worth noting, the mono mixes available in North America were not necessarily the same as the UK mono mixes. There are a number of blatant differences between the North American and UK mono versions of songs from the ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ album… that is the album that really stands out for wildly differing mixes. To compile all of the tracks from the UK HDN album from North American albums you have to pick up the United Artists HDN album, as well as Capitol’s Something New and Beatles ’65 albums. The two latter albums are available on CD but United Artist’s HDN is still unavailable. And while I’m on this tangent, we didn’t have a true stereo mix of the song “A Hard Day’s Night” in North America until the release of the compilation album ‘Reel Music’ in 1982!
The UK / North American mono mix differences go on right through until ‘Magical Mystery Tour’. The Canadian single version of “I am the Walrus” is edited differently that the UK single (different intro, drums pause at one point, and the four extra beats). The vocal ‘phasing’ in the chorus of “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” is MUCH more pronounced on the English mono album than it is on the North American album.
It would be great if someone drew together all of these alternate mixes onto one album. I find it interesting that they even exist.
Abbey Road is the first and only contemporary Beatles album to have been mixed in the first instance for stereo .
I thought the article said that the b-side of Now and Then has a true stereo version of Love Me Do?
I don’t think this is paul’s viola bass, must be his “prototype” bass with the 3 piano strings…
It’s not – Paul actually is using his Höfner bass.
The prototype bass was actually Paul’s first electric guitar restrung with piano strings, but for the second Hamburg residency, it had reverted to having a full set of six regular guitar strings, and oddly, he also had his Höfner bass with him, despite Stuart Sutcliffe being there as well – in fact, there were photos taken at a certain gig with both men playing their basses, so it’s hard to say which one of them was the official bassist.
Paul’s electric guitar disintegrated for good after he accidentally dropped it while in Hamburg and it was a very cheap guitar, so in a way, it was just as well, not to mention that he was transitioning to bass guitar anyway.
“Initial copies of the single had Ringo on drums, though the Andy White version became the preferred version from the release of the Beatles Hits EP on 6 September 1963”
If I had a cent for every time I read this I would be richer than Paul McCartney.
I have yet to find ANY evidence to support this ‘fact’ nor has any one been able to give me any other than to quote that is what ‘Lewisohn’ said.
The matrix in the dead on the Original Demo, Red label and 4 Black label variations pressed in the 1960’s are ALL the same – 7XCE 17144-1N, the stampers change but not the master.
If you listen to each pressing they ALL have the Ringo version.
In 1976 the single was reissued with the Andy White / Tambourine version with a matrix of
7XCE 17144-2.
Why not pick up an original ‘Black label’ pressing and help re-write history before the 50th anniversary of the single release.
Could you and Mark Lewisohn both be correct? He said that EMI destroyed the four-track master tape of the Ringo version, which implies that in 1963 they no longer thought it was good enough to use. But the various 1960s pressings, like you say, could have come from the original stamper anyway, which wouldn’t, in practice, have make Andy White’s one the preferred version.
“4 Black label” – do you mean the style with the large 45 printed on it?
BTW, you must have heard this fact around 73,000,000,000 times. I feel sorry for you!
4 Track recordings were only done from towards the end of 1963 on the single “I Want to Hold Your Hand”. Everything before was done on 2-Track. The “stereo” releases are actually the 2 track recordings with the Rhythm (typically bass / drum / guitar) on one side and the vocals (and sometimes lead guitar) on the other side.
My mistake. I knew they weren’t using four-track until I Want To Hold Your Hand.
Hello Folks, i want to know who plays the drums on “Love Me Do”, on the canadian Capitol LP “twist and shout”?? many thanks
The Please Please Me album was recorded in a day and there are no know re-take of the songs of the album with the exception of Love Me Do. As I remember, they recorded twist and shout in one go for the last time because John can only sing one last song on that session before his vocal chords rip apart. According to Ringo’s recollection, he played on all the songs in the Please Please Me album except for the songs Love me do and P.S. I love you.
