Tune In

by Mark Lewisohn

  The Cavern fuse-box always blew on such occasions—the only time Bob Wooler lost the power of speech. The hot crowd stood wedged in not-much emergency light but knew not to panic as there was only the one narrow doorway to the slippery staircase out. The Beatles had just left the stage when it happened; they’d worked their audience to a frenzy and were back in the bandroom with the numerous gifts brought by fans, including a cake several layers high baked by Lindy Ness, Lou Steen and their friend Susan Woolley. “John was made up,” Lindy noted in her diary, along with “Wrote the above in Paul’s house because we spent the night there.”

  It was all still innocent—and highly exciting. When they left the Cavern, George peeled off without the others, keen to test the bird-pulling appeal of his new Ford Anglia; Pete went out with his girlfriend Kathy; and John and Paul let Lindy and Lou return with them in Neil’s van to the south end of Liverpool. Instead of being dropped off home, the girls stayed with them, went to Paul’s house, and watched them write a song.

  “Please Please Me” was John’s baby, conceived inside the forty-eight hours they’d been home from London. It was fair to say that “Ask Me Why,” “Love Me Do” and “PS I Love You” hadn’t gone down brilliantly well at EMI—here was one they could play them next time. He’d remember how the words and tune came together in “the other bedroom in my auntie’s place at Menlove Avenue: I remember the day and the pink eiderdown on the bed.”2

  The motivation was EMI, the muse elsewhere. Lyrically, the spark came from a song called “Please,” a US number 1 for Bing Crosby eight years before John was born. He was intrigued by its opening wordplay—“Please, lend your little ear to my pleas”—and let it inspire his song’s title and recurring lyric. Musically, the primary influence on “Please Please Me” was Roy Orbison. John said he’d heard him “doing Only The Lonely or something”—but most likely he didn’t use any particular number for reference, just Orbison’s style and dramatic, octave-vaulting crescendos.3 It was a love song, but not the kind of “moon in June” treacle ladled over the charts through John’s life to date. This was a Liverpool-Lennon love song: beyond the politeness of the first word, he’s urging his girl to please him like he pleases her.*

  John always said the song was entirely his, and Paul confirms it, but still they were both involved. Late night on June 9, Lindy and Lou watched them refine it, seated side by side at Jim Mac’s upright piano in Paul’s front parlor. Lindy recalls them “mostly working on the chord changes, with a lot of joking and messing about.” The two 15-year-old girls stayed through the night (their mothers thought each was at the other’s house) and, later, dozed under the piano while Lennon-McCartney explored chords above their heads. “They asked us what we thought of it,” Lou remembers, “and we said it was great. It was certainly great to see them writing, and that they didn’t mind us being there—but they were always dead casual about things like that.”4

  “Please Please Me” wouldn’t emerge into daylight for a while, but a Lennon-McCartney song was broadcast on BBC radio for the first time six days later, making an initial strike on 1.8 million listeners. It was “Ask Me Why” and it opened the Beatles’ second Here We Go appearance, recorded in Manchester on June 11 for national broadcast on Friday the 15th. This time, in keeping with their daily stage repertoire, they went consciously for group projection—John took the first song, with harmonies by Paul and George; Paul sang the second with backing from John and George; George took the third with backing from John and Paul. It was, again, something never heard on radio before, and impressive enough for producer Peter Pilbeam to retain them on his list of acts to rebook.5

  Here too was an application of polish to shine their versatility. “Besame Mucho” was an energetic zip through what the announcer called “a Spanish classic.” “A Picture of You,” sung brightly and with impressive confidence by George, was a current hit, in the top five this week and about to give Joe Brown his first and only number 1—the Beatles’ broadcast may even have helped get it there.

