Introduction
(Visual: A montage of black and white photos of The Beatles in late 1962. The photos show them looking tired, a bit unkempt, and playing in small, cramped venues like The Cavern Club.)
The year is 1962. The Beatles are a band on the brink. They’ve been grinding it out for years in Liverpool and Hamburg, playing countless gigs, but their hard work is leading them nowhere. Their first single, “Love Me Do,” was a minor hit, a respectable number 17 on the charts… but only because their manager, Brian Epstein, reportedly bought 10,000 copies himself. They’re feeling “stale and cramped,” in John Lennon’s own words. The dream of national stardom is fading, replaced by a growing disillusionment.
But everything changed with one song. A song that was almost dismissed, almost forgotten. A song that was a a desperate plea for recognition. This is the story of “Please Please Me,” the track that didn’t just launch a career, but ignited a revolution. It’s a tale of genius songwriting, a producer’s instinct, and the series of fortunate events that would propel four boys from Liverpool to the top of the world. And it all started with a simple, two-word phrase…
“Please Please Me” is a song born of pressure. In June of 1962, The Beatles had just returned from their first recording session with George Martin, a meeting that had not gone particularly well. Martin didn’t think their original compositions were strong enough for a single. John Lennon, ever the competitive one, took this as a challenge. He set out to write the perfect pop song.
He later recounted writing it in his bedroom on Menlove Avenue, and famously gave credit for the song to himself alone. He even sent a postcard to a music magazine in 1971 to make sure that was clear. So where did this pop masterpiece come from? The influences were as surprising as they were brilliant.
First, there was Roy Orbison. John admitted in his famous 1980 Playboy interview, “It was my attempt at writing a Roy Orbison song, would you believe it?” He’d heard Orbison’s dramatic ballad “Only The Lonely” on the radio and was inspired to write his own song in a similar dramatic, drawn-out style.
The second influence was even more unexpected: Bing Crosby. John was fascinated by the lyrics of Crosby’s 1932 hit, simply titled “Please.” The song had a line that went, “Please lend a little ear to my pleas.” John was intrigued by the double use of the word “please.” He loved how it could be both an innocent request and a more mature, suggestive one.
Paul McCartney later confirmed this, writing in his book The Lyrics that John “liked the double meaning of ‘please’… ‘Pretty please, have intercourse with me.’ He liked that, and I liked that he liked that. This was the kind of thing we’d see in each other.” This mix of Roy Orbison’s drama and Bing Crosby’s lyrical wit was the secret sauce.
And while John made it clear he was the sole author, the song’s final form was still a collaborative effort. Mark Lewisohn’s book Tune In tells of an evening on June 9th, 1962, where John and Paul, with a couple of fans present, worked on the chord changes at Paul’s piano. They were “seated side by side,” exploring chords, and even asking the girls what they thought. It’s a wonderful image of their creative process: even at its most private, it was always a conversation.
The First Recordings – The Slow Version and The Drummers
With the song written, The Beatles brought it to EMI Studio Two on September 4th, 1962. But the version they played for producer George Martin was very different from the one we know. It was the slow, bluesy Roy Orbison-style ballad John had originally envisioned. Martin’s reaction was candid. In Tune In, he’s quoted as saying it was “very slow and rather dreary.” He had a suggestion that would change everything: “I told them if they doubled the speed it might be interesting.”
The band was “a bit embarrassed that he had found a better tempo than we had,” as Paul later recalled. This was a rehearsal session, so no tape was rolling, and that version of “Please Please Me” is lost to history. But the engineers present remembered it. Geoff Emerick, in his book Here, There and Everywhere, described the song as “soulful and was sung with great feeling by John, but it had a very slow tempo.”
Emerick also recalled a very specific detail about Ringo. He was “sitting behind his kit with a maraca in one hand and a tambourine in the other,” a “ridiculous posture” that caused their engineer to burst out laughing. Ringo later confirmed this in The Beatles Anthology. This quirky, unorthodox drumming style was likely one of the reasons George Martin decided to use a session drummer for the next take.
