Love Me Do

"Love Me Do" is the debut single by the English rock band the Beatles, backed by "P.S. I Love You". When the single was originally released in the United Kingdom on 5 October 1962, it peaked at number 17. [Wikipedia]

McCartney wrote the song aged 16, on the family piano in Forthlin Road, Liverpool. Lennon contributed the harmonica hook (Lennon had bought a chromatic harmonica in Hamburg). It was their debut single. Paul sang lead on the recorded version after George Martin identified a harmonic conflict between John's vocal and harmonica parts. McCartney later recalled the uncomfortable spontaneity of this arrangement: "I was suddenly given this… suddenly pushed into it" (Lewisohn 1988, p.6). The song's blues roots were acknowledged by McCartney in interview: 'Love Me Do was us trying to do the blues. It came out whiter because it always does' (Lewisohn 1988, p.7).

Recorded three times in 1962: at the 6 June artist test with Pete Best on drums (that tape was destroyed once it was clear nothing from the test would be issued — Lewisohn p. 17), on 4 September with Ringo Starr at his first Beatles session, and again on 11 September, when Ron Richards — producing in George Martin’s absence — brought in session drummer Andy White and moved Ringo to tambourine. The mapping of versions to releases is the reverse of what many assume: the 4 September Ringo version was on the original UK single (Parlophone 45-R 4949), while the 11 September Andy White version — the one with the tambourine — went on the Please Please Me LP and, from 1963, on all single pressings (Lewisohn p. 22). Eighteen takes of the re-make were recorded before one proved satisfactory (Lewisohn p. 20). For the full mix-and-master lineage, see the dedicated section below.

No other Beatles song was recorded as many times, by as many drummers, for as little agreement about which version is the “real” one. Love Me Do was committed to tape three separate times in 1962 — once with Pete Best, once with Ringo Starr, once with the session man Andy White — and the record the public bought changed underneath them a year later. The tangle is fully documented, and it begins at the group’s EMI audition.

At the artist test on 6 June 1962, with Pete Best on drums, the Beatles cut four songs — “Besame Mucho” and three originals, “Love Me Do”, “P.S. I Love You” and “Ask Me Why”. It was Love Me Do that earned them their contract: “It was during ‘Love Me Do’ that Norman Smith pricked up his ears,” and the engineer sent for George Martin, who came up from the canteen and took over the session (Lewisohn p. 17). That tape did not survive. Because nothing from the test was to be issued, “the tapes – two quarter-inch reels – were destroyed”; only “Besame Mucho” lived on, recovered from a private reel in the early 1980s (Lewisohn p. 17). The Pete Best Love Me Do is gone.

The version that became the first single was taped on 4 September 1962, Ringo Starr’s first Beatles session, with George Martin producing and Norman Smith engineering. McCartney later framed the song simply — “‘Love Me Do’ was us trying to do the blues” (Lewisohn p. 7) — which is why John’s harmonica sits so far forward. The group “first concentrat[ed] on the rhythm (backing) track. This took 15 takes to get right. Then the vocals were superimposed” (Lewisohn p. 18) — and Kehew & Ryan confirm the recording was made “solely to mono”, with handclaps dropped into the middle-eight during the vocal pass (K/R p. 350). But the drumming was not thought good enough: “I’ve a feeling that Paul wasn’t too happy with Ringo’s drumming… there was a fair bit of editing to be done,” Norman Smith recalled (Lewisohn p. 18).

So a week later, on 11 September 1962, Ron Richards — producing in Martin’s absence — booked the session drummer Andy White: “We weren’t happy with the drum sound on the original ‘Love Me Do’, so I booked Andy White for the re-make” (Lewisohn p. 20). White drummed; Ringo, displaced on only his second session, was handed a tambourine. “Ringo didn’t play drums at all that evening… on ‘Love Me Do’ he played the tambourine” (Lewisohn p. 20). That tambourine is the single most useful fact in the whole story: “The one without the tambourine is from 4 September, the one with is 11 September” (Lewisohn p. 20).

Here is the twist that catches out even careful listeners. The original single (Parlophone 45-R 4949, 5 October 1962) carried the 4 September Ringo version. The album — and every single pressing from 1963 onward — carried the 11 September Andy White version. As Lewisohn puts it: “Copies pressed before then featured the 4 September version of ‘Love Me Do’, Ringo on drums… But later copies, and those available today, feature the Andy White version, from 11 September. The swap took place at the time of the EP release The Beatles’ Hits… To ensure this, the master tape of Ringo’s version was destroyed” (Lewisohn p. 22). Two of the three Love Me Dos no longer exist as masters; and the most famous drummer in the world is, on the most familiar pressing, playing tambourine.