It is the Andy White version that appears on the Canadian “Twist and Shout” LP. It’s only the Canadian single that features the Ringo Starr version. (I still think the master tape of the Ringo version got mis-filed somewhere here in Canada… and that’s the reason why the Andy White version was ever used at all. When Parlophone set about compiling the Please Please Me album, the Ringo version was unavailable. It was in Canada. (“Love Me Do” was released in Canada in February of 1963… and incidentally sold all of 78 copies nationwide in its initial run).
As mentioned earlier, the UK demo, red, and all versions of the black label have the -1N matrix. This is the Ringo drumming version. This is the version on the Canadian pressing as it was originally dubbed from a UK 45 sent over to Capitol Canada.
The UK Please Please Me LP and the first UK EP that contains the song have the Andy White version. The Canadian Twist and Shout LP also has the Andy White version.
To repeat, the matrix in the dead on the original Demo, Red label and 4 Black label variations pressed in the 1960’s are ALL the same – 7XCE 17144-1N, they are ALL the Ringo drumming version.
In 1976 the single was reissued with the Andy White drumming version with a matrix of 7XCE 17144-2.
I find it interesting how simple this song is, but how much different it could be in arrangement. Before George Martin made the switch to McCartney bringing in the “Love Me Do” vocal solo, Lennon was doing it, w/o the harmonica solo, which would have given it a completely different sound.
Also, the harmonica & bass dominates the solo, so is Harrison playing a standard acoustic sound here? Because in the videos I’ve seen of them performing it, John is always either not playing guitar at all and just singing/harmonica, or barely strumming along. I wonder was it different in studio.
At any rate, classic is an understatement to this track & it serves as both the first large scale sound they made & it’s simplicity is striking as a bookend to what they’d become relativitely soon in real time after making this humble start.
Yes, George was most likely playing his Gibson J-160E and he and John ordered them in June 1962, so they must’ve had them by the September 1962 sessions.
AFAIK, John didn’t play any acoustic guitar on “Love Me Do” and you must understand that a chromatic harmonica, like what Stevie Wonder plays, needs two hands to be able to play it in order to play both major and sharp and flat notes, whereas a diatonic harmonica, e.g. the Hohner Marine Band series that Bob Dylan plays, can easily be placed in a harmonica holder.
I recently heard a song in french which is identical in terms of music to “love me do”, only I could not understand the lyrics. do you know of this song?
Someone Probably Translated the Lyrics to French.
No, it wasn’t a translation. To my understanding it was same music-different lyrics. It was 60s french girl pop style. A very nice version actually.
John doesn’t play any guitar here, just harmonica. George´s guitar is the only one used (I think is the Gibson 160)
Is anyone (other than record collector nuts like me) aware of the fact that in the mid-’50’s, Danny Kaye recorded & released a single also called “Love Me Do”? Same title, different song, released (ironically) on Capitol here in the US (Capitol 3603 to be precise). Just a little oddity I found interesting…
I would just like to know, with everybody so busy, WHO is doing the hand clapping (no double tracking)?
the first song that made start a music phenomenon!!
John does not play acoustic rhythm guitar. He just plays harmonica and background vocals.
For me, it’s the perfect song. It’s like music 101. So simple….but so brilliant. Just listen to the harmonies of Paul and John (I always sing the John’s notes as the harmonies are always the best notes), just two people singing notes in different directions, but so effective. It re-opened my eyes in the simplest purest way. PURE PERFECTION!!
We need to make some adjustments to the credits for the tracks on the first LP, “Please Please Me”.
All of the original Beatles songs are credited “McCartney-Lennon” on this LP, both on the sleeve and the disc itself.
The switch to “Lennon- McCartney” came about afterwards so as to be read alphabetically.
The earliest numbers were credited with Paul’s name first.
John is the star of this song with his lead vocals throughout the verses and instantly recognizable harmonica riff.
