While this is definitely a song by John, the earliest evidence suggests that he also worked on the music with Paul.
Ask Me Why — (Lennon-McCartney)
(lead vocal: John) (recorded on November 26, 1962)
This was another song begun by John, and finished with collaboration, perhaps as early as 1960. [45] The evidence for authorship is flatly contradictory. John, in 1971, claimed complete responsibility for the song (“I wrote all of that . . . I wrote it.”). [46] Paul, in 1962, apparently wrote, “John did write Ask Me Why.” [47]
However, in 1995, Paul ascribed the genesis of the song to John, but also remembered a collaboration session: “It was John’s original idea and we both sat down and wrote it together, just did a job on it. It was mostly John’s.” [48] I lean toward viewing this as John’s song with minor collaboration following. In the early Beatles period, collaboration is often the norm.
“Misery / Shut The Door” single, by Kenny Lynch, March 15, 1963
Misery — (Lennon-McCartney)
This has historical interest, as the first cover of a Beatle song ever released. For full treatment of the song, see Please Please Me album, below.
Shut The Door (Kenny Lynch)
Please Please Me album, March 22, 1963
The first Beatles album was revolutionary in many ways. Remarkably enough, it was mostly recorded in one day. In 1965, Norman Smith, the engineer at Abbey Road, said that the recording session was “A tremendous day’s recording . . . an all-time record for the Beatles. We did thirteen titles in ten hours — all for the first LP. A day of musical excitement. Their voices must have been rasping.” [49]
It was in essence a live album, though recorded in the studio, as the group needed an album quickly so decided to simply perform some of the best songs from their live show. Paul said, in 1989, “We could have played that in Hamburg, or the Cavern. And we would have just done an hour’s show . . . of good numbers that people liked, not numbers that everyone had recorded, because of our policy of sort of looking for offbeat things.” [50]
Therefore, except for the songs from the two previous singles, all of it was recorded on February 11, 1963.
I Saw Her Standing There — (McCartney-Lennon)
(lead vocal: Paul)
Paul came up with the idea of this song, and its beginning, when he was driving home from a concert in Southport, about fifteen miles north of Liverpool. [51] “I did it going home in a car one night,” he said in 1965. [52] Thirty years later, he said that the song “was my original, I’d started it and I had the first verse, which therefore gave me the tune, the tempo, and the key. It gave you the subject matter, a lot of the information, and then you had to fill in.” [53] In 2000, he listed it as one of “my first songs.” [54]
After this car ride, Paul arrived in Hurricaneville, the house of Ma Storm, mother of Rory, leader of Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, whose drummer was one Ringo Starr. Paul grabbed a guitar, and started developing the song, as Rory watched. The next day, Paul and his then girlfriend Celia Mortimer hitchhiked to London to see his friend Ivan Vaughan, and Paul was “humming it and singing it and fleshing out the words” throughout the day. At one point, according to Mortimer, Paul asked, “‘What rhymes with “We danced through the night”?’ and I came up with ‘We held each other tight.’” [55] This is an early example of a friend who happened to be present during a Beatle song’s gestation helping to supply a line. Though Paul never said it explicitly, Mortimer felt the song was about them.
So he had the music, the main structure of the song, but when he sang it for John, his friend erupted in laughter at the second line of the song, “she’d never been a beauty queen.” [56] So Paul and John sat down and worked out a better line. “We eventually got ‘You know what I mean’, which means nothing. . . . completely nothing at all,” Paul said. [57] But at least, as Derek Taylor said, it wasn’t embarrassing. [58] Mike McCartney has a photo of a McCartney-Lennon work session on this song. [59]
When the Beatles started arranging the song, Paul appropriated the base line from Chuck Berry’s 1961 song “I’m Talking About You” for it. “I played exactly the same notes as he did and it fitted our number perfectly,” he said. [60] In 1990, he described the whole song as a nick of Berry’s song, another witness of Chuck Berry’s influence on him. [61]
So this is basically a song by Paul, finished with collaboration. It shows John polishing the lyrics of a song mostly by Paul, an important pattern. The evidence for this picture is not too problematic, though sometimes Paul or John would emphasize the beginning by Paul, or the collaboration. Often Paul emphasized the collaboration, while John emphasized Paul’s original authorship.
