Twist and Shout

"Twist and Shout" is a 1961 song written by Phil Medley and Bert Berns. It was originally recorded by The Top Notes, but it did not become a hit in the record charts until it was reworked by the Isley Brothers for their album Twist & Shout in 1962. The song has been covered by several artists, including the Beatles, Salt-N-Pepa, and Chaka Demus & Pliers, who experienced chart success with their versions. [Wikipedia]

Twist and Shout is a song by The Beatles, written by Medley–Russell and led on vocal by John Lennon. Album closer; cut last in one take with John's voice shredded by a cold. Within the catalogue, its cover thread connects it to Anna (Go to Him), Chains, Boys; its one-take thread connects it to Rock and Roll Music, Long Tall Sally; its vocal-shred thread connects it to Oh! Darling. Originally recorded by The Top Notes and a hit for Joey Dee and the Starliters in 1962, 'Twist and Shout' was recorded 11 February 1963 with John Lennon providing a raw, high-energy vocal that captured the song's rhythm-and-blues origins. The track's immediacy and Lennon's shouted phrasing became one of the group's most recognizable concert performances, establishing the song as a centerpiece of early Beatlemania live shows (Lewisohn 1988, p.27).

The session work falls within the band's Beatlemania (1962–1964) period, recorded 11 Feb 1963 at EMI Studios, Abbey Road. George Martin produced; Norman Smith engineered. For session-by-session detail, see Mark Lewisohn's account on p.11 of The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions (excerpt below). Take 1 was selected for the album, a rarity suggesting either a first-take performance of exceptional quality or the decision to preserve the energy of an unrehearsed, spontaneous studio approach. John Lennon's vocal, delivered at full volume in the studio, likely strained his voice for subsequent takes; the decision to use the first attempt may reflect pragmatic engineering rather than accidental excellence. George Martin's sparse arrangement kept focus on the vocal and tight four-piece backing (Lewisohn 1988, p.27).

Almost everything remarkable about Twist and Shout follows from one scheduling decision: it was cut last, as the very final act of the marathon 11 February 1963 session that produced the whole of the Please Please Me album in a single day. Only two sessions had originally been booked; a third, 7.30–10.45pm, was added on the day, and George Martin had calculated that — “provided their voices could hold out” — the group could just about record ten tracks in under ten hours (Lewisohn p. 24). They did. “There can scarcely have been 585 more productive minutes in the history of recorded music,” Lewisohn writes of the day’s three booked sessions (Lewisohn p. 24) — but the voices very nearly did not hold out, and the cost was paid almost entirely by John Lennon’s, on this one song.

The group had worked up and down the country through one of the coldest British winters on record, and Lennon had a particularly heavy cold, audible in his between-takes chatter on the session tapes (Lewisohn p. 24). A glass jar of Zubes throat sweets sat on the Studio Two piano beside a carton of Peter Stuyvesant cigarettes the group smoked incessantly (Lewisohn p. 24). By about 10pm the studio was due to close, but one song remained. Over coffee and biscuits in the canteen the Beatles argued over what to attempt; “someone suggested they do ‘Twist And Shout’, the old Isley Brothers’ number, with John taking the lead vocal,” Norman Smith recalled, “but by this time all their throats were tired and sore — it was 12 hours since we had started working. John’s, in particular, was almost completely gone so we really had to get it right first time” (Lewisohn p. 26). Lennon sucked a couple more Zubes, gargled with milk, and they went for it.

“What John sang on that first take is what you hear today on record,” Lewisohn writes, “arguably the most stunning rock and roll vocal and instrumental performance of all time; two-and-a-half minutes of Lennon shredding his vocal cords to bits, audibly ending with a hefty sigh cum groan of relief” (Lewisohn p. 26). Cris Neal, who had slipped into the high Studio Two control room — reached by climbing twenty wooden stairs — remembered that “John was stripped to the waist to do this most amazingly raucous vocal” (Lewisohn p. 26). Second engineer Richard Langham was “ready to jump up and down,” and George Martin was heard to say, “I don’t know how they do it. We’ve been recording all day but the longer we go on the better they get” (Lewisohn p. 26). It was gone 10.30pm, and the Beatles had finished their first album.

The lasting legend — that the song exists in a single, miraculous one-shot take — is half right, and Lewisohn is careful to correct it. “Popular myth has the Beatles performing only one take of the song,” he writes, “but infallible studio documentation — written simultaneously to the event — proves that this is not so. They did two, and the second one was complete, not a false start or a breakdown” (Lewisohn p. 26). George Martin concurs: “I did try a second take of ‘Twist And Shout’ but John’s voice had gone” (Lewisohn p. 26). So there are two documented takes, not one; take one is the released master, take two a complete but vocally spent attempt that confirmed there would be no third.

