13 Beatles Albums In 8 years: Please Please Me

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13 Beatles Albums In 8 years: Please Please Me

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Dave Amitri on Please Please Me

60 years ago tomorrow 22nd March 1963 The Beatles released their debut album Please Please Me. I’ve often said how I’ve only ever heard Rubber Soul out of the thirteen Beatles albums they finally made. Like everyone of my generation ( born in 1965) their ubiquity and hours of radio listening in the 70s means I know loads of their songs intimately. That said I’ve never actively chosen to listen to them so as their albums start their 60th anniversary sequence I thought why not? Also why not do it around the anniversary rather than one after the other over a year as I did with Bowie. I have no idea how this will go or even if we’ll all be around on 8th May 2030 but let’s give it a go.

So what do I know of 1963 and its popular music? A quick search of the 100 best sellers of the year shows The Beatles 1 and 2 as expected with Gerry and The Pacemakers hot on their heels. Cliff was already making movies having been a star for 5 years already which I still find extraordinary. The rest as expected. Old rockers, young bucks, US girl groups, girl soloists and a wide mix of bands. I was instantly drawn to It’s My Party and I Only Want To Be With You, Dave Stewart clearly enjoyed 1963. Such was the power of radio in the 70s and in particular shows like Pick Of The Pops I know almost all the top 100 of 1963. Two years before I was born. I need context. I need to understand what was happening that allowed The Beatles to explode onto the scene. Of course the music but timing is always everything. On to the record….

I’ve read a little bit of Wikipedia. Enough to know this is pretty much a studio recording of their live act. All recorded in one day remarkably. George Martin was already on board which surprised me although his hand is apparent much like Louis Walsh and Westlife (kidding) and there appeared to be some equal billing going on with George and Ringo getting a go at song writing and or lead vocals. It’s a mix of band penned songs which was highly unusual at the time and covers. But you probably knew all that.

In my musical world Art School by The Jam has always been my go to track 1 album 1 for setting out a bands direction. Stating boldly this is us. We’re here. Deal with it. Friends, we have a contender. Starting with a 1,2, 3, 4 which interestingly Weller also used on Art School Saw Her Standing There is out of the blocks like a rocket. Have that! We’re The Beatles. What of it? Already making Cliffs Move It, a song I love, sound dated. That vocal, those harmonies, the ooohs and Ringo. I’m going early here but I must state that throughout this album Ringo is the star. What rhythm, what timing, what feel that man has. Ooh he’s good. Yes, I have lazily used that “not even the best drummer..” line. What a fool I was.

Misery is a disappointing follow up letting their foot off the gas. It doesn’t really go anywhere a fairly generic 60s number with a funny little piano interlude (George’s hand..) Not misery exactly but a bit flat. I was quite pleased it’s only 1 minute 47 seconds long. Ringo is still great though… From here the album does ebb and flow for me the slower songs seem fairly derivative with just Lennons vocals, harmonica and of course Ringo setting them apart. Chains with George singing is lovely but again there’s nothing to make it stand out from what else was going on at the time. Boys proves Ringo is more than capable of holding a rock’n’roll tune vocally while still getting noises out of two drumsticks that defy any sort of logic. I love his “alright George” and the ensuing guitar solo it’s a great fun tune. Ask Me Why is little bit Buddy Holly with the trademark harmonies. It all sounds like the work of a bunch of young men still learning which of course it is. At little more than 2 minutes per song side one rattles on the closes with the biggest of bangs.

Please Please Me straight from its harmonica intro it was made for radio and when added with what we now know as the Beatles look, head shakes, smirks and general boy band gold it must have been really exciting to witness on a black and white tv if you were lucky enough to have one. This is The Beatles for me.

Side 2 opens with another remarkable thing. Love Me Do is the song people should play if they have to justify Ringo’s place to an idiot like me. It’s perfect. I’ve written often of my love of the pop perfection of Love Plus One and while I’m not comparing, it has that feel of everything a pop song should be. It too is perfect. Ringo though, my god… Right here is the thing I was looking for. The difference maker. Imagine being a teenager and hearing this for the first time. If I had a time machine this, Hound Dog and Hey Joe is what I would travel back to experience in the moment.

