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Songs > Love Me Do

Love Me Do

(Lennon/McCartney)

Song background
Love Me Do was up against Mitch Murray's "How Do You Do It" in contention for The Beatles' first single. It is notorious for being recorded three times, two of those versions being used for commercial release (and the third later cropping up on Anthology 1). It is also notorious for featuring a non-Beatle on drums on one of those versions. According to Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn, the song was recorded on September 4, 1962, with Ringo Starr on drums - this version being the one used on the single. The song was then re-recorded on September 11 with session drummer Andy White, who was booked by session manager Ron Richards as Richards had worked with him before. The dissatisfaction may have been because Starr's drumming technique was based more on the emerging "looser" R&B style and not the traditional, "tighter" method expected by record producers at the time. In any case, it was not abnormal for recordings to feature session drummers using this "tighter" method and the band's "real" drummer perform for live concerts.

George Martin's recollection of the events which unfolded are different from the "official" account provided by Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn; after the audition recorded with Pete Best, he told Brian Epstein, "I don't care what you do with Pete Best; but he's not playing on any more recording sessions. I'm getting a session drummer in." According to Martin, the next recording session was the one in which Andy White performed and he had been booked because Martin did not know Best had been fired from the group. Since he was unfamiliar with Starr and didn't know if he was any better than Best he kept White for the session rather than waste the session that White was already being paid for, and Starr was relegated to tambourine. Martin further claims that according to his diaries he was not present for a session on September 11. Over the years, Martin has stressed that the use of Andy White was not intended in any way as a slight against Ringo.

Recording dates

  • June 6,1962 (Unknown number of takes; likely an artist test, mixing)
  • September 4, 1962 (15 takes, mono mix created from unknown take number)
  • September 11, 1962 (mixing)
  • February 25, 1963 (mixing)

Release dates

Recording notes

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Chart performance

  • #1, April 27 (1 week), Billboard (US)

Quotes

  • "Paul wrote the main structure of this when he was sixteen, or even earlier. I think I had something to do with the middle." - John Lennon, 1972
  • "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!" - Ringo Starr, 1976
  • "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." - Paul McCartney, 1982

Awards

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Other notes

  • Brian Epstein was rumored to have bought 10,000 copies of the single in an effort to boost it's chart performance, but this has never been verified and was refuted by John Lennon.
  • The master tape to the September 4th version (the "single" version with Ringo on drums) was wiped, and no master tapes of the track exist as standard procedure was to erase the session tape once it had been mixed down for pressing. However, that master has also been lost, possibly because EMI saw no reason to keep the track once the song had been re-recorded with Andy White on September 11. For the next release on which the song appeared - the Capitol Rarities LP - a 45 from EMI's archives was used. Years later a new master was created from a 45 provided by a private collector.

Notable covers

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