It’s October 5th! This and the next few days are important ones in the fast-edit film that is the history of The Beatles. In 1969, on October 6th, the Beatles release George Harrison’s “Something” in the USA, (which is presumably also the start date of the urban myth that Frank Sinatra thought it was the greatest song Lennon and McCartney had ever written, which he didn’t). October 8th, was and remainsJohnLennon’s birthday, as it is his son Sean’s – and also the day in 1961 thatJohnand Paul McCartney, during a hitchhiking holiday, rocked up in Paris and received the “Beatle haircut” from their Hamburg buddy Jurgen Vollmer. On October 11thin 1965 Paul was present as Marianne Faithfull recorded one of the many, proliferating versions of his song “Yesterday”. On that same day in 1965, making the most of the prevailing “Yesterday”-mania in the USA, where it was released in September, Capitol records re-release several early Beatles singles on their budget label Star Line. Among them is their first, “Love Me Do”.
“Love Me Do”
It was 64 years ago today that The Beatles released their debut single. For many of their Hamburg contemporaries like Cliff Bennett or Tony Sheridan (with whom they made their first professional recording in 1960) “Love Me Do” was a surprisingly mellow affair: rather than the leather-clad rock ‘n’ roll they had played in Germany, it was a charming cousin of Bruce Chanel’s “Hey! Baby”, whose harmonica breakJohnLennon adapted for his own bluesy wail on the song – his favourite part of it.
If you were one of the very first people to buy the single, then you will have heard the version with Ringo Starr playing the drums, recorded just a few weeks earlier on September 4th. Later pressings of it relegated Starr to playing additional tambourine on a version recorded a week later on September 11th– with the estimable session drummer Andy White at the kit. If you want to hear an alternative version of Beatles history, then head to//Anthology1// where you can hear the audition version recorded by Pete Best on June 4th, alongside “PS I Love You” and live set stalwart “Besame Mucho”.
“Lucille”
Exactly two years previously (October 5th, 1960), The Beatles were youths moving into the Hamburg big time. From their initial gig at the Indra club, they had just moved to a spot supporting Rory Storm and the Hurricanes (featuring drummer Ringo Starr) at the fractionally more salubrious Kaiserkeller, where, having been encouraged to “mach schau” and generally liven up their presentation of rock ‘n’ roll cover versions, they were first witnessed by their lifelong friend Klaus Voormann.
One such cover was “Lucille”, which testified to (especially) Paul McCartney’s adoration of Little Richard, and to foundational rock ‘n’ roll. It wasn’t a passing phase: “I’m Down”, as uproariously played at Shea Stadium in 1965, withJohnLennon playing the Vox organ with his elbows, is one such attempt to write a Little Richard number. Rock covers were in the Beatle muscle memory, and provided a raucous change of pace for their engagements. Duly, if you tuned into Saturday Club on October 5th1963, precisely one year after the release of “Love Me Do”, you could have heard Brian Matthew introduce a performance of “Lucille” – albeit preferring to credit it as honouring the boys’ love of the Everly Brothers, whose version with laser-tuned harmonies is also excellent.
“Eight Days A Week”
On October 6th1962, a day after the release of “Love Me Do”, The Beatles entered the glamour of pop star life signing autographs at Dawson’s Music shop in Widnes – the first of only four occasions where they convened a special signing session.
Two years later, October 6th1964, they attempted a more radical first: going into the studio to a record a new song, “Eight Days A Week”. Nothing especially remarkable about that, you might think – except that on this occasion, the song wasn’t completely finished, and as such tacitly helped evolve the business of making records from a documentary recording of a “broadcast” (as George Martin called the making of their debut albumPleasePlease Me) to something a bit more experimental.
BeatlesFor Sale, since it features some cover versions rather than all-new Lennon-McCartney compositions, is sometimes held to be a disappointing step back. The originals which make it on there (as well as this, hear also “I’m A Loser”, and the underrated “Every Little Thing”, later spectacularly covered on the debut Yes album) show that wasn’t really the case at all. As ever it’s also worth a trip on over to//Anthology1// to hear how the far the final song, with its groovy Rickenbacker fade in, began life as the close harmony acoustic guitar track that the band went into the studio to try and resolve.
Singing harmony in the British autumn presented challenges to the vitamin C-deprived rock ‘n’ roller. “Snotty,” saysJohnLennon at one point, thinking no-one much was listening.
“Long, Long, Long”
PerhapsJohnalso had a cold when the remaining Beatles went into EMI studios to work on a George composition on October 7th1968.Earlier in the year the tape was running to capture a crisp exchange between the pair in the run-up to a take of “Sexy Sadie”, which then seemed to serve to put George in his place. Perhaps George’s ascendance as a songwriter was giving Lennon cause for concern at a time when he was more vulnerable?
Whatever, George certainly doesn’t seem troubled by Lennon’s absence. In a buoyant mood, he praises aide-de-camp Mal Evans’s choice of “very Rishikesh” joss sticks (from, Mark Lewisohn reports, the Sri Satyanarayana Parimala Factory of Mysore, India) and tentatively launches into take 44 of one of his signature compositions.
23 takes later and what remains is a tender song, made all the more vivid for still sounding almost unfinished. The playing is informal and uncomplicated, the organ part and finally the song dissolving into a gentle outbreak of abstract noise. In an album not short of it, “Long Long Long” introduces a compelling mood of experimental melancholy.
“She Loves You”
On October 9th1963, the BBC broadcasts a short but spirited documentary calledTheMersey Sound, which we should all find and watch again. Don Haworth’s film has some great footage of a foot-tapping R&B performance by costumed rockers The Undertakers (featuring strong lead vocals from Apple signing Jackie Lomax) and Group One, an accomplished Shadows manqué, whose playing and pleasant but vibeless background interview serves to illustrate the revolution in manners which the Beatles are bringing about is still a work in progress.
A lot of things we know come from this programme. George’s jelly baby complaints. Paul’s modest hopes for a songwriting partnership delivering songs to other people once singing becomes impossible after the age of 40. “Mach Schau!”. Ringo’s wish to own a ladies hairdressing salon (“…a string of them”)…it’s all here.
Not only is this the first hint of the band’s honesty and ease in front of the camera (other interviewees talk very cagily about their part in pop music, as if they’re up in court on conspiracy charges), but it also allows us to see The Beatles playing “She Loves You” in front of a select crowd at the Little Theatre in Southport. It is, it’s fair to say, very well-received.
The following Sunday, Maurice Richardson reviews the film in his Observer TV column. In it, he coins a new word for the Beatles’ popularity. But more on that next week.