We then go back into that familiar 60’s sound PS I Love You and Baby It’s you are standards with Burt Bacharach involved in the latter and beautifully sung by Lennon. I love George’s Do You Want To Know A Secret it sounds like a Beatles song, maybe that’s just it’s familiarity. George’s nasally Liverpool twang is so endearing . A Taste of Honey is also a stand out. I love the dichotomy the McCartney and Lennon vocals bring to the whole thing it’s very different to the basic feel of some of the other songs. It reminds of The Coral and that is a very good thing. There’s A Place is a back to basics filler but that’s ok.

Why is it ok Dave? Because the album closes on Twist and Shout so it’s unlikely you’ll remember what came before it anyway. What a way to close your debut album and leave people wanting more. It’s extraordinary isn’t it?

Fourteen in just over an hour, they didn’t mess about did they? The set up of the album with the 4 real stand out, grab you by the throat tunes opening and closing both sides was a stroke of genius. Why do other bands put all the hits at the start? The bits in the middle contain some lovely moments and I’m sure that if I’d heard this for the first time in 1963 and not 2023 it would have been very different. Certainly if I was a shy, unsure 16 year old as I was in my year of 1982 The Beatles would have given me something to cling on to much like The Associates did. This probably sounded and looked other worldly to someone born just after WWII and having their senses sent into overdrive by these four gorgeous, cheeky scousers being beamed into their homes. Lennon’s voice, Ringo’s drums, George’s guitar and even Paul’s whimsy (joking) his bass playing on Boys a real highlight for me, all combined to produce moments of real brilliance. Of course it’s dated but that spark is there.

An observation as an aside is how innocent it all is. It’s so much gentler than anything you might hear today. Parents at the time terrified of the bad influence of Twist and Shout would not believe what passes as ok in 2023. Dave stating the bleeding obvious as usual but these were very different times. Better? Probably but that’s another conversation. As always I hope this brief look at this 60 year old album sparks some conversation, memories and stories. Was anyone there who can share how it all felt? A great start to my Beatles adventure.

See you on November 22nd for With The Beatles

12

Comments

  1. An interesting and optimistic task. Well done for taking it on. Point of order, it wasn’t completely recorded in one day however 10/14 tracks were (plus 1 track that eventually ended up on the next album), 2 singles (A and B sides) being released earlier.

    I wasn’t there on release (well barely), but it was one of the first Beatles albums I owned in 1976. I think it sounds great and I am not sure they ever approached this energy level again.

    Disagree about Love Me Do, I think it is one of their weakest efforts and doesn’t contain much of what would make them great (and Ringo doesn’t play drums on it!). There’s a Place is wonderful, one of their best early tracks with a brilliant (mainly) Lennon lyric, possibly my favourite song on the album. A Taste of Honey is a bit embarrassing and Chains is not their greatest moment. Most of the rest I love though.

  2. Nice one Dave – always good to read your writings and musings of new discovery.
    I Saw Her Standing There is the perfect opener, and up there with Art School for Album 1 Track 1.
    My other contender here is Oasis Rock & Roll Star – set your manifesto out straight away.

    It might just be me, but I’ve always considered Love Me Do to be a bit pedestrian – a good song, but The Beatles had better in their cannon (exciting cos it’s never been heard before, but not as exciting as Please Please Me)

    “I was instantly drawn to It’s My Party and I Only Want To Be With You, Dave Stewart clearly enjoyed 1963.”
    It’s a different Dave Stewart helming those 80s cover versions (but you probably knew that)

  3. I’ll Jane Fonda this over the next day or two but four observations:

    1. Wonderful cover, photograph, typeface, and beautifully made – that was to change, oh yes – with the flip-back sleeve and laminated film.
    2. Next Beatles’ release?… that’ll be the three weeks (that’s W.E.E.K.S.) time!
    From Me To You / Thank You Girl.
    3. Released during the 1963 freeze, many would have heard it for the first time in Arctic conditions.
    4. The Profumo Affair was at its height. Alas, in 2023, the Profumos of the country have far more power and money and influence than they had even then. Far more.
    Triffic … oh, I am pleased… but for a few wonderful, never ever to be repeated, years…

  4. Fab review Dave and I heartily concur, especially about Twist and Shout which grabs you by the throat and simply doesn’t let go – it’s still the essence of everything that’s great about pop and rock music. A band at the top of its game and about to conquer the world.