  Best of all was “Ask Me Why.” George Martin had found cause to look askance at it, but his opinion was folded within broader downbeat views. Actually, there was plenty of interest going on here, and its appearance pinpointed the critical shift in the Beatles between March and June 1962. In their initial broadcast, they were responsible for the first exposure to the mass British public of a Tamla (Motown) song; three months later they were the first band to play their own new number inspired by a Tamla record. And yet, while “Ask Me Why” was sparked by Smokey Robinson, here was no clone: it emerged through the Lennon-McCartney filter as a melodically complex piece, an attractive and intriguing folky song with a light Latin rhythm, sung by John with a strong harmony from Paul. There was no frippery, no phoney American or mid-Atlantic accents, just two Liverpudlians letting the sincerity and quality of their voices carry an interesting tune. Whether or not any of this registered with even a handful of the 1.8m listeners, the moment can be seen as a milestone in the development of twentieth-century song.6

  The audience in the Playhouse Theatre clearly liked the Beatles. The surviving recording reveals much clapping along, some between-songs screams and, just before “A Picture of You,” a plainly audible flutter as one of the Beatles did something he shouldn’t on BBC radio. There’s also laughter during the song’s instrumental middle-eight, as if John, Paul and George had gone into a little jig. It was like a seven-minute eavesdrop into Liverpool that happened to have been transported thirty-five miles to Manchester—and with good reason, because about a fifth of the audience were Beatles Fan Club members brought on a coach chartered by Brian. He and Jim McCartney traveled with the fans to Manchester, and John, Paul and George jumped aboard to ride home.

  It was an interesting night for Pete, and he’d often speak of it. He said he was engulfed by adoring fans as they left the theater and that he in particular was trapped, pinned back by a sea of admirers after the other three Beatles had wriggled free. Jim Mac, for one, took the view that Pete brought the situation upon himself—he apparently remarked, “Why did you have to attract all the attention, why didn’t you call the other lads back? I think that was very selfish of you.” Pete says he later raised this with Brian, who said he’d query it with Mr. McCartney, but nothing more is known; what Pete didn’t say was that he wasn’t going to catch the coach anyway. It’s also been written (although without attribution) that someone said to Pete this same evening, “They’re thinking of getting rid of you, you know, but they don’t dare do it.”7

  This informant, whoever it was, was 50 percent right. They were getting rid of him and they were daring to do it. Pete’s time in the Beatles was coming to an end.

  EMI had been the final straw. Pete’s poor performance at Decca was one thing, but they were signed to EMI and now George Martin didn’t think him good enough either. George would often be asked about this and always give replies consistent with a legal letter he was obliged to write in mid-August 1965:

  I told Mr. Epstein that I was not satisfied with the performance of their drummer Mr. Peter Best, and as far as my recordings were concerned I would prefer not to use him on the actual record but that I would use a session drummer.

  Pete Best did seem to be “an odd man out” and while the other three were very unified in their performance and enthusiasm, he did not seem to be a true part of the group.

  The Beatles felt the same. If they kept Pete, they’d be lumbered with a hired drummer not just at their next session but at every session after that, on all their recordings. They’d be having to make music with men they’d never met, cynical “professionals” (said with a spit) of varying ages who didn’t know the songs, probably didn’t appreciate the style and sound, who weren’t from Liverpool and with whom they’d no emotional connection. They wanted to look one another in the eyes with confidence, understanding and ambition, ready-rehearsed and coordinated, a band (a phrase George often used). And what was the point of using a session man anyway? They’d
be playing live shows with these songs—in dance halls, maybe even theaters, on radio and TV—so their drummer had to be able to play the tracks to match the records, ideally because he’d helped make them in the first place. As Paul would explain, “It had got to the stage that Pete was holding us back. What were we gonna do—try and pretend he was a wonderful drummer? We knew he wasn’t as good as what we wanted.”8

  Pete’s dismissal would require the ax-swinging confrontation that John, Paul and George—as verbally cutting as they could be—had been reluctant to face for eighteen months. And they weren’t going to face it now either. As George said, “Being unable to deal with the emotional side of that, we went to Brian Epstein and said, ‘You’re the manager, you do it.’ ” Brian’s business card said he had Sole Direction over the Beatles, but it was never the case. He still wanted them to keep Pete—“I was very upset when the three of them came to me one night and said they didn’t want him. It had been on the cards for a long time, but I’d hoped it wouldn’t happen.”9

  Brian also didn’t like the idea of Ringo as Pete’s replacement. “I thought he was rather loud—I didn’t want him,” he’d reflect two years later.10 This first impression dated back to March, from Brian’s mercy dash to Admiral Grove to fetch Ringo as a five-minutes’-notice Cavern lunchtime fill-in—only for the drummer to stubbornly insist on going nowhere until he’d drunk his tea.