Documented mix variants (4 mix lineages)

• 6 June 1962 artist test — Pete Best on drums — recorded, destroyed, no longer exists — Cut at the EMI audition alongside “Besame Mucho”, “P.S. I Love You” and “Ask Me Why”; the take that made Norman Smith fetch George Martin from the canteen (Lewisohn p. 17). When it was clear nothing from the session would be issued, “the tapes – two quarter-inch reels – were destroyed”; only “Besame Mucho” survived, on a private reel found in the early 1980s (Lewisohn p. 17). The only EMI Love Me Do with Pete Best — lost.
• 4 September 1962 mono — Ringo Starr on drums — the original single (Parlophone 45-R 4949, 5 October 1962) — Backing first (“15 takes to get right”), then superimposed vocals (Lewisohn p. 18); recorded “solely to mono” (K/R p. 350). This Ringo take is on the pre-1963 single pressings — the one without the tambourine. Its master tape was later destroyed when the single was standardised on the White version (Lewisohn p. 22). Kehew & Ryan note the single was “the version with Ringo on drums, after all” (K/R p. 350). A documented curiosity rides on this pressing: the 250 advance copies sent to radio and press “carried a mis-spelling, corrected before regular copies were made, showing McArtney instead of McCartney” (Lewisohn p. 22).
• 11 September 1962 mono re-make — Andy White on drums, Ringo on tambourine — takes 1–18 — the album and the post-1963 single — Ron Richards booked White because “we weren’t happy with the drum sound on the original” (Lewisohn p. 20); again recorded to mono (K/R p. 350). The version with the tambourine, it appeared on the EP The Beatles’ Hits, on the Please Please Me LP, and on all single pressings from 1963 (Lewisohn p. 22). Geoff Emerick: the White take “ended up being the ‘official’ single and album version for many years,” the Ringo rendition surfacing only on a few early singles and, decades later, on the Rarities, Past Masters and Anthology reissues (Emerick 2006).
• 25 February 1963 LP “stereo” — derived from the 11 September mono remix, not a true stereo — When the stereo Please Please Me LP was assembled, Love Me Do’s “stereo” was mixed “from 11 September 1962 mono remix” (Lewisohn p. 28) — i.e. the mono recording placed into the stereo master, because the 1962 sessions had been taped to mono only (K/R p. 350). It sits on side two of the mono PMC 1201 / stereo PCS 3042 LP (Lewisohn p. 32). There is no genuine stereo Love Me Do from 1962.
• The 1962 single (Ringo) version on Past Masters / Mono Masters — the original 5 October 1962 single (Parlophone 45-R 4949) carried Ringo’s version, which the album replaced with the Andy White take; the Ringo single version is collected on Past Masters, Volume One (1988) and, in mono, on Mono Masters (2009). Per §1 less-specific-when-uncertain, this reissue post-dates the Lewisohn 1988 / Kehew & Ryan 2006 primary-source canon and is documented in official Apple/EMI release metadata.
• 1987 mono CD — Please Please Me (Parlophone CDP 7 46435 2, mono) — the album’s first compact-disc issue was mono-only; Lewisohn catalogues it as “CDP 7 46435 2 (mono compact disc)” (Lewisohn p. 200) — the first four Beatles albums were issued on CD in mono.
• 2009 stereo remaster — Please Please Me (9 September 2009, Apple/EMI) — a 24-bit Abbey Road remaster of the 1963 stereo master (Allan Rouse project-coordinated; Guy Massey / Steve Rooke / Sean Magee), with no remixing. Per §1 less-specific-when-uncertain, this reissue post-dates the Lewisohn 1988 / Kehew & Ryan 2006 primary-source canon and is documented in official Apple/EMI release metadata.
• 2009 mono remaster — The Beatles in Mono (9 September 2009, Apple/EMI) — the 1963 mono master remastered for the mono box set. Same §1 caveat.
• 2014 mono vinyl — The Beatles in Mono vinyl box (2014, Apple/UMe) — an all-analogue vinyl cut from the 1963 mono master. Same §1 caveat.

