Main Writer: Lennon
Recorded: September 11 and November 26, 1962
Released: February 25, 1963
13 weeks; no. 3

"It was a combination of Bing Crosby and Roy Orbison." That was Lennon's description of the inspiration for "Please Please Me," which would become the first Beatles single to reach Number One on the U.K. charts.

Lennon wrote the song at his aunt Mimi's house. "I remember the day and the pink coverlet on the bed," he said years later. "And I heard Roy Orbison doing 'Only the Lonely' or something. That's where that came from. And I was always intrigued by the words of 'Please, lend your little ears to my pleas' [from Crosby's 1932 song 'Please']. I [loved] the double use of the word 'please.'"

"If you imagine it much slower, which is how John wrote it, it's got everything," said McCartney. "The big high notes, all the hallmarks of a Roy Orbison song."

"Please Please Me" was one of the songs the Beatles played for George Martin at their second recording session on September 11th, 1962, at EMI Studios. Starr recalled that "while we were recording it, I was playing a bass drum with a maraca in one hand and a tambourine in the other" — which, Starr suspects, is the reason Martin decided to use a session drummer for "Love Me Do," which they also recorded that day.

Martin wasn't impressed with the slow "Please Please Me," which he called "a dirge." He suggested that they play the song faster and try to liven up the arrangement. Not that he was impressed with their original efforts in general, at this point. "To begin with, their songwriting was crap," Martin once said. "The first songs I heard from them, I thought, 'Oh, God, where am I going to get a good song for them?' The first record we issued was 'Love Me Do' and 'P.S. I Love You,' which are not exactly Cole Porter, are they?"

"Love Me Do" became a hit, though, and the Beatles were summoned back to the studio to work on a follow-up. When they returned to Abbey Road on November 26th, Martin wanted them to release a song by Mitch Murray called "How Do You Do It." The Beatles tried to persuade him that they should do an original song instead, but the producer didn't think anything they had written was as good as the Murray song. (Martin was somewhat vindicated when Gerry and the Pacemakers had a Number One hit with "How Do You Do It" the following year.) They suggested "Please Please Me," adding that they had heeded Martin's advice, speeding up the tempo and adding a harmonica part that mimicked Harrison's opening guitar riff.

The Beatles knew they had broken new ground. "We lifted the tempo, and suddenly there was that fast Beatles spirit," said McCartney. Lennon later said that "by the time the session came around, we were so happy we couldn't get it recorded fast enough." Starr's steady, propulsive backbeat led Martin to concede he had been wrong about the drummer's skills.

The new version of "Please Please Me" had an irresistible energy and an aggressive sexuality. (Perhaps too aggressive — Capitol Records wouldn't put the single out in America because some who heard the song had interpreted the lyrics as an ode to oral sex, and Chicago's Vee-Jay label ended up releasing "Please Please Me.") When the band had finished laying down the track, Martin announced over the studio's intercom, "Gentlemen, I think you've got your first Number One."

He was right: "Please Please Me" was the band's first of four consecutive Number Ones, launching Beatlemania in Britain. The single sold so well that Brian Epstein pulled the Beatles off the road to make their debut album — which they did in three three-hour sessions on February 11th, 1963, returning to their tour the following day — titled Please Please Me, after their current smash hit.

But the song's greatest endorsement may have come from Lennon's aunt Mimi, who hadn't been convinced by "Love Me Do" that her nephew's band had much of a future. Then she heard "Please Please Me." "That's more like it," she told Lennon. "That should do well."

Appears On: Please Please Me

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