  But Brian’s protestations, if he voiced them, were futile. Flexing the muscle they always had, John, Paul and George brooked no debate over Ringo’s merits. It was the strength of their conviction that persuaded Brian to press ahead, and his strength that he accepted it: “They liked Ringo and I trusted the boys’ judgment. If they were happy, so was I.”11

  The way they made Brian sack Pete strongly echoed the way they’d got Nigel Walley to dispose of guitarist Eric Griffiths four years back. However, while that had been a painful if brief conversation, cut and dried, this wasn’t. The Pete Best situation was complicated by signed agreements—shakable in themselves but still not without implications. Brian was under contract to John, Paul, George and Pete: he’d committed in writing to securing them paid work. There was provision for termination of the entire agreement after one year by either party, but not for the sudden removal of one of the signatories; and while the contract contained elements that could have been used to call the whole thing void (the weaknesses deliberately inserted by Brian), he’d subsequently signed for them, as their manager, the recording agreement with Parlophone. The situation was tricky, and to disregard the possibility of legal consequences clearly foolish.

  Around June 18, Brian raised his concerns with David Harris of Silverman, Livermore & Co., who’d drafted the management contract. After mulling the position over, Harris replied to Brian in writing on the 22nd—and because confidentiality was necessary, he referred to Pete not by name but (logically, if unfortunately) as “the undesirable member.”12

  Harris explained that, legally speaking, the Beatles were a partnership. Any group of people associated with a common purpose and sharing common loyalties are partners, and Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Best were partners in the business of being Beatles. As the management contract allowed no means for the expulsion of a single member, Harris could see only one realistic solution: the Beatles must break up and then re-form without the undesirable member, signing a new management contract that excluded him. Brian would still be tied to Pete under the original agreement, however, and remain obliged to provide him with paid work. If he didn’t, Pete could take action over loss of earnings, or worse.

  Pete knew none of this, but all kinds of conversations were suddenly taking place behind his back. As Paul says, “We talked amongst ourselves and talked with Brian and took a lot of advice on it all … We said, ‘Oh God, I don’t know how we’re going to do this.’ ” All the same, Brian didn’t have an easy time trying to stem their bulldozing desire for instant-action-now. Why didn’t Eppy just go ahead and do it? “It was,” Paul continues, “a very fraught period.”13

  It was, in addition to everything else, a summer of secrets and lies—for while options were explored and considered, argued and suppressed, everything seemed unaltered. Ringo was in Skegness with the Hurricanes, Pete was in the Beatles, and his best friend Neil was driving them everywhere, lugging their gear, being their minder and mate. He too knew nothing of the unfolding situation, and was yet another problem for which there was no obvious resolution—John, Paul and George wanted shot of Pete but hoped to keep Neil.

  In the circumstances, it was right they stopped playing at the Casbah. They still appeared here some Sundays, but June 24 was the last time. The place shut down very soon afterward, if not this actual night—Mo Best had just lost her mother and was eight months pregnant, no time to be running a teenagers’ club. This tiny but magical venue, quite possibly the salvation of John, Paul and George’s musical relationship when they were its opening act in August 1959, was closed by the Beatles a little under three years later. They’d remember it with warmth … but that’s all it would be, a memory.

  From one end of their exclusive twelve-date Cavern season to the other, the Beatles scattered several hot new songs into their set. Brian had mailed them a couple of 45s in Hamburg and now they worked their way through others, pressed into the Popular Department browseries at Nems Whitechapel, in the far left corner of the busy basement, picking especially on the British labels that issued American masters. From this single-minded sieving of some nine weeks of vinyl, a good half-dozen nuggets went straight into the set.