  5. Somebody called? I was there…if I had a pound for every time I’ve said You had to be there on Beatles threads I’d probably have about £10.

    I first heard Love Me Do on Radio Luxembourg, November 1962. I was in bed at the time – not listening under the covers though, I had an old steam radio my grandmother gave me. The Luxembourg experience was never what you would call hifi, but I remember how the harmonica intro cut through the static, followed by the voices, which were like nothing I’d ever heard before. They’d obviously been listening to the Everly Brothers – the harmonies were sensational – but there was a roughness about them that set them apart. All those years in Hamburg no doubt. They sounded like real people.

    I was with the Beatles all the way after that. Fun fact: I never actually bought any Fabs records as they came out. I had sisters to do that for me, and after I left home there were always copies around wherever I was. I remember someone triumphantly bringing Sgt Pepper into the common room at university the day of its release and everybody sitting down to listening with much nodding of heads and stroking of bum fluff chins.

    I was exactly the right age – 15 when Love Me Do came out, 23 when Let It Be came out. This meant I was allowed to see them live at the Odeon in 1963, twice. My sisters were insane with jealousy. So I have first-hand experience of Beatlemania too. The first time they were supporting Roy Orbison. My mates and I had front-row seats the second time, having queued in the street (in shifts) from Friday after school to Sunday morning when the box office opened. I have a vivid memory of hysterical girls rushing the stage, to be met by members of the Southend Judo Club who manhandled them into the orchestra pit. It was quite frightening, actually. Don’t remember hearing any music. There were the usual stories about rows of ruined seats being chucked away, but I’ve no idea if that’s an urban myth or not.

    And there you have it. Thanks for the review, Dave.

    • Interesting stuff about the music always being there without actually buying it.

      In an offshoot from sport, when going through the local papers of the 60s I started a new file about pop music/culture of the time – it’s 300 pages long! Maybe, after the sport I’ll shape it into something.

      Anyway circa, say 1968, in a Cornish town of about 20,000 people, I couldn’t help but think that with coffee bars, boutiques, hairdressers, record shops (multiples of each), a guitar/sheet music store, other various establishments selling records, groups playing the morning cinema for kids, music papers (there were four), and the like, Saturday mornings in the town must have been saturated with pop music. One boutique definitely had a jukebox right by the open door to entice in passers-by.

      Soon, and I’ll make it a bright sunny day, I plan to go to the same town on a Saturday morning about 10.30 a.m. and see if I came come across any – that’s A.N.Y. – modern pop music being played anywhere.

    • My experience is very similar to yours,@mikethep. Except without the sisters and I was 14 when Love Me Do came out. I seem to remember hearing it on one of those Joe Loss lunchtime pop shows on the old Light Programme, possibly during the October half term holidays. I definitely remembering thinking that this was interesting, somebody doing something different from the old Cliff and The Shadows template which pretty much defined UK pop in the early 60s.
      The main difference from your experience, however, is that I never saw them live. A group of schoolfriends went to one of their shows (Astoria Finsbury Park I believe) but I chose not to go as I was starting to get heavily into jazz and blues so felt the Beatles were beneath me! Oh, the follies of youth.

  6. I can’t remember who said it… Mark Lewishon probably… but someone said that the Please Please Me album is propped up by the fact that each side starts and ends so well. Those four opening/closing tracks would be a fabulous EP – I Saw Her Standing There, Please Please Me, Love Me Do, Twist and Shout. If all the strong tracks were front-loaded on to side one, side two would suffer in comparison.