For example, in 1964, Paul said, “We spend a lot of time trying to write a real rocker. Something like “Long Tall Sally”. . . . “I Saw Her Standing There” was the nearest we got to it.” [62] “I wrote it with John in the front parlour of my house in 20 Forthlin Road, Allerton,” he said about twenty-five years later. He also remembered: “We sagged off school and wrote it on guitars and a little bit on the piano that I had there.” [63] And again, in 1995: “So it was co-written, my idea, and we finished it that day.” [64] In 2007, he emphasized the collaboration: “I have fond flashbacks of John writing — he’d scribble it down real quick, desperate to get back to the guitar. But I knew at that moment [that the beauty queen line was replaced] that this was going to be a good collaboration.” [65]
John, however, could say, in 1980, “That’s Paul — doing his usual good job of producing a good, as George Martin used to call them, ‘potboiler.’” [66] And in the same year, he asserted: “Paul’s song.” [67] But he did remember some collaboration: “I helped with a couple of the lyrics, a couple of lines here and there … I think he wrote the whole melody.” [68] This is precisely what happened, based on Paul’s 1965 memories of writing the song.
Misery — (collaboration)
(lead vocals: John, Paul)
In early 1963 the Beatles were preparing to go on tour with Helen Shapiro, a successful English pop singer, and her producer, the legendary Norrie Paramor, asked them to write a song for her. [69] Paul and John began writing “Misery” on January 26, 1963, “before a gig at the Kings Hall, Stoke-on-Trent,” Staffordshire, and finished it at the McCartney home at Forthlin Road. [70] Apparently, the Hollies helped brainstorm on some of the words — an early example of Paul and John turning to whatever friends happened to be around to finish lyrics. Allan Clarke, one of the Hollies, said, “It was just four guys together sitting in a room. John and Paul were plunking along writing this song and we helped with a couple of words.” [71]
Paramor turned down the song without even showing it to Helen Shapiro! But singer Kenny Lynch, also on the tour, recorded it, and his single (see above) appeared a week before the Beatles’ version on Please Please Me .
Both Paul and John agree that the song was co-written, but they disagree on the extent of collaboration, as John sometimes described it as a co-written song he had dominated, while Paul sometimes saw it as a more 50-50 song.
The earliest comment on the song, in 1963, describes the two Beatles hashing it out together. Journalist Alan Smith reported that Paul and John, “were composing a song for Helen to record when she goes to Nashville shortly. Said Paul: ‘We’ve called it ‘Misery’, . . . and we think Helen will make a pretty good job of it.” [72] Much later, in the mid nineties, Paul said, “We wrote it for Helen Shapiro because we were going on tour with her . . . being young lads with an eye for an opportunity. . . . It was co-written. I don’t think either of us dominated on that one.” [73] And in 1988, he said, “John and I were a songwriting team, and what songwriting teams did in those days was wrote for everyone. . . . ‘Misery’ was for Helen Shapiro.” [74]
John, in 1971, ascribed it to “Both of us,” but then added, “this was mainly mine, though, I think.” [75] However, he softened that in 1980, stating that “it was kind of a John song more than a Paul, but it was wri
tten together.” [76]
So we have a clear contradiction: John says “both of us” but “mainly mine” (adding “I think”); Paul says “It was co-written. I don’t think either of us dominated on that one.” I believe that the evidence clearly shows extensive collaboration. Then you have John tentatively claiming some domination, though Paul denies this.
Anna (Go to Him) (COVER) (Arthur Alexander)
(lead vocals: John)
This marvelous song was a 1962 single for rhythm and blues singer Arthur Alexander, a favorite of the Beatles. [77]
Chains (COVER) (Gerry Goffin, Carole King)
(lead vocals: George)
This was a hit for the Cookies, a rhythm and blues girl group, in 1962. Paul said that the Beatles had a “policy of sort of looking for offbeat things. Like George did ‘Chains.’” [78]
Boys (COVER) (Luther Dixon, Wes Farrell)
(lead vocals: Ringo)
This was a song by the Shirelles, another rhythm and blues girls group, the B-side of their famous “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” single, released in November 1960. Ringo used to sing this as far back as his years with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. [79] Paul said, “And Ringo used to sing ‘Boys,’ another Shirelles number. It was so innocent. We just never even thought, ‘Why is he singing about boys’? We loved the song.” [80]
Ask Me Why
(lead vocals: John)
See “Please Please Me” single, above.