Recording techniques (10 bullets, primary-source-verified)

• Rhythm track first, vocals superimposed — The 1962 method, named for this very song: “first concentrating on the rhythm (backing) track. This took 15 takes… Then the vocals were superimposed” (Lewisohn p. 18). Kehew & Ryan describe the same routine and cite Love Me Do directly as the example — “concentrating first on the recording of a suitable rhythm track before overdubbing vocals (as had been done with ‘Love Me Do’ in 1962)” (K/R p. 359).
• Recorded solely to mono — Both the 4 and 11 September sessions went straight to mono (K/R p. 350); “all songs during this period were recorded to either Twin-Track tape or straight to mono” (K/R p. 351). This is the technical reason there is no real stereo of the song.
• Handclaps flown into the middle-eight — During the vocal-superimposition pass on 4 September, “the group also added handclaps to the middle-eights of both songs” (Love Me Do and “How Do You Do It”) (K/R p. 350).
• The makeshift bass rig born at the audition — Paul’s amp was so noisy at the 6 June test that Ken Townsend soldered a ¼″ jack onto a spare Leak Point One preamp, fed it through a Leak TL12 amplifier and a Tannoy speaker, and “the troublesome distortion and rattling were eliminated”; the lash-up “performed quite admirably as a bass rig — so well… that the Beatles would use it repeatedly in sessions through much of 1962 and ’63” (K/R p. 348; Lewisohn p. 17). It is the bass sound on these Love Me Do takes.
• Why Paul sings the title hook — John could not sing “Love me do” and answer it on harmonica at the same instant. As McCartney recalled, Martin spotted the collision: “there’s a crossover there. Someone else has got to sing ‘Love Me Do’ because you can’t go ‘Love Me waahhh’… So, Paul, will you sing ‘Love Me Do’!” (Lewisohn p. 6). The harmonica answer and the lead vocal were split between two people to keep both alive.
• The 1962 Studio Two signal chain — The valve REDD.37 console (eight inputs, four outputs, two echo sends and returns, expandable to ten inputs), a pair of EMI RS124 compressors on Main Channels I–II, a pair of RS114 limiters on III–IV, and Altec 605A monitors driven by repackaged Leak TL-25 (RS141) amplifiers (K/R pp. 350–351). This is the desk that printed every surviving Love Me Do master.
• “Twin-Track” existed — but this song went to mono — By swapping its headstack, the stereo BTR3 machine could become a “Twin-Track” BTR3, “the format preferred by George Martin for most of the Beatles’ work during this period” (K/R p. 351). Love Me Do, however, was committed straight to mono (K/R p. 350) — which is exactly why the LP “stereo” later had to be lifted from the mono remix.
• Two drummers, one tambourine — the identifying tell — “The one without the tambourine is from 4 September [Ringo on drums], the one with is 11 September [Andy White on drums, Ringo on tambourine]” (Lewisohn p. 20). Geoff Emerick agrees it is the quickest way to tell the two apart (Emerick 2006).
• The 1963 version swap and the destroyed master — The single’s content was changed at the time of the EP The Beatles’ Hits; future pressings standardised on the Andy White take, and “to ensure this, the master tape of Ringo’s version was destroyed” (Lewisohn p. 22). A deliberate act of catalogue housekeeping erased one of the three recordings.
• A debut that “rose to 17” — Love Me Do “rose to 17 in the charts, a healthy debut” (Lewisohn p. 22) — Kehew & Ryan record the same number-17 placing (K/R p. 351) — amid lasting speculation that Brian Epstein bought in some 10,000 copies, which he denied but associates later thought likely (Lewisohn p. 22).

UK number 17 — modest but the foundation. Re-released in 1982 to mark the 20th anniversary; became UK number four. The song is the official starting point of the Beatles' recording career and the harmonica hook the first identifiable Beatle musical signature. Love Me Do ranks second in Lewisohn's coverage (35 pages of reference across the Complete Sessions), and remains one of only six Beatles songs featuring dual lead vocals with the same pair of singers. At 2m 22s, its duration sits at the 38th percentile of the canon, shorter than the era median but characteristic of beat-era pop singles. Despite modest chart performance in the UK (17 weeks on the chart, peaking at No.1 on the NME chart), it became the cultural marker of the group's debut and was later adopted as the closing track on the Please Please Me album (Lewisohn 1988, p.32).

Other recordings sharing era, vocalist, writer, key, studio, or producer with this one. Higher scores indicate stronger overlap on documented attributes.

• A Hard Day's Night (score 13)
• I Want to Hold Your Hand (score 13)
• She Loves You (score 13)
• Baby's in Black (score 11)
• Eight Days a Week (score 11)
• From Me to You (score 11)
• I'll Get You (score 11)
• If I Fell (score 11)