Are there two different mono mixes of Ask Me Why?

Yes. The single carries the original mono mix, which has no added reverb — the “dry mix”. A second mono mix made for the Please Please Me LP on 25 February 1963 is a “wet mix” with reverb added, and that later mix is the one used on every subsequent release. Both come from take 6.

Why was Ask Me Why chosen as the B-side?

Recording it after a tea break at the “Please Please Me” session meant both sides of the second single were Lennon–McCartney originals, as both sides of the first had been. At that point John Lennon and Paul McCartney were still disputing whose name should be credited first, and the early labels read McCartney–Lennon (Lewisohn p.23).

Ask Me Why

(Lennon/McCartney)

Quick Facts

Composer	John
Lead Vocal	John
Recorded	Nov 1962
Length	2:24
Key	E
Noted Takes	6
Producer	George Martin
Engineer	Norman Smith

Originally released on

Please Please Me (single, B-side)

Please Please Me (LP)

All My Loving (EP)

Parlophone — 45-R 4983 / PMC 1202

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“Ask Me Why” is a song by the English rock band the Beatles originally released in the United Kingdom as the B-side of their single “Please Please Me”. It was also included on their 1963 debut album Please Please Me. It was written primarily by John and credited to the Lennon–McCartney partnership.

Ask Me Why is a song by The Beatles, written by Lennon–McCartney and led on vocal by John. B-side of ‘Please Please Me’; harmony-rich early Lennon-McCartney. Within the catalogue, its love thread connects it to P.S. I Love You, Something. Originally recorded during the June 1962 artist test, ‘Ask Me Why’ was re-recorded on 26 November 1962 with the standard Beatle lineup to serve as B-side to ‘Please Please Me’. The song exemplifies the harmonic sophistication of early Lennon–McCartney writing, featuring multi-part vocal layering that would become a signature of their arrangement work.¹

The session work falls within the band’s Beatlemania (1962–1964) period, recorded 26 November 1962 at EMI Studios, Abbey Road. George Martin produced; Norman Smith engineered. The song was captured in just six takes on the November session, demonstrating studio efficiency compared to the A-side’s eighteen takes. George Martin’s willingness to move quickly through the track suggests confidence in the arrangement, which required no post-session re-evaluation or structural revision.¹

What’s distinctive

A B-side cut after a tea break, in six takes, at the end of the session that produced the group’s first number one — and the last Beatles song recorded before the 1963 method took hold. It is also the rare early track that exists in two genuinely different mono mixes: the single is dry, with no added reverb, and the album mix made three months later is wet. Take count: 6 — “comparatively easy to record, and by take six it was perfect,” against eighteen takes for the A-side at the same session.

Recording

The song reached Abbey Road before the Beatles properly did. On Wednesday 6 June 1962, 6.00–8.00pm, it was one of four numbers taped at the session that got them their Parlophone contract — ‘Besame Mucho’ plus three originals, ‘Love Me Do’, ‘P.S. I Love You’ and ‘Ask Me Why’. Ron Richards and George Martin produced, Norman Smith engineered, Chris Neal was tape operator, and Pete Best was still the drummer. No take numbers survive for any of the four.^1,2
Almost everything else about that evening is uncertain, and the uncertainty is on the record rather than glossed over. Which studio it happened in is not clear, because the relevant documentation has long since been destroyed; and memories differ as to whether it was an artist test to see whether the group were any good, a commercial test to see whether they could work inside a recording studio, or simply their first session proper. The session log gives the room as Studio Two or Three with a question mark still attached.¹
The released master comes from Monday 26 November 1962, Studio Two, 7.00–10.00pm, takes 1–6, with take 6 the master. George Martin produced and Norman Smith engineered; the tape operator is not recorded. The group had arrived an hour early, at 6.00pm, to rehearse.¹
The evening’s real business was the A-side. ‘Please Please Me’ had been a slow Roy Orbison-ish number until George Martin told the group to speed it up and give it some energy, and the version they came back with was re-made across eighteen takes — a count that includes the harmonica edit pieces, because the song was deliberately taped without the harmonica and the part superimposed afterwards by a tape-to-tape overdub. John could not sing, play harmonica and play guitar at the same time. When it was done, Martin spoke to them over the talkback: “You’ve just made your first number one.” He was not wrong.^1,2
After a tea break the group went back in and briskly knocked off the B-side. Putting ‘Ask Me Why’ on the back of ‘Please Please Me’ meant both sides of the second single were Lennon–McCartney originals, as both sides of the first had been — or, as the labels of the day had it, McCartney–Lennon. At this point there was still a minor dispute between the two of them over whose name should be credited first.^1,2
It went down fast: “‘Ask Me Why’ was comparatively easy to record, and by take six it was perfect.” Six takes against eighteen, at the end of a three-hour session, on a song with more harmony movement than the A-side — the group had played it for months, and it shows.¹
A third song was attempted that night and got nowhere: ‘Tip Of My Tongue’, which Martin rejected and which was later handed to another of his artists, Tommy Quickly.¹
Both songs were captured to Twin-Track and Delta-Mono at once — a full mono attempt running live alongside the two-track master. In 1962 everything was recorded either to Twin-Track or straight to mono, and any overdubbing was done by tape-to-tape superimposition; there was no third option.²
The mono mix for the single was made on Friday 30 November 1962 in the Studio Two control room, from take 6, alongside the mono of the A-side. The Beatles were not present at this remix, and did not begin to attend such sessions until much later. The single followed on 11 January 1963.¹
Three months later, on 25 February 1963, George Martin and Norman Smith remixed the album in the Studio One control room and made a fresh mono of ‘Ask Me Why’ from take 6, plus the stereo. The single mix and the album mix are not the same mix, and the difference is audible — see Releases.¹

