Boys

The lyric touches the motifs of sex, love and women. The writing reaches for onomatopoeia ('Bop shuop, m'bop bop shuop'), and this is where the onomatopoeia starts in the Beatles' writing. The title is one word long, and nothing earlier in the catalogue was like it. The language is full of nonsense words.

Written in E major and taken at about 155 BPM, 'Boys' is a rock and roll and R&B piece. The tune carries call and response, a line thrown out and thrown back (lead + 'Bop shuop' backing), and 1963 is the year the Beatles reached for it most. It has a guitar solo. Also, the record has a vocal ad-lib (Ringo's 'Alright, George!'). A curiosity, the chords run E → A7 → E → B7 → A7, the same progression, transposed, as 'Flying' and 'Can't Buy Me Love'.

The band cut it at EMI Studio 2, recorded in a single take near the end of the marathon Please Please Me album session, with George's guitar solo and Ringo's spoken 'Alright, George!' captured live. Lennon is on the Rickenbacker 325, his guitar, one of 44 Beatles records to use it, such as 'Please Please Me' and 'A Taste of Honey'. The record closes with a fade-out, and this one came out of a ten-song day, the 5th to the 14th of their career.

Luther Dixon and Wes Farrell wrote it, and Starr sings lead. It exists to give Ringo something to sing, and 1963 is the year they reached for it most.

The track reached listeners on March 22, 1963, as one track among many on Please Please Me. America got it ten months later, on Introducing The Beatles, put out by Vee-Jay. This track was the 7th of 32 released in that year, and the 9th in their whole run.