You can tell John is singing the melody by the way his voice naturally descends on “do”, while Paul’s voice rises, a typical sign of harmony. For some reason, George Martin wouldn’t let John overdub the harmonica (like he did on I’ll Get You),
So instead of hearing John’s bluesy voice at the end, we are treated to an extremely forced “Love Me Do” from Paul. Ringo’s tambourine really gives this song a 1965 feel even if the lyrics betray its 1950s elements. George isn’t really heard on this track, definitely a “vocal” song.
So tired of pretentious purists who continually spout off that “mono is better”. Hey! Let’s all jump on the popular-opinion bandwagon! This is the trend now…..analog is better than digital….records are better than CDs……your mom’s old console TV is better than plasma…. and anything from the “old days” is better than everything now. Tiresome and cliched.
I grew up in the “old days”. I loved records, 8-tracks, cassettes and then CDs. But I will never be foolish enough to say 8-tracks were better than CDs. Besides, they are all just blank canvases, and only as good as the material put on them. I have heard pristine, gorgeous sounding records and $hitty sounding CDs. But as technology improves, so does the potential for cleaner, more pristine sound reproduction. To say otherwise is to be a slave to the current fad of denouncing everything new and glorying everything old.
I think you should credit handclaps to the song, as they are clearly heard on 4 September version in the harmonica solo
Cheers
Good idea, but I’m not sure whose handclaps they are – so it’s difficult to credit them accurately. It can’t be John because he’s playing harmonica, so my guess is Paul (the vocals were overdubbed after the backing track was laid down, so he would have had nothing to do during the solo).
Had a good laugh playing the Pete Best version from Anthology 1 tonight. You could understand why the boys wanted Ringo in the band!
Yeah, Pete wasn’t on their level.
Great number that kick started The Beatles climb to be the “toppermost of the poppermost”. Basically a Paul song. but with great input from John, especially his wonderful harmonica playing.
Maybe it was Paul’s nerves. On the version on the PLEASE PLEASE ME album(youtube link below), if you listen very carefully to the following you will hear a slight flaw in the pitch on the word DO sung by Paul in one place. Just after the harmonica solo, Paul and Jon sing the words LOVE ME DO. On the word DO, Paul slightly over pitches the intended G note. It may have been beacuse of the first experience adjusting to singing on pitch while listeneing to yourself on headphones and a combination of coming back in after a break in singing while John blew his solo.
Love Me Do: 3 recordings released
1. Andy White on drums Ringo on tambourine released on Please Please Me LP
2. Ringo on drums – released as Beatles’ first single on 5th October 1962
3. Pete Best on drums – released on Anthology 1
The Ringo on drums version was on Past Masters because all the tracks on it were not on any of the Beatles’ LPs – as the Andy White version was on Please Please Me LP was not on Past Masters
Just to complicate matters – the Andy White version appeared on pressings of the Love Me Do 45 from late on 1963!!!!!(as I understand it) – so, in theory, 45s of this version may be very collectable!!
Love Me Do peaked at number 17 in England but it did hit number 1 in Australia and the United States!!! Looks like two of the former colonies knew something great before mother England. (I wish I could say that we in the States are “as smart” now as we were in 1964.)
Oh yes right. You discovered Please Please Me even before that. Well, I wish we were as smart in November, 2016 as we were in 1964!!
We are. Now let’s keep politics out of this. Geeez.
So, there are three different recordings released of Love Me Do. All are in mono. Now, since the stereo mix for the Please Please Me album is lost, the Stereo Box Set contains a mono version (recorded with Andy White). Are the versions in the Stereo Box Set and the Mono Box the same?
Paul’s comment about the addition of harmonica and his being “thrown the big open line, ‘Love me do’, where everything stopped” supports his other comment about the song being completely co-written. It seems unlikely that John would have sung the line if it was all Paul, as John essentially stated, first in 1972 and again in 1980. Perhaps this is a bit of John self-deprecating again or maybe he just didn’t want to be associated with it by that time.
Teddy Salad,
The Song written by Paul “In Spite Of All The Danger” and credited to McCartney and Harrison (Harrison came up with the Guitar riff). The lead Singer was John.