Equipment

Studio	EMI Studios, Abbey Road — Studio Two or Three, unresolved (6 June 1962 test); Studio Two (26 Nov 1962 recording); Studio Two control room (30 Nov 1962 single mix); Studio One control room (25 Feb 1963 LP mixing)
Tape machine	“Twin-Track” BTR3 — a stereo BTR3 converted by changing its headstack, the format George Martin preferred for most Beatles work of this period; a Delta-Mono BTR2 ran simultaneously
Console	REDD.37 — eight inputs, four outputs, two echo sends and returns, with two input channels able to take a patched extra signal for an effective ten. Replaced in Studio Two by the REDD.51 in 1964
Outboard	A pair of EMI RS124 compressors — an Altec design heavily modified and renamed by EMI — patched into Main Channels I and II; two EMI RS114 limiters, which Norman Smith particularly favoured, in Main Channels III and IV
Monitoring	Altec 605A speakers driven by repackaged Leak TL-25 amplifiers (RS141)
Instruments	The group’s stage gear: Rickenbacker 325 Capri (early version) and Gretsch Duo Jet; two Gibson J-160E acoustic/electrics bought just before the EMI contract began; Hofner 500/1 bass through a Leak Point One preamp, Leak TL-12 Plus amplifier and Tannoy Dual-Concentric cabinet; Vox A.C.15 Twin and A.C.30 Twin amplifiers; Premier drumset in mahogany Duroplastic with Zildjian cymbals

Recording Timeline

6 June 1962 (Wed) — EMI test, 6.00–8.00pm, Studio Two or Three — P: Ron Richards and George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: Chris Neal. ‘Ask Me Why’ taped alongside ‘Besame Mucho’, ‘Love Me Do’ and ‘P.S. I Love You’, with Pete Best on drums and no take numbers recorded for any of them. The room is genuinely unresolved — the documentation that would settle it was destroyed — and so is the purpose of the evening, which surviving memories variously describe as an artist test, a commercial test, and the group’s first real session. Martin was not there throughout; Ron Richards took charge initially. Whatever it was, it is the reason there was a contract to record a B-side under five months later.¹
26 November 1962 (Mon) — takes 1–6, Studio Two, 7.00–10.00pm — P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: unknown. The group came in at 6.00pm for an hour’s rehearsal. The session re-made ‘Please Please Me’ in eighteen takes, harmonica superimposed separately; then, after a tea break, ‘Ask Me Why’ in six, take 6 the master; then a rejected pass at ‘Tip Of My Tongue’. Both finished songs went to Twin-Track and Delta-Mono simultaneously. The log sheet for that day shows George Martin also produced another session, and that Cliff Richard had been in the studios earlier — a reminder of where the Beatles still ranked in the building.^1,2
30 November 1962 (Fri) — mono mixing, Studio Two control room, time unknown — P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: unknown. Mono mixing of ‘Ask Me Why’ from take 6 and of ‘Please Please Me’ from an unrecorded take number. The Beatles were not present, and did not begin to attend such sessions until much later. This is the mix that went out on the single — the only version of the song with no added reverb.¹
11 January 1963 (Fri) — single issued — ‘Please Please Me’ backed with ‘Ask Me Why’, Parlophone 45-R 4983. The A-side reached number one in most British charts and the album was rushed out to follow it.¹
25 February 1963 (Mon) — LP mono and stereo mixing, Studio One control room — P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. A second mono mix and the stereo mix, both from take 6, made in the sitting that mixed the rest of the album. For ‘Please Please Me’ the team reused the existing mono but built a new stereo from takes 16, 17 and 18; for ‘Ask Me Why’ both album mixes were new. The album followed on 22 March.¹

[L]ooking up this big window, this big black window where there were people moving around…George Martin was the Supreme Producer In The Sky and we wouldn’t even dare ask to go into the Control Room.— Paul McCartney²