Please Please Me
(lead vocals: John, Paul)
See “Please Please Me” single, above.
SIDE TWO
Love Me Do
(lead vocals: Paul, John)
See “Love Me Do” single, above.
P.S. I Love You
(lead vocals: Paul)
See “Love Me Do” single, above.
Baby It’s You (COVER) (Burt Bacharach, Luther Dixon (credited as Barney Williams), Mack David)
(lead vocals: John)
Another Shirelles record, which had been released in 1961.
Do You Want to Know a Secret — (Lennon-McCartney)
(lead vocals: George)
John’s mother would sing him “I’m Wishing” from Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves when he was little, and this song led him to write “Do You Want to Know a Secret.” He said the song “was from a Disney movie — [singing ] “Want to know a secret? Promise not to tell. You’re standing by a wishing well.” [81] It was written very soon after John’s marriage to Cynthia Powell on August 23, 1962. After he got the beginnings of the song, it was finished with collaboration.
Once again, John and Paul disagreed on the exact details of how this song was written. John claimed it in 1971: “Me — I wrote this for George.” And at about the same time, he asserted, “I wrote this one.” [82] Paul agreed that the song started with John, but remembered collaboration. In 1995, Miles wrote that “Based on an original idea by John, it was essentially what Paul calls a ‘hack song’, a 50-50 collaboration written to order.” [83] Paul also described the songwriting as collaborative in 1984 and 2000. [84]
John probably wrote the beginnings of the song, then there was collaboration, a typical pattern for the early Beatles.
A Taste of Honey (COVER) (Bobby Scott, Ric Marlow)
(lead vocals: Paul)
This song was originally used as an instrumental for the Broadway play A Taste of Honey , in 1960, and Bobby Scott released it on his album of the same name that year. The Beatles followed Lenny Welch’s 1962 vocal version of it. [85]
There’s a Place — (collaboration)
(lead vocals: John and Paul)
Just as “Do You Want to Know a Secret” came from a movie song, so did “There’s a Place,” according to Paul. He owned the record, West Side Story , that had “There’s a Place for Us” on it, which inspired the title. After Paul started on the song, it was finished in a songwriting session with John at Forthlin Road. [86]
Once again, there is contradictory evidence for authorship. John claimed the song in 1971, [87] and nine years later, he even pointed to typical Lennon ideas in the lyrics: “‘There’s a Place’ was my attempt at a sort of Motown, black thing,” he said. “But it says the usual Lennon things, ‘In my mind there’s no sorrow’ . . . It’s all in your mind.” [88] But according to Miles, it was “co-written, co-sung but with a bias towards being Paul’s original idea.” [89]
Despite the contradictory evidence, I believe the collaboration pattern is typical of the early Beatles, and Paul’s memories of starting the song from West Side Story are convincing.
Twist and Shout (COVER) (Phil Medley, Bert Russell Berns) (credited as Medley-Russell)
(lead vocals: John )
This was first recorded (as “Shake It Up Baby”) by the Top Notes in 1961, but the Beatles followed the Isley Brothers’ classic 1962 version. John’s epic vocal performance for this has become legendary. After the Beatles’ twelve-hour recording marathon for Please Please Me , Norman Smith remembers, “John suddenly thought of ‘Twist and Shout’ and said he wanted to do it. We felt sure his voice would never stand it. But it was done in one ‘take.’ No over-dubbing. Just one straight take.” [90]
This is an example of a cover that John and the Beatles and George Martin took possession of so thoroughly that they virtually recreated the song. It almost raises the question of whether a major reinterpreter of a song should get co-writing credit. In addition, by including a cover on a Beatle album, the group made the song part of a long-form work of Beatle art.
* * *
[1] Sting, Broken Music: A Memoir , 80.