    Of the rest of the tracks, some are undeniably weak (although we have to account for the fact that this was a band forging the future of pop under immense pressure and with no time to stop to think about it!) – however, the fact that people always disagree on which tracks in particular are the weak ones is probably a good indication of the overall quality.

    My favourite track on the album is undoubtedly Twist and Shout, which has to be one of the most infectious sounds every committed to tape. Of the weaker tracks, I personally have a strong liking for Anna and Chains, but I find Boys and A Taste of Honey hard going.

  7. Nice project, Dave and an enjoyable read – thanks for taking it on.

    Please Please Me is often enough my favourite Beatles song. The different meanings of each ‘please’ is about as explicit as was probably possible even after the end of the “Chatterley” ban, and the driving flow of lyrics and mid-line rhyming make it a non-stop adrenaline rush

    I don’t want to sound complaining
    But you know there’s always rain in my heart (In my heart)
    I do all the pleasing with you it’s so hard to reason
    With you, whoa yeah, why do you make me blue?

    This mash-up is terrible, I’ll admit. But it shows the legacy of pleasing goes on through pop to today. I quite like the 1:28 cutaway to two surprised girls in the Beatles audience after Cardi B’s pussy monologue and legs apart dance routine.

  8. You may find find this intolerable, Dave, but possibly it’s an interesting bit of trivia… In February 1963, Duffy Power and the Graham Bond Quartet [not Organization till the following year], comprising Bond (organ), John McLaughlin (guitar), Jack Bruce (bass), Ginger Baker (drums), recorded ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ at EMI for a single. Purportedly, the Beatles thought it was too jazzy and, amazingly, Duffy & the GBQ re-recorded it the following month in a slightly tamer way – albeit with Big Jim Sullivan replacing McLaughlin, who was ill on the day. That version was released – only the second ever Lennon/McCartney cover on record (after Kenny Lynch’s ‘Misery’).

    McLaughlin himself thought the Beatles were pop pap until ‘Revolver’, at which point he became a huge fan. I’m convinced that the Beatles’ fascination with arpeggios in the later 60s led directly to the ‘Mahavishnu arpeggios’ that dominated McL’s early 70s compositions.

    Here is that original February 1963 version of ‘ISHST’:

  9. Marvellous! I hope I live long enough to read your Let It Be review.

    I’m surprised you don’t mention Anna (Go To Him). It describes a situation John clearly related to as he revisited it many times in his own songs, at least until he took LSD and met Yoko. The girl has found someone else. Think of Misery, Not A Second Time, This Boy, I’ll Cry Instead, I’m A Loser, Ticket To Ride, Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown). John adds a mournful anguish to the bridge which captured in a few lines the story of his life: “All of my life, I’ve been searchin’, for someone to love me…” His wailing “oh, oh, oh”s must have melt every teenage girl’s heart when she heard them. At his most vulnerable, John finds exemplary support from the boys in their exquisite backing vocals. It’s a beautifully judged performance.

    John had a bad cold on the day they recorded ten of the fourteen tracks. His voice had to be preserved, which was why Twist & Shout was only attempted at the very end. The group really pull together as one to compensate. The Beatles had four heads (arguably five) but were a single entity at this point.

    This established the L.P. as a legitimate vehicle for Pop music. Before it, twelve inch vinyl was for Classical or Jazz, at least in the UK. Teenage girls, the main market for Pop Music only bought singles, EPs at a push. Despite having released four of the songs on 45s, the Please Please Me album sold so many, every household with a gramophone, rather than a dansette, must have had a copy. It remained number one until With The Beatles took over.

    At the time, most Pop groups cobbled together LPs as an after thought but The Beatles put this together as a clear entity with a beginning, middle and end, spotlighting each group member on the way: the complex one, the romantic one, the shy one, the funny one: giving the girls plenty of options to devote themselves to. The other unusual aspect is the fact that the majority of the songs are self-penned.

    Great work, Dave.

    • I think a lot of John’s early songs about love and loss and longing may actually be about his mother and those lines in Anna take on a different meaning when one thinks about that (and his absent father too).