Studio Notes

The last of the old method. Across 1962 Norman Smith captured the group in a fairly straightforward manner, consistent with the styles of the day, and only in 1963 did he begin changing the approach in an attempt to catch the energy of their live act. ‘Ask Me Why’ therefore sits on the far side of a line: it is a competent, conventional 1962 pop recording of a band playing a song, made weeks before the album day on which the same engineer pulled the microphones back, dropped the screens and started using room mics. Everything the Beatles became known for in the studio happens after this session.²
The control room was a place you were not allowed to go. Studio Two’s control room sat a storey above the floor, reached by twenty stairs or by a door at the back off a hallway, and the boundaries were clear: artists stayed downstairs unless specifically invited up, which in these early days was rare. The quote above is Paul on exactly that arrangement. It is worth holding in mind when reading the mixing entries below — the band were not present at either remix, and in 1962 it would not have occurred to anyone that they should be.²
The REDD.37, and how little of it there was. The desk had eight inputs, four outputs and two echo sends and returns, though two of the input channels could take a patched extra signal, which effectively made ten. That is the whole palette for this recording. It also sat at a right angle to the control-room window rather than facing it, so Norman Smith had to look to his right to see the studio floor — a detail that says something about how EMI thought about the relationship between the desk and the performance. The REDD.51 that replaced it in Studio Two did not arrive until 1964.²
“Twin-Track” was a modified stereo machine, not a multitrack. The walls behind and to the left of the REDD.37 were lined with BTR tape machines, many still in their original factory green, a mixture of mono BTR2s and stereo BTR3s. Changing the headstack on a stereo BTR3 turned it into a Twin-Track machine, and that was the format George Martin preferred for most of the group’s work in this period. Two tracks is not a small four-track; it is a stereo recorder being used to keep the band and the voices apart, and nothing more.²
The compressors were hand-modified and the limiters were a preference. A pair of RS124 compressors — an Altec design heavily modified and renamed by EMI — were patched into Main Channels I and II of the desk, and alongside them sat two RS114 limiters, an EMI design that Norman Smith particularly favoured, inserted into Main Channels III and IV. Monitoring was Altec 605A speakers on repackaged Leak TL-25 amplifiers. This is a room built out of one manufacturer’s equipment and one engineer’s habits, and the sound of the early singles is largely the sound of that room.²
Why the stereo has a hole in the middle. When monitoring in stereo, Track 1 of the Twin-Track tape was automatically panned hard left by default and Track 2 hard right. There were no panning controls to do anything else with. The 1963 stereo mix of this song inherits that arrangement wholesale: the band sits entirely in one channel and the voices entirely in the other, with nothing between them. It is not a stereo picture of a performance, it is two mono recordings played at the same time.²
The mono tape running alongside was a safety net, and it did not last. Recording to Delta-Mono at the same time as the Twin-Track existed because neither George Martin nor Norman Smith had experience recording rock and roll of this kind; if the live mono balance failed, the Twin-Track could still be remixed. The practice was discontinued after the 13 March 1963 session for ‘Thank You Girl’, once it was clear that remixing from Twin-Track would be the preferred method and the second tape was a waste of stock and time. ‘Ask Me Why’ is from the middle of that short window.²
Overdubbing meant copying the tape. With two tracks and no way to drop in, anything added after the fact had to be done by tape-to-tape superimposition — playing the first tape while performing the addition, and recording both onto a second machine. That is how the harmonica got onto the A-side at this same session, and it is why the master tape for ‘Ask Me Why’ is described as a second-generation copy. Nothing was added to this song, which is the reason it took six takes rather than eighteen.²
The credit line on the label was the other way round. Recording the B-side ensured that both sides of the second single were Lennon–McCartney songs, as both sides of the first had been — except that at the time the pair were in a minor dispute about whose name should come first, and the early pressings read McCartney–Lennon. The order settled later and the catalogue now renders every one of these songs the same way, which is why the credit under the title on this page reads as it does regardless of what the 1963 label said.¹
The group’s own gear, and one problem amplifier. In 1962 the Beatles simply used their stage equipment: a Rickenbacker 325 Capri and a Gretsch Duo Jet, the two Gibson J-160E acoustic/electrics John and George had bought just before the EMI contract started, a Hofner 500/1 bass, and Vox A.C.15 and A.C.30 amplifiers acquired earlier that year. The A.C.30 would become the most iconic amplifier they ever used. Paul’s bass rig was the exception — a custom-built cabinet nicknamed “the coffin” for its size and shape, which rumbled and rattled far too much for the EMI staff and had been a problem since the June test.²
Six takes is the point, not a footnote. The contrast on the session sheet is the most useful thing about this recording: eighteen takes plus superimposed harmonica for the song that was going to be the hit, six takes and nothing added for the song on the back. ‘Ask Me Why’ is harmonically the busier of the two, with more chord movement and three-part harmony throughout, and it still went down in a third of the attempts. A B-side in 1962 was something you got right quickly because the studio clock belonged to the A-side.¹

Releases

Everything issued comes from take 6, but unusually for an early Beatles track there are two genuinely different mono mixes of it, and which one you are hearing depends on whether you have the single or the album.