[2] Lennon, in Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror. Miles, Many Years from Now , 37. See also p. 83, for the story of how the Beatles recorded “Love Me Do” as their first single, instead of George Martin’s choice, the cover “How Do You Do It.”
[3] Pete Best has different memories: “The number was conceived in the course of one afternoon in our flat opposite the club.” Beatle! The Pete Best Story (1985), 155-56.
[4] Read, “McCartney on McCartney,” episode 1.
[5] “The Paul McCartney Interview,” (1988), 7.
[6] Garbarani, “Paul McCartney: Lifting the Veil,” (1980), p. 49: “When we started with the Beatles, John and I sat down and wrote about fifty songs, out of which I think ‘Love Me Do’ is the only one that got published.”
[7] Anthology , 68.
[8] Aldridge, “Beatles Not All That Turned On,” 143.
[9] McCartney, Letter to John on John’s Induction (1994). Miles, Many Years From Now , 91.
[10] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror.
[11] Anthology , 68.
[12] Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 23.
[13] For form in Beatles songs, see Everett II, 15-16; Covach, “From ‘Craft’ to ‘Art’”; Fitzgerald, “Lennon‐ McCartney and the “Middle Eight.” Fitzgerald emphasizes that the Beatles often used the AABA form (in which B is the “middle eight,” an extended middle section) typical of many Tin Pan Alley songs, rather than “verse-chorus” songs with added “middle eight” as a short bridge (C after repetitions of AB) leading from the chorus back to the main verse melody.
[14] Wyndham, “Paul McCartney As Songwriter.”
[15] Lydon, Flashbacks: Eyewitness Accounts of the Rock Revolution , 12.
[16] Cott and Dalton, The Beatles Get Back , 85. A similar statement from Paul from the same period in Aldridge, Beatles Illustrated Lyrics, 92.
[17] Interview, June 1987, in deCurtis, In Other Words , 61.
[18] Read, “McCartney on McCartney,” episode 1. Cf. Garbarani, “Paul McCartney: Lifting the Veil,” (1980), 49.
[19] Miles, Many Years from Now , 36.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Anthology , 23.
[22] One of the Beatles’ friends, Bernie Boyle, remembers Paul and John working on this song together in Hamburg. Lewisohn, Tune In , extended, 2:1196.
[23] Pawlowski, How They Became the Beatles
, 74. They played four songs: “Besame Mucho,” “Love Me Do,” “P.S. I Love You,” and “Ask Me Why.” Only “Besame Mucho” and “Love Me Do” survive, and both appear on Anthology 1 .
[24] Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 178.
[25] Shea and Rodriguez, Fab Four FAQ , 362.
[26] Lewisohn, Tune In, extended, 2:1192-93.
[27] Miles, Many Years From Now , 90.
[28] Hennessey, “Who Wrote What,” Record Mirror.
[29] Lost Lennon Tapes, Oct. 21, 1991, cf. Sheff, The Playboy Interviews, 178.
[30] Miles, Many Years From Now , 38.
[31] Anthology , 94.
[32] Bernie Boyle, one of their early friends, also remembered Paul and John working on this in Hamburg. Lewisohn, Tune In , extended, 2:1196.
[33] Lost Lennon Tapes, Oct. 21, 1991, cf. The Playboy Interviews, 179.
[34] Lewisohn, Tune In , extended, 2:1235.
[35] Smith, “Beatles Almost Threw ‘Please Please Me’ Away.” Gambaccini, “The Rolling Stone Interview” (1973); Read, “McCartney on McCartney,” (1989), episode 2. Cf. Lewisohn, “The Paul McCartney Interview” (1988), 7; Miles, Many Years from Now (1995), 91-92. According to Martin, he “told them what beginning and what ending to put on it,” Martin, All You Need is Ears , 130. He also said that he demanded that they speed up the song. Irvin, “George Martin” (2007).
[36] Gambaccini, “The Rolling Stone Interview” (1973).
[37] Alan Smith, “At a Recording Session With the Beatles” (1963).
[38] Roberts, “How to Write a Hit,” 11.
Who Wrote the Beatle Songs Page 5