One week later, on September 11th, The Beatles returned to the studio. They had worked on Martin’s suggestion to speed up the song, but another session drummer, Andy White, was hired to play on the recordings. The version of “Please Please Me” from this session—the Andy White version—is the one you can hear on the Anthology 1 compilation.
In his book Tune In, Mark Lewisohn confirms that Andy White was the drummer on this version. And if you listen closely, you can hear a completely different drumming style from Ringo. Andy White himself stated in a BBC interview that he could tell it was him because of the distinct drum sound, as it was recorded before Ringo got his famous Ludwig kit. The song was much closer to the finished version, but George Martin still wasn’t satisfied, and they put it aside once more, choosing “P.S. I Love You” as the B-side to “Love Me Do.”
Part 3: The Breakthrough – The Second Chance & The TV Show
The modest success of “Love Me Do” convinced George Martin to take a chance on a second single. He still wanted to release a professional songwriter’s song, “How Do You Do It,” for the A-side, but The Beatles, led by a determined John and Paul, insisted on their own material. Martin recalled, “I would still have issued ‘How Do You Do It’ had they not persuaded me to listen to another version of ‘Please Please Me.'”
So, on November 26th, 1962, The Beatles came back to the studio for their final attempt. This time, there was no session drummer. George Martin had given his blessing for Ringo to take his rightful place behind the kit. The band was invigorated. Lennon said in The Beatles Anthology that they “tried to make it as simple as possible” and “aimed this one straight at the hit parade.”
It was during this session, after about two hours of work, that George Martin famously made his proclamation from the control booth: “You’ve just made your first number one.” This would be a pivotal moment. From that point on, Martin would never again suggest that The Beatles record other people’s material for their singles.
The single was released on January 11th, 1963. Its success was sealed by a combination of factors. The record’s new publisher, Dick James, used the song to get them a booking on the national TV show Thank Your Lucky Stars. The performance was scheduled for January 19th, and a massive audience was home, snowed in from one of Britain’s worst winters. The combination of the national exposure, the band’s exciting music, and their unusual moptop haircuts grabbed the country’s attention.
The song shot up the charts, becoming a massive number one hit. It was the moment The Beatles finally transcended Liverpool. They had broken out.
Part 4: Mixes, Legacy, and The Modern Era
Like many of The Beatles’ early recordings, there are fascinating differences between the mono and stereo mixes of “Please Please Me.” The mono mix, which is what most people heard on the radio, was created just four days after the recording session. The stereo mix, however, was done later, and it’s full of interesting details.
For one, John Lennon flubs a line in the final verse. Instead of saying, “I know you never even try, girl,” he accidentally starts singing lyrics from the second verse. He catches himself and laughs, a moment forever immortalized in the stereo version.
The stereo mix also has a subtle but noticeable syncing problem. The harmonica overdubs were recorded on a different track, and when they were creating the stereo mix, the original master tape with the harmonica part was no longer available. So, to get the harmonica into the stereo mix, they had to literally sync up the mono mix with the stereo takes. This resulted in an odd, slightly out-of-sync effect, particularly noticeable in the last ten seconds of the song.
Despite these issues, “Please Please Me” became a staple of their career. They recorded it a total of twelve times in 1963 for BBC radio broadcasts, using it to promote their rise to fame. It also popped up in their later years. A humorous jam session from the Get Back sessions in 1969, included in Peter Jackson’s Get Back series, shows them laughing as they briefly play the beginnings of the song.
Even in the modern era, the song continues to be a subject of fascination. In 2023, Giles Martin, George Martin’s son, created a new “demix remix” for the “Red Album” using Peter Jackson’s AI technology. He was able to use this new tech to separate individual elements that were once impossible to untangle, giving the song an incredible new vibrancy and clarity. While it was still based on the problematic 1963 stereo mix, the new remix shows just how far technology has come, and how the magic of that 1962 recording session endures.
“Please Please Me” is more than a song; it’s a turning point. It’s the sound of a band breaking free from their frustrations. It’s the sound of a producer’s faith. It’s the moment they proved they could write a number one hit and stand on their own.
From a slow, “dreary” ballad to a frantic, irresistible pop masterpiece, “Please Please Me” is a testament to the power of collaboration, a tribute to their influences, and the start of a journey that would change the world forever.