Love Me Do
“Someone to love, someone like you”
What is unique about this song?
The record stands as one of two in all that show the mark of Delbert McClinton, in company with 'I'll Get You', and one of three that have a harmonica riff, 'Little Child' and 'Please Please Me' being the others. It is also one of the early songs. The only song on Please Please Me with tambourine on it, this is also the first of 80 in the catalogue. Strangely enough, the song is different in mono and in stereo (single uses Sept 4 master, album uses Sept 11 master).
What happened around it?
see full timeline →'P.S. I Love You' were cut in the same stretch of studio time. It was the first thing the band put on tape for Please Please Me. In the same stretch, 3 weeks before the session, Pete Best dismissed, Ringo joined, Epstein delivers the news in a 10-minute meeting. 7 days later, John married Cynthia Powell.
4 Beatles songs appear on more than one official UK studio LP (or Past Masters) - for example 'Get Back' (Let It Be + Past Masters), 'Let It Be' (Let It Be + Past Masters), and 'Love Me Do' (Past Masters + Please Please Me).
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Text109 tags
This song carries the motifs of love, relationship and truth. Worth a footnote, the title has the word love in it, and the Beatles would reach for it again on 'P.S. I Love You'. It reaches once for triple rhyme ("do/you/true"). The language is built on a limited vocabulary. A curiosity, the line "You know I love you" turns up in one other Beatles song, 'I Will'.
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Music72 tags
In G major at roughly 146 BPM, 'Love Me Do' is a R&B and rock and roll song, and the writing shows the influence of Delbert McClinton and blues (mixolydian inflection, bent notes). It has a harmonica solo. Also, it has no chorus, and the Beatles would reach for it again on 'Boys'.
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Studio10 tags
Recorded three times at EMI Studio 2 with three different drummers - Pete Best, Ringo Starr, and session musician Andy White - before George Martin was satisfied. The Gibson J-160E was Lennon's guitar, which they used more in 1964 than in any other year. This is the first song the Beatles ever recorded.
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People12 tags
McCartney and Lennon wrote it, the two of them share the lead, as they do on 'Wait' and 'Thank You Girl'. McCartney wrote the verse and the chorus, years before the recording and before the Beatles existed, with harmonica (chromatic, dockside-blues riff) in the arrangement. This is the first Beatles session Norman Smith engineered.
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Info29 tags
The record peaked at UK #17 on first release, and it reached US #1 in 1964 after Beatlemania broke stateside. Its first American album was Introducing The Beatles, fifteen months later, with 12 tracks from the UK Please Please Me, minus 'Please Please Me' and 'Ask Me Why'. This is the first record the Beatles ever released.
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Sources & references
Tags on this page are original analysis, transcribed and cross-checked against the fine work of others: Alan W. Pollack's “Notes on…” series, the Beatles Complete Scores (Hal Leonard), Mark Lewisohn's session histories, Ian MacDonald's Revolution in the Head, Dave Rybaczewski's Beatles Music History and Andy Babiuk's Beatles Gear for the instruments and studio equipment, and others besides - then verified by ear against the recordings. Full bibliography: Sources & thanks.
External entity links: Wikipedia · MusicBrainz recording · MusicBrainz work · Wikidata
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