Love Me Do
October 5, 1962
Love Me Do (German: , love me ') is the title of a song by British rock band The Beatles. It was released as the A- side of the first single from the group on 5 October 1962 in the UK, on the B - side is the bracket PS I Love You. Both titles by Paul McCartney and John Lennon were composed under the Copyright common Lennon / McCartney.
Recording
This single was the beginning of the highly successful collaboration with producer George Martin, who here had the courage to publish both sides of a debut single, an unknown group with their own compositions.
There are three different recordings of the piece with three different drummers. The first photo was taken on June 6, 1962 at the Best yet Pete played drums. This version was first published in 1995 on the Anthology CD after it was believed lost for long. On September 4, 1962 a second shot with Ringo Starr on drums followed, with George Martin was not particularly satisfied. For this reason he hired the session drummer Andy White who was sitting in another recording of the song on September 11, 1962 on drums. In the latter recording you left it to Ringo Starr to play the tambourine. This is also the easiest way, the two recordings to distinguish from each other: In the recording with tambourine Andy White plays the drums when recording without tambourine Ringo Starr. On, published on October 5, 1962 Single ( Parlophone R4949 ) the version with Ringo Starr was brought to the market, since it turned out that the version with Andy White not sounded better than those with Ringo Starr. However, the recording on the single against the version with Andy White was replaced in 1963, which to date has the consequence that all singles published subsequently include the version with Andy White. On the album Please Please Me, the version with Andy White was included from the outset always. The version with Ringo Starr appeared in 1980 on the U.S. edition of the album Rarities again and is on Past Masters ( Vol. 1) to find. At that time, played by Lennon harmonica was a rather unusual instrument for a pop song, which increased the recognition value of the single.
On 28 January 1969, the Beatles recorded their first hit single Love Me Do again during one of the many jam sessions for their film Let It Be on. The result, however, was so bad that it has so far never released.
The B-side P. S. I Love You was also a joint composition by Lennon and McCartney, with McCartney, who sang the title had written the greater part; Lennon helped with the text. Even with the inclusion of this song played Andy White drums while Starr is listen to the maracas and the tambourine.
-Lost master tape
Until about 1963 it was not customary at Abbey Road Studios to pick up the tapes of each recording session; they were destroyed as soon as the shots were blended for publication. This also happened to all the tapes that contain the recording sessions of Love Me Do. Also the tape with the blending of the version dated 4 September 1962 ( with Ringo Starr on drums ) is no longer available. As this version was not published until 1980 again, put that fact no particular problem; When, however, in 1980 in the U.S. Rarities LP should contain this recording, the record company EMI had to use as source material its own 7 "single from the archive. Some years later, a record collectors EMI a better sounding copy of the single available from which the EMI produced a new master tape, which has since been used for all publications.
Success
Following the release in the UK on October 4, 1962 Love Me Do reached # 17 of the English charts. The rather remarkable success of the first single by a new band made for the rumor that the Beatles manager Brian Epstein had bought about ten thousand copies of the single itself, to bring them into the sales charts. Epstein denied this, what some former employees of him confirmed. Mark Lewisohn, of the facts of the biography of The Beatles: All These Years - Volume One - Tune In -researched, came to the clear conclusion that the allegation can not be maintained. Firstly, such a purchase would have had no effect on the position of the single due to the process of creating charts. On the other hand, pressed by the EMI early edition was very likely much lower, so Epstein, such an amount would not even be able to buy. During the charts remained 18 weeks 116 227 units were implemented in the UK, a total here 290000-300000 copies were sold. Thus they remained the only Beatles single, enacted by less than 500,000 plates there.
In the U.S. the single on 27 April 1964, published ( a subsidiary of Vee -Jay Records) in the wake of the emerging there, " Beatlemania ", from the small record label Tollie. After they had entered at number 81 in the Billboard charts, it reached on 30 May 1964 one weeks # 1 and was a total of ten weeks in the Top Ten. The B-side P. S. I Love You reached tenth place. In the U.S., the single was sold one million copies.
On 4 October 1982, EMI released the single on the 20th anniversary again. This time, it reached # 4 on the British charts.