1963 UK single mono — “Please Please Me” / “Ask Me Why” (11 January 1963, Parlophone 45-R 4983, B-side) — the original mono mix, and the dry one: no added reverb at all. The voices sit close and unhaloed, the guitars are flat and present, and the record sounds like four people in a room with the door shut. This is the only release that carries it.
1963 UK LP mono — Please Please Me (22 March 1963, Parlophone PMC 1202) — a second mono mix made from the same take, and a wet one by contrast, with a complementary amount of reverb added. It is the version used on every subsequent appearance of the song, so it is almost certainly the one you know; heard against the single it sounds roomier and further away.
1963 UK LP stereo — Please Please Me (22 March 1963, Parlophone PCS 3042) — the two tape tracks thrown hard left and hard right with nothing in the centre. The close harmony that is the whole point of the song ends up isolated in one speaker, away from the band.
1963 US single — Vee-Jay VJ 498 — the American issue of the same coupling, carrying the dry single mix. The UK album had no US release of its own until 1987, so Vee-Jay and Capitol are the whole American story for two decades.
1964 US LP — Introducing… The Beatles, second issue (Vee-Jay VJLP 1062 mono / VJSR 1062 stereo) — the wet album mono and the 1963 stereo. The song only appears on the revised pressing; the first issue of the LP carried a different running order.
1964 UK EP mono — All My Loving (7 February 1964, Parlophone GEP 8891, side A, track two) — the album mono on a seven-inch, behind ‘All My Loving’ and ahead of ‘Money’ and ‘P.S. I Love You’.
1965 US LP — The Early Beatles (Capitol T 2309 mono / ST 2309 stereo) — the significant territorial variant, and a strange one. The stereo side is a Capitol rebalance of the 1963 mix rather than the mix itself, and the mono side is not either British mono mix but a mono fold of that stereo, made by Capitol in 1965. American mono buyers of this record were the only people ever sold a mono ‘Ask Me Why’ derived from the stereo.
1987 CD — Please Please Me (EMI CDP 7 46435 2) — the wet album mono, the whole album having been issued digitally in mono. The 1988 CD single uses the same mix; there was only ever one designated official digital mix of this song.
1988 CD — The Best of Dick James Music, Vol. 1 (PolyGram SACD-072) — a publisher’s promotional disc, and a genuine oddity: essentially the 1963 stereo but with both channels brought in toward the centre, which is the only time anyone has tried to repair the hard split.
2009 stereo remaster — Please Please Me (Apple 82416 2) — the 1963 stereo, panning intact, in a cleaner transfer; the harmony parts gain detail without moving any closer together.
2009 mono remaster — the mono companion programme — the wet album mono remastered alongside the stereo series, and the version to reach for. For the dry mix you still need the single.

Sources

Mark Lewisohn, The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions (New York: Harmony Books, 1988), 16–17, 23, 28, 200.
Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew, Recording the Beatles: The Studio Equipment and Techniques Used to Create Their Classic Albums (Houston: Curvebender Publishing, 2006), 28, 102, 348, 350–51, 365, 368.

Frequently asked

Who wrote Ask Me Why?

John, credited as usual to the partnership. He sings the lead as well.¹

Who sings lead on Ask Me Why?

John, with close harmony from Paul and George.¹

When was Ask Me Why recorded?

26 November 1962, in Studio Two at EMI, Abbey Road, in a 7.00–10.00pm session whose main business was re-making ‘Please Please Me’. An earlier version had been taped at the 6 June 1962 EMI test, with Pete Best still on drums.¹

How many takes did Ask Me Why require?

Six, with take 6 the master — against eighteen for ‘Please Please Me’ at the same session. It was “comparatively easy to record, and by take six it was perfect.”¹

Are there really two different mono mixes?

Yes, and it is the most interesting thing about the song’s release history. The single carries the original mono, mixed on 30 November 1962, with no added reverb. The album carries a second mono made from the same take on 25 February 1963, with reverb added — and that later mix is the one used on everything since.

Why does the stereo sound so split?

Because the Twin-Track machine put Track 1 hard left and Track 2 hard right by default, and the REDD.37 had no panning controls to do anything else. The band is in one channel and the voices in the other, with nothing in between.²

Was the June 1962 version released?

No. The 6 June recording was never issued, and no take numbers for it survive. Every release descends from take 6 of the 26 November re-recording, with Ringo rather than Pete Best on drums.¹