    • Thanks Tigger. Not sure what happened with Anna. Full disclosure I’ve been meaning to do this for a while but the date just crept up on me so it was a bit rushed. I find the song a bit odd but your explanation gives it sone clarity. I can always rely on Afterworders to plug my gaps and embellish with more info. It’s still one of the things I enjoy most doing these.

      • The six covers on Please Please Me showcase The Beatles more so than their nascent songwriting skills. They present The Beatles as a gang, a band of four brothers, each with their own character and each with equally important roles to play, the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. From the girl groups and the Soul singers, they learnt to speak directly to their audience in the first person, so that each listener felt they were receiving a personal message. Paul’s PS I Love You shows how quickly they were learning. Meanwhile, their rocker side was never far away. Here is a group of sensitive young men who knew how to party hard. The combination was irresistible.

        No other band was doing this in the early sixties. Who else would cover A Taste Of Honey and Twist & Shout on the same album?

        I love your open-minded, honest view on these classics. I’m really looking forward to the rest.

    • I thought Twist & Shout was recorded last because they realised they needed another track – my memory says that I read they went off to the canteen, had a cup of tea and decided on T&S. If true, that was a discussion that changed music history – T&S was arguably their most popular song on 1963 and was in their live shows for years.

      The T&S EP was a huge seller. For nerds only – the original EP on vinyl sounds way better than the LP versions; there is a theory that this was mastered from the mono back up recording rather than the stereo mixed down to mono versions on the LP (EMI practice was to record on two tape decks – straight to mono and to 2 track. The 2 track recording was used to mix the mono LP. This is why the ‘stereo’ version of the LP has that weird mix with vocals one side and intruments the other side).

      • The latest Word podcast mentions the band going to the canteen and someone else they met there suggesting they do “the one that sounds like La Bamba”. I hadn’t thought Twist and Shout sounding like La Bamba but I see what they meant.

      • I always thought they recorded it last so that Lennon’s vocal cords wasn’t damaged early on and he wouldn’t be able to record any more songs.

        George Martin made sure the song was saved until last for recording, he says in Anthology, “I knew that ‘Twist And Shout’ was a real larynx-tearer and I said, ‘We’re not going to record that until the very end of the day, because if we record it early on, you’re not going to have any voice left.’ So that was the last thing we did that night. We did two takes, and after that John didn’t have any voice left at all. It was good enough for the record, and it needed that linen-ripping sound.”

      • I think it’s true that T&S was a sort of after thought. They had been preserving John’s voice all day, as much as they could. None of the four original songs recorded that morning feature John as a prominent lead and A Taste Of Honey is Paul double tracked. Most of John’s lead vocal work was captured later in the day. Hold Me Tight was regarded to be not good enough, so they were one song short. In the canteen, they decided that they’d give T&S a go.

        It’s the EP that I’m familiar with. My aunt had both singles and the EP but never the album. It was the EP that was played to death.

        • Not sure, it was part of their live set as proved by the Star Club performance from the previous December, so I think they were always likely to record it and the way GM described it, it was on the list that he no doubt approved.

  10. Born in 1960, so a smidge too young to enjoy its first release – but big sister was eight years older, and ideal fan fodder for this…and boy, did she ever indulge. She couldn’t afford to buy all the releases, but pooled resources with her girlfriends so between the lot of them they could have a copy of everything to circulate between themselves….so there was always Beatles in the air when I was growing up, via vinyl and radio (and later, cartoons).

    I’m with Rigid Digit and Dai re “Love Me Do” – if that had been the only hit they ever had, they’d have been remembered as just another music combo, but “Please Please Me” is such a stratospheric leap IMO that it’s almost like it’s another band. And that Graham Bond track is interesting (great music backing) but serves to emphasise how important the vocals, especially the harmonies, were to each song.

    A great debut, and all so soon after sexual intercourse was invented.

