Love Me Do

"Love Me Do" is an early Lennon-McCartney song, mainly written by Paul McCartney in 1961-2. The song was officially credited to Paul McCartney and John Lennon, in that order, as were all other Lennon-McCartney originals on the Please Please Me album. The songwriting credit was changed to the more familiar "Lennon-McCartney" for their second album, With the Beatles.

The first single released by The Beatles on October 5, 1962 was "Love Me Do" backed by "P.S. I Love You". When the single was originally released in the United Kingdom it peaked at number seventeen in the singles chart; in 1982 it was re-issued and this time reached number four. In the United States the single was a number-one hit in 1964.

The Beatles' "Love Me Do" begins with bluesy harmonica played by John Lennon, then features Lennon and McCartney on joint lead vocals (Harrison sang harmony), although McCartney handles the low solo vocals on the song's title phrase when all of the instruments go silent. Lennon had previously sung these sections, but this late change in vocals was made when the harmonica part was added - as Lennon had to play the harmonica once the instrumentation started up again on the "do" of "love me do".

Writing
In 1972, Lennon commented: "Paul wrote the main structure of this when he was sixteen, or even earlier. I think I had something to do with the middle."

In 1982, McCartney remarked: "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."

Similarly Starr in 1976 enthused: "The first record, 'Love Me Do', 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!"

Recording
In 1969 during the Get Back Sessions (later became Let It Be), the song was rehearsed by the band, it was played slower and had a blues tune. This recording of "Love Me Do" is one of hundreds of known bootlegs recorded during these sessions.

This song was recorded by The Beatles at different times with three different drummers:
 * The Beatles first recorded it on June 6, 1962 with Pete Best on drums, as part of their EMI audition at Abbey Road Studios in London (released on Anthology 1).
 * By September 4, Best had been replaced with Ringo Starr (producer George Martin did not approve of Best's drumming), and on that day The Beatles with Starr recorded a version again at Abbey Road Studios (released on the initial issue of the single - red Parlophone label - and on Past Masters, Volume One).
 * One week later, on September 11, The Beatles returned to the same studio to discover that Martin was dissatisfied with Starr's drumming, and they made a recording of "Love Me Do" with session drummer Andy White on drums while Starr played tambourine (released on the second and most common issue of the single - black Parlophone label - and on the album Please Please Me) . Starr later said, "I thought they were pulling a Pete Best on me."

Most issues of the single contain the Andy White version of the track (that can also be heard on several albums including Please Please Me, and The Beatles' Hits EP). However, the initial issues of the UK single featured the Ringo Starr version, which is also included on the compilation album Past Masters, Volume One. All singles printed with the red Parlophone label contain the Ringo Starr version (recorded on September 4), whereas the singles having a black Parlophone label are the Andy White version (recorded on September 11). The CD single issued on October 5, 1992 contains both of these versions of "Love Me Do". The Pete Best version remained unreleased until 1995 when it was included on the Anthology 1 album.

"Love Me Do", featuring Starr drumming, was also recorded eight times at the BBC; and played on the BBC radio programs Here We Go, Talent Spot, Saturday Club, Side By Side, Pop Go The Beatles, and Easy Beat between October 1962 and October 1963. The version of "Love Me Do" recorded on July 10, 1963 at the BBC, and broadcast on the July 23, 1963 Pop Go The Beatles program can be heard on The Beatles album Live at the BBC. The Beatles also performed the song live on the February 20, 1963 Parade Of The Pops BBC radio broadcast.

Missing master tape
Amazingly, no original master tapes of the September 4 version of Love Me Do are known to exist. Standard procedure at Abbey Road at the time was to erase the original two-track session tape once it had been "mixed down" to the (usually monaural) master tape used to press records. This was the fate of the session tape for Love Me Do as well as several other early Beatles songs from 1962–63. However, at some point the mixdown master tape for this song was also lost, and apparently no backup copies had been made--thus, for many years the only recorded copies to exist were the red-label Parlophone 45 rpm vinyl records pressed in 1962 from the now-nonexistent master tapes.

(It should be noted that by the time the tapes disappeared, the song's September 11, 1962 remake featuring Andy White had been released. To be fair, EMI couldn't have been too concerned about this calamity. The September 4 take, after all, was now considered obsolete and they probably didn't expect to ever have any use for it again anyway.)

Around 1980, a reasonably clean, original 45 from EMI's archives was used as the "best available source" for the track's inclusion on the Capitol compilation album Rarities. A few years later, a new master tape was struck, this time using another, better-sounding 45 supplied by a record collector, and this has served as the official EMI master tape for the original Love Me Do ever since.

Instrumentation

 * John Lennon on rhythm guitar, harmonica, backing vocal
 * Paul McCartney on bass, lead vocal
 * George Harrison on lead guitar, backing vocal
 * Ringo Starr on drums

Cover versions
"Love Me Do" has been covered by:
 * Bobby Vee on his 1964 album 30 Big Hits from the 60s
 * Dick Hyman on his 1964 album Keyboard Kaleidoscope
 * Sandie Shaw on her 1969 album Reviewing the Situation
 * Ringo Starr on his 1998 album Vertical Man
 * Flaco Jiménez on his 2000 album Sleepytown
 * Madooo on his 2002 album This Day Is Forever