A Taste of Honey

Food and drink ('A taste of honey', 'sweeter than wine') get more attention here than the Beatles usually do in a pop lyric, alongside the motifs of relationship and love, and the food and drinks had not been heard on a Beatles record before. There is extended metaphor in the writing (honey = kiss/love throughout), which this song is the first to do. The language is full of nonsense words ('Do-doo-n'doo' vocables) and reaching towards poetry (elevated romantic imagery).

'A Taste of Honey' runs near 100 BPM in A♭ major, and it is a ballad and pop piece all the way. The tune carries call and response, the singer and the band trading lines (backing vocals echo lead in chorus & bridge), 1963 being the year they used it most. Also, the key moves from A♭ major to F♯ minor, with the bar shifting into 3/4.

The song came out of EMI Studio 2, cut in five takes during the marathon Please Please Me session, with Paul's lead vocal double-tracked the following day. Ringo played the Premier Mahogany Duroplastic, his own four-piece kit at EMI in February 1963, before the Ludwig deal that May, 1963 being the year the Beatles used it most. The band reached for double tracked vocal on this one, as on 139 of their records. It shares its session day with nine others, the 5th to the 14th of their career.

Bobby Scott and Ric Marlow wrote it, and McCartney sings lead. It has the four of them on their usual instruments, with Lennon and Harrison on electric guitar, McCartney on bass and Starr on drums, 1963 being the year they used it most.

The record came out on March 22, 1963 as part of Please Please Me, and was not issued separately. It reached America ten months later, on the Vee-Jay album Introducing The Beatles. This song was the 10th of the 32 records they released in that year, and the 12th in their whole run.