    • I had older sisters born early 50s but I only remember them playing Back In The USSR. They were more into The Monkees. Great memories for you. I’ve listened again today and still think Love Me Do is great

  11. Lovely, lovely writing. I was 15 in 1963. Really really wanted to buy the album but as it wasn’t Christmas or my birthday didn’t have the dosh. First Beatles album I first bought with actual money was “With” in 64. I marched proudly to school with it tucked under my arm. The local Girls High School swooned en masse and whispered to each other “Who is that cool guy?” At least in my imagination they did…
    As an aside I must have been well into my twenties (I had led a sheltered life) before it dawned what “Please me like I pleased you” actually meant.

  12. As a 7 year old whipper-snapper at this point in 1963, I was already acutely aware of the Beatles. Juke Box Jury had worked its magic and my cool uncle Bill had brought his Pye Black Box to the beach every sunny weekend at Mothecombe, where I heard all kinds of wonderful things whilst having sand between my toes. Alas, also as a result of being only 7 years old, I could not afford to buy any records for myself. In fact, the only record player we had in the house was a wind-up that played 78s. I kid you not. A proper record player didn’t arrive for several more years, but a little mono cassette player did and, many years later, this little LP finally came into my possession. Along with a shabby copy of The Shadows Greatest Hits, I wore out the tape until they eventually both died in the spaghetti spool of oblivion, one day when the capstan rollers decided to have their evil way.

    Great review Dave, looking forward to hearing them unfold, and reliving my youth as they do so.

    • Another great story. Uncle Bill and his Pye black box on the beach sounds like sone day out. The Shadows, Cliff and The Beatles are entwined on those early days aren’t they? I’ll find out just how big and how quickly the gap between them became I guess…

      • A quick bit of Googling tells me that it wasn’t a ‘Black Box’ model – apparently that was one of the first ‘stereo system’ designs from Pye.

        It turns out that the radio that uncle Bill brought to our beach outings was a Pye ‘Picnic’ model. I remember the look of the thing well – the feature that stuck in the mind was the fact that it closed up into a little case-like thing with a carry handle, but when opened up and placed flat on the beach towel, the handle folded up and slotted into the edge of the lid, thus using the lid as a reflecting surface throwing chooons across the picnic area in a cool daddio fashion. Here’s one I found for sale on eBay:

        View post on imgur.com

        Uncle Bill, who died only recently in his 90s, was a proper dude. A really good looking bloke, he had very long wavy hair back in the sixties, with a proper Zapata moustache, and looked the spit of Peter Wyngarde.

        While my dad, his older brother, was into classical music, Paul Simon, Johnny Cash and various singer-songwriters, Bill was well into Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple. Whadda guy!

  13. 1963, it was March (I think). I was 12 years old, I went to school buzzing on the morning the day after I’d been at The Plaza in St Helens the night before. My uncle George took me, he was more like a big brother, he was 18. My school mates were asking “What’s with you Baron*, you’re not your normal grumpy self?” I wasn’t, I was bloody buzzing even though I’d hardly slept the previous night.
    When I told them where I’d been the previous evening they understood, “You went to see THE BEATLES!”

    All I can say is my black and white world turned technicolour that night. The atmosphere was electric, you could hardly hear the band but for a young lad of 12 nothing was the same again.

    I only knew I was going at tea time the same evening, George (my uncle) had a spare ticket and made it right with me mam.

    *Of course I hadn’t had the title Baron bestowed on me at that time.

  14. Nerd alert. Hope you listened to the mono version which was the one actually released 60 years ago, the inferior stereo version came later

  15. I was born in 1970 and didn’t really ‘discover’ the Beatles until much later.

    I’m fascinated by the recollections of the good folks here that were fortunate enough to be somewhat music savvy when they arrived on the scene. I’m really interested to understand if you guys realized that this was the beginning of something that would change music forever, beyond the craziness of the first year or two. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to hear this music for the first time. It’s also a little sad to think that it won’t ever happen again.