The tape itself records the haste. Kehew & Ryan note that while most of the Please Please Me tracks were captured simultaneously to both a Twin-Track machine and a separate mono (“Delta-Mono”) machine, “a separate ‘Twist and Shout’ was recorded only to Twin-Track and not Delta-Mono” — which, they reason, suggests the producer and engineer were “too pressed for time at the end of the session to bother with the Delta-Mono mix, or that they assumed they would have to add to the song or re-record the vocal” (K/R p. 368). Because the vocal was sung live with the band rather than overdubbed, its track carries audible room leakage; Kehew & Ryan single out “the vocal track of ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ or ‘Twist and Shout’” as a textbook example of such bleed (K/R p. 360). The song was never re-mixed: from that one Twin-Track tape, mono and stereo masters were prepared on 25 February 1963, both from take one (Lewisohn p. 28). It closes the Please Please Me album and, that July, lent its name to a chart-topping UK EP; in the United States it circulated on Vee-Jay, Tollie and Capitol releases. Every later issue — the 1987 mono CD, the 2009 stereo and mono remasters, the 2014 mono vinyl — descends from those same 1963 masters, never a new mix.

Documented mix variants

• 11 February 1963 — recording, takes 1–2 (take 1 the master), Studio Two, 7.30–10.45pm — the third and final session of the album marathon; P: George Martin, E: Norman Smith, 2E: Richard Langham (Lewisohn p. 24). Take one is the released performance; take two was complete “not a false start or a breakdown” but vocally spent — “I did try a second take… but John’s voice had gone” (George Martin, Lewisohn p. 26). Uniquely among the day’s songs it was “recorded only to Twin-Track and not Delta-Mono” (K/R p. 368).
• 25 February 1963 — mono remix (from take 1) — the released UK mono master — Studio One control room, 10.00am–1.00pm; P: George Martin, E: Norman Smith (Lewisohn p. 28). The source of every mono issue of the song.
• 25 February 1963 — stereo remix (from take 1) — the released UK stereo master — Studio One control room, same session (Lewisohn p. 28). Mixed from the single Twin-Track tape — music on one side, vocals on the other. With no alternate studio take in circulation, every commercial version descends from take one.
• 1963 UK mono LP — Please Please Me (22 March 1963, Parlophone PMC 1202; side-two closer) — carries the 25 February mono master; the album was “first issued 22 March 1963… Parlophone PMC 1202 (mono LP)” (Lewisohn p. 200, discography).
• 1963 UK stereo LP — Please Please Me (Parlophone PCS 3042; side-two closer) — carries the 25 February stereo master (Lewisohn p. 200).
• 1963 UK EP — Twist and Shout (12 July 1963, Parlophone GEP 8882, mono; A-side track 1) — the song lent its name to a four-track EP led by “Twist And Shout” / “A Taste Of Honey,” carrying the 1963 mono master; “first issued 12 July 1963… Parlophone GEP 8882 (mono)” (Lewisohn p. 200).
• US releases (1964–65) — Vee-Jay / Tollie / Capitol (US market, noted explicitly as outside the UK canon) — in America the track appeared on Vee-Jay’s Introducing… The Beatles and as a Tollie single, and later on Capitol’s The Early Beatles (“first issued 22 March 1965… Capitol T-2309 (mono LP)/ST-2309 (stereo LP),” Lewisohn p. 201). Per §1 less-specific-when-uncertain, the mounted sources do not detail the US disc-cutting chain; the US pressings derive from copy tapes of the 1963 masters.
• 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 digital debut of Twist and Shout therefore carried the 1963 mono mix, not a stereo — 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 — the take-1 performance and its 25 February stereo fold unchanged. 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 rather than in the Tier-1 sources.
• 2009 mono remaster — The Beatles in Mono (9 September 2009, Apple/EMI) — the 1963 mono master remastered for the mono box set, again without remixing. Same §1 caveat (outside the Tier-1 canon; Apple/EMI release metadata).
• 2014 mono vinyl — The Beatles in Mono vinyl box (2014, Apple/UMe) — an all-analogue vinyl cut taken from the 1963 mono master. Same §1 caveat. (The later reissues are remasters of the 1963 mono and stereo masters, not new mixes.)