  “Don’t Ever Change” was one of the new songs that defined the Beatles’ evolving sound in mid-1962, and it reunited them with the Crickets, who’d inspired their name and for whom they had an abiding affection. Death had barely diminished Buddy Holly’s popularity in Britain, his loyal fan base being drip-fed a diet of new issues and reissues, but “Don’t Ever Change” had nothing to do with the Crickets’ former leader and everything to do with its composers, Gerry Goffin and Carole King. It was yet another excellent number from the New York duo—a bright, richly melodic and uplifting pop love song performed by the Crickets in Everly Brothers–like voices. It could have been written just for the Beatles, needing no adaptation or rearrangement and embracing a joyful combination of major and minor guitar chords—with one in particular, an E-augmented, that they’d put to good use again and again. It was also a perfect vehicle for Beatle harmonies: while George sang lead, Paul had the talent to hold the high line throughout, effecting an impressively strong duet.

  Another new number, “Sharing You,” was cut of the same cloth—Goffin-King wrote it, and Snuff Garrett produced it for the Hollywood label Liberty, released in Britain through EMI—except it wasn’t by the Crickets this time but Bobby Vee. They were all working the same groove: Vee had already had a hit with Goffin-King’s “Take Good Care of My Baby,” which George had sung in the Beatles. George also took “Sharing You,” with Paul adding harmonies again—except they did it as “Shaving You,” to keep the laughs high.

  Just a cubicle or two along from Goffin and King at 1650 Broadway was a second husband-and-wife pairing, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil; their “Where Have You Been” grabbed the Beatles hard in June 1962. It was Arthur Alexander’s second 45 for the Dot label (in Britain it was on London), and John again seized the lead vocal. The song was a heavy chunk of R&B, rising slowly to a dramatic finale, and its piano solo was adapted for guitar by George.

  They played its B-side even better. “Soldier of Love” became a big new hit in the Beatles’ repertoire from June 1962, a song of integrity that showcased them at their best both melodically and harmonically.14 Written by two young Nashville musicians, James “Buzz” Cason and Tony Moon, the lyric skillfully fused romance with military vocabulary, a boy begging his girl to stop fighting him, lay down her arms, and surrender peacefully to his love. Alexander sang it as a slow blues but the Beatles quickened the tempo and used guitar instead of sax. John again sang l
ead, Paul harmony, and George stepped forward now and again to join Paul at the microphone and do the female backing voices like the Shirelles or Marvelettes. The combination was a song of tremendous verve and excitement that went down fantastically well with audiences.

  Another exciting number was “Mr. Moonlight,” a boisterously rhythmic Latin piece they found on a B-side by the oddly named American band Dr. Feelgood and the Interns. Although Paul weighed in with a robust harmony, this was very much John’s song and he was particularly explosive at the start. “Mr. Moonlight” opened with a big, lusty vocal that modulated in clean air for five seconds before the instruments kicked in. There’d be a buzz of anticipation as audiences wondered if John would hit the right note. As it was often their opening number, this meant they’d commanded their crowd’s attention before playing so much as a second—a useful device, as Neil Aspinall would remember: “Mr. Moonlight was great because there would be this moment of tension in the audience. The song would be announced and everybody knew John would have to start on that note—MISTER! Moonlight. There was no chord to precede it, he had to get it right from nothing.”15

  Of these new songs, though, one above all others defines Beatles ’62: Richie Barrett’s “Some Other Guy.” More compelling than even “Soldier of Love” and “Don’t Ever Change” (and blisteringly unstoppable with them), this was the quintessential Beatles rocker, fantastic for male fans as well as female, a blast from first to last and a particularly powerful number for those competitive Nerk Twins. As Paul would explain, “John and I both wanted to do it, so we ended up both doing it, like a double track.”16 Night after night—and plenty of lunchtimes—this pair of American R&B fanatics stood at adjacent microphones for two minutes and sang the lead in unison, full on, both of them striving to be the first to achieve Barrett’s wondrous tooth-whistle on the word “Some,” but never managing it.