  16. In the early years, like what we talking about, we thought however good The Beatles are they’ll fade away in a year or two. A year or two later, The Beatles and Bob Dylan et al were changing not just pop music but the world (or so we thought)

  17. @Dave Ross. I’m currently reading John Higgs’ ‘Love And Let Die : Bond, The Beatles and the British Psyche’. There is one paragraph which, to me, describes how extraordinary The Beatles were and why they are endlessly fascinating today. I thought it might act as a sort of prologue to your project. I hope he doesn’t mind me quoting:

    “The extent to which the Beatles changed Western society can be glimpsed when you compare the four fresh-faced young boys on the cover of their first album ‘Please Please Me’ to the four strange, hairy men on the cover of ‘Abbey Road’, their last recorded album. Only six and a half years separate these two photographs, and yet the older men on the zebra crossing are unrecognisable as the former lads on the stairwell. The change runs much deeper than haircuts or clothes; at the time when the first photograph was taken, there was nobody like those older men in existence. In that earlier, innocent world of 1963, people with ideas, opinions and perspectives that the 1969 Beatles had not only didn’t exist – they were simply unimaginable. Viewers watching Peter Jackson’s eight hour docuseries ‘Get Back’ soon feel very comfortable with the four Beatles, because the way they relate, joke and discuss problems feels entirely normal and modern. It is not until the end of the series, when the cameras go outside into the streets of London, that you hit by how far back in history this all was. The flat caps and bowler hats, along with the clipped accents and headscarves, plunge you into a very different, long-gone world. The four Beatles then appear like modern people marooned in the distant past, waiting for society to catch up with them.”

    • On a similar note, I remember once reading a succinct but very beautiful obit of Brian Epstein which read:

      “He changed the world without ever hurting anyone”

      • I’ve a pithy new phrase – “The 60s is wasted on people born at the right time for the 60s”. Good, init.
        I think it’s accurate for at least 80%. Conservative estimate.

        On the subject of the Get Back film… the sanest people in the whole thing are the two Apple Scruffs.
        You are in London, in 1969, the Beatles are in your vicinity – if you are not trying, in any way, to get a piece of that you are certifiably bonkers. If you are trying to do it all the time, you most certainly are not.

    • The thing is there were lots of young people who looked like the Beatles were in the late sixties and many of them made more experimental, more adventurous music. Lots of bands made the same transition from say 1964 to 1969, both in appearance and musical style. It was a kind of conformism you could say. They didn’t invent all that. The more radical move was from rockers to moptops. It’s comforting to be of a certain age and say we had The Beatles. It’s overstated. Some great music though.

      • Most people who had the Beatles didn’t know they had the Beatles – they sure as f***** damn it didn’t know they had Captain Beefheart, James Brown, Jimi, Syd etc. – and most people of that certain age listen to Abba (go to a charriddee).

        I work with a lot of mid-70s+ people, many are the 80% I mention above… apart from the 20% obviously. It baffles me. A lot love Boris Johnson, Paul McCartney is still a challenge.
        That Michael Caine doc on the 60s a few years ago – the audience purred when Joanna Lumley came on the screen for five seconds – I’m not sure they knew John Barry, Delia Derbyshire or Brian Jones from a box of frogs.
        Told a wife (late-70s) of a respected artist I was going to a film about a 60s photographer of pop acts and she genuinely recoiled in horror when she looked at the poster.
        I’m not too sure she recognized any of them… Janis, Jimi, Miles, Johnny Cash, the Stones – maybe she did, but she didn’t give that impression… and she is/was in the art world!

    • That’s brilliant. Thanks @jazzjet The world definitely changed during the 60s possibly more than any other decade. If you look at Jimi Hendrix in 67 you just can’t imagine how he would have been recieved just 4 years earlier. I’m not yet convinced it was all down to The Beatles but obviously they were right in the middle of it.

      • Jimi “was” around four years earlier, he just couldn’t have been “that” version of Jimi, no one could be. It hadn’t yet been invented. It needed the Beatles and Dylan to pave the way.

  18. You make a great point, Dave, when you say Cliff had already been a star for a few years. Lennon was actually 5 days older than Cliff, which feels strange: the Beatles seem to be indelibly linked with an explosion in youth culture that superseded Cliff’s type of music. That may be a grotesque oversimplification – written retrospectively – as these things often are, so I’ll defer to people who were actually around then.