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

• Cut last, in one usable take — central editorial spine (Lewisohn p. 26) — left to the very end of the twelve-hour day because everyone knew the vocal would wreck Lennon’s already failing voice: “all their throats were tired and sore… John’s, in particular, was almost completely gone so we really had to get it right first time” (Norman Smith, Lewisohn p. 26). Lennon “sucked a couple more Zubes, had a bit of a gargle with milk and away we went” (Lewisohn p. 26).
• Two takes, not one — the documented record corrects the myth (Lewisohn p. 26) — “Popular myth has the Beatles performing only one take of the song, but infallible studio documentation… proves that this is not so. They did two, and the second one was complete, not a false start or a breakdown” (Lewisohn p. 26). Take two failed not for a flubbed note but because “John’s voice had gone” (George Martin, Lewisohn p. 26); take one is the keeper.
• A live vocal, audible in the leakage (K/R p. 360) — because Lennon sang with the band in the room rather than overdubbing later, his vocal track carries ambient drum and guitar bleed; Kehew & Ryan cite “the vocal track of ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ or ‘Twist and Shout’” as the example of such leakage (K/R p. 360) — engineering evidence that the famous scream was a genuine live performance.
• Recorded only to Twin-Track, not Delta-Mono (K/R p. 368) — most Please Please Me tracks were taped simultaneously to a Twin-Track machine and a separate mono machine, but “a separate ‘Twist and Shout’ was recorded only to Twin-Track and not Delta-Mono” — suggesting the team were “too pressed for time at the end of the session to bother with the Delta-Mono mix, or that they assumed they would have to add to the song or re-record the vocal” (K/R p. 368). By contrast, the earlier ‘Misery’ went to both machines.
• Twin-Track working on a converted BTR3 (K/R p. 351) — the song predates four-track at Abbey Road; it was cut two-track. “By changing its headstack, the stereo BTR3 machine could be converted into a ‘Twin-Track’ BTR3, the format preferred by George Martin for most of the Beatles’ work during this period” (K/R p. 351) — backing on one track, vocals on the other.
• The RS114 valve limiter on the vocal (K/R p. 141) — “Norman Smith made extensive use of the RS114 limiter on the Beatles’ early albums and singles,” and Kehew & Ryan name “the vocals on ‘She Loves You’, ‘Twist and Shout’, ‘And I Love Her’, ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’” among its results (K/R p. 141). The unit was notoriously temperamental — “five balancing adjustments to make, and fourteen valve readings to verify” before use (K/R p. 141).
• One take, two masters — mono and stereo from a single source (Lewisohn p. 28) — both the mono and stereo masters were mixed on 25 February 1963 from take one (Lewisohn p. 28). There is no studio remake and no later remix: every commercial issue — the 1963 LP and EP, the 1987 mono CD, the 2009 stereo and mono remasters, the 2014 mono vinyl — is a master or remaster of that one take-1 performance, never a new mix.
• 585 productive minutes — the marathon context (Lewisohn p. 24) — the album’s three booked sessions (10.00–1.00, 2.30–6.00, 7.30–10.45) yielded all ten new songs for the first LP; “there can scarcely have been 585 more productive minutes in the history of recorded music” (Lewisohn p. 24). Twist and Shout was the final deposit of that day’s account.
• “Stripped to the waist” — the room’s reaction (Lewisohn p. 26) — observer Cris Neal recalled Lennon “stripped to the waist to do this most amazingly raucous vocal”; Richard Langham was “ready to jump up and down,” and George Martin marvelled, “the longer we go on the better they get” (Lewisohn p. 26). The high Studio Two control room overlooking the floor was reached “by climbing 20 wooden stairs” (Lewisohn p. 26).
• Album closer — placement as design (Lewisohn pp. 24/28) — sequenced last on Please Please Me, the side-two finale mirrors its session role: the most physically extreme performance of the day placed at the album’s climax. The song later titled a chart-topping UK EP; in the United States it circulated as a separate single (US releases noted explicitly as outside the UK canon).

In the canonical discography it appears on the LP Please Please Me; on the EP Twist and Shout. Documented alternate versions include Anthology 1 (1995). Mono and stereo histories vary by era — see the dedicated section below. John Lennon lead vocals appear in 73 canon songs (26 in Beatlemania), making this among his most vigorous vocal performances. As the Please Please Me album closer and a concert staple, Twist and Shout became synonymous with Beatles energy and Beatlemania excess, later covered by numerous artists seeking to capture the group's raw appeal (Lewisohn 1988, p.27).

• Grammy Hall of Fame: in 2010

Recognition mentions extracted from the Wikipedia article. Verify against the linked source before quoting.

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

• Anna (Go to Him) (score 10)
• Any Time at All (score 10)
• Tell Me Why (score 10)
• All I've Got to Do (score 8)
• Ask Me Why (score 8)
• Baby It's You (score 8)
• Every Little Thing (score 8)
• I Call Your Name (score 8)