Teddy Salad,
Paul wrote “In Spite Of The Danger” which it credited to McCartney and the Guitar Riff George Harrison. John Lennon was the Lead Vocalist and he did not write it! So, in “Love Me Do” just because John supposedly had the Lead and to give in up to play the Harmonica does not mean it was a co-written Song.
So, Pete wasn’t best? Such irony.
the first LMD version recorded with ringo drumming used to be very hard to find. I’m talking about the 1960’s – 1970’s. Somehow on a ’60s album called Beatles ORIGINAL GREATEST HITS of very questionable legality it showed up there (!), and for several years that was the only place. I want to point out Johns’ rhythm guitar is also mixed louder in that first LMD version, another way one can tell the versions apart. Then in the 1980’s EMI re-released the ringo drumming LMD version on a 12″ ‘single’ (which they had to copy from a 1962 1st pressing since the master tape was long since discarded in favor of the andy white version). Then of course in the 1990’s came the Anthology 1 CD where it finally got a widespread release
1st Version – Recorded June 6, 1962, with Pete Best on drums. Originally unreleased, presumed lost for decades until re-discovered in the ’90s and included on “Anthology 1”.
2nd Version – Recorded Sept. 4, 1962, with Ringo Starr on drums. Originally released as their first Parlophone single (post-1963 pressings used the Andy White version, as did the UK EP and all legit LP’s). Capitol Records in Canada also used the Ringo version on their single release. The US never saw a release of this version until the 1980 “Rarities” LP.
3rd Version – Recorded Sept. 11, 1962, with Andy White on drums, Ringo Starr on tambourine (the only version with a tambourine). The most common version released worldwide.
All 3 versions are mono only. Any “stereo” versions of this are in fake stereo.
As for the version recorded on 4th September 1962, what does it mean: “Initial copies of the single had Starr on drums (…)”? Does this only apply to pressing from Autumn 1962 (with red label)?
Anybody knows when it was the second pressing of the single (with black label and silver text) and whether it was already the version with Andy White?
As mentioned earlier, the UK demo, red, and all versions of the black label have the -1N matrix. This is the Ringo drumming version. This is the version on the Canadian pressing as it was originally dubbed from a UK 45 sent over to Capitol Canada.
The UK Please Please Me LP and the first UK EP that contains the song have the Andy White version. The Canadian Twist and Shout LP also has the Andy White version.
To repeat, the matrix in the dead wax on the original Demo, Red label and 4 Black label variations pressed in the 1960’s are ALL the same – 7XCE 17144-1N, they are ALL the Ringo drumming version.
In 1976 the single was reissued with the Andy White drumming version with a -2 matrix.
Brilliantly explained. I finally get it. Thank you.
The September 11 version seems to be better than the September 4 version, but certainly not because of Andy’s drums. It’s just Paul’s better bass guitar and the presence of a tambourine. But it is still unclear why, despite all the confusion with the drummer, the version with Ringo on drums was selected for the first single.
I love John’s Harmonica on this song, first hit, but there are better songs on this Amazing Album.
Joe, if I can suggest something, I would have a little comment on the Personnel section, not only for Love Me Do, but also for a few other songs that have appeared on official albums but have been recorded with different lineups or instruments.
As for Love Me Do, it is known that the lineups are different for the versions recorded on June 6, 62, September 4, 62, September 11, 62 and the version from Live At The BBC. In addition, with the version from September 4, handclaps could be added (although it is still not sure who is clapping?). The line-up for P.S I Love You is also different for the Please Please Me version and for the On Air version. And Across The Universe? Completely different instruments for the version from the charity album, for the version from Let It Be and for the version from Let It Be … Naked. These are just examples. So if the line-ups or instruments for the officially released versions of a song are different, maybe it’s better to give them separately for each of them. This way Personnel section will be transparent.
Please don’t post this comment on Your awesome site. It doesn’t contribute anything, it’s just a small suggestion, maybe worth nothing.
And just in case, sorry for any linguistic mistakes
Love Me Do was released in 1962 in England. In Canada it was released very early in 1963. Was it released anywhere else early on? It wasn’t released until the spring of 1964 in pretty much all other countries.