    • The high point of my love affair, such as it was, with the Cliffster was the Me And My Shadows LP, which came out in 1960. I loved that album, though of course it was mostly The Shadows I was interested in, for which read Hank Marvin*. The singles of the time, like Please Don’t Tease and Gee Whiz It’s You, were pretty good too. After that he set off down the dreaded all-round entertainer route, making weedy films with Susan Hampshire etc. Everybody went to see The Young Ones and Summer Holiday, of course, because why not. Elvis started to let us down around the same time, after all.

      So when the Fabs turned up I was definitely ready. But it wouldn’t be true to say that they swept him aside. The number ones started to dry up (although I was startled to see he had one as recently as 2018), but he’s been around for 65 years now, which is more than you can say of the Beatles.

          • Only dodgers dismiss Cliff.

            99% of the Beatles is “when” but, and this is not an inconsiderable factor (it is, after all, 1% – and it’s the 1% that makes the difference), it’s what they left out…
            That’s “The…” as opposed to “Cliff &…” – love Hank, but no glasses – and less, and eventually no, dependency on outside writers.
            Of course, Brian put them into Shadows’ suits!

            But it is the “when” that is “the” factor.
            Did I say 99%?
            Nah – 99.9%.

              • Dodgers, Sainted Dave, no hits, Cornwall, the dire, Tottenham. Put into an AI machine to generate the same post with slight variations for ever and ever

                • Stop multi-tasking, it doesn’t suit you… only dodgers dismiss Cliff. Stick to the remit and focus.

                  How are Wales doing in the Six Nations?
                  Doh! I didn’t stick to the remit!
                  See how easy it is to get distracted.

                  • @deramdaze

                    Could you (or any other in-the-know AWer) either give or direct me to an earlier post that definitively states who or what a “dodger” is ?

                    Am unsure if you are referring to people/posters…

                    …of a certain age…

                    …buying from – or holding shares in – Amazon…

                    …or the surely infinitesimally small number of AWers who came to the UK to evade the draft for the Vietnam War in the late 60s or early 70s

                    Thanks in advance for the clarification!

                    • @Dai

                      If the term “dodgers” applies to those AWers who routinely refrain from posting links in the box provided, this could be the start of a beautiful friendship between you and him, D

              • @fitterstoke

                It’s a perfect example of Donald Rumsfield’s famous “known and unknown” theory:

                The 99% figure covers the “known knowns”

                The 1% figure covers the “known unknowns”

                The 0.1% figure covers the “unknown unknowns”

    • I always feel Cliff’s longevity has worked against him in a way. I mentioned Hound Dog and Hey Joe as moments I would have liked to have been around for. I’ll add Move It

  19. Great review

    Might argue a bit with There’s a Place being ‘back to basics filler’ though.

    Would counter that it’s actually a prototype for loads of Lennon’s work over the next few years, both lyrically i.e. the place he goes to is his mind and musically.

    Take out a few of the very early Beatles lyrical references to feeling blue and no sad tomorrows and you could imagine the words and tune fitting into a Ticket to Ride style arrangement and maybe even a She Said She Said style as well

  20. And thank heaven they knocked back George Martin’s idea of being photographed at the insect house of the zoo – Olde Worlde Thinking there, George, not the brave new world you were all entering.

  21. Always really interesting to read reviews of very familiar stuff by ‘new’ listeners like this – well done Dave!

    This LP was released on my 13th birthday, but I don’t think I heard it until the summer – I have a recollection of being at a friend’s house and it being put on. By that time I was a huge fan and had pictures on the wall and everything, but no record player! That would come along at Christmas, when I bought With The Beatles on Boxing Day with my precious record tokens (I Want To Hold Your Hand came with the record player!).

    I have no recollection of being aware of Love Me Do, but I guess I must have heard it as I was always glued to Saturday Club and Pick of the Pops, but clearly remember being poleaxed by Please Please Me – it was like one of those moments that musicians often cite when hearing Elvis for the first time.

    My sister evetually got the PPM LP, and I now have that copy. I can only listen to it in mono, but there some new fan stereo remixes that are very good!

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