Please Please Me
Please Please Me is the boys' first studio album. I want you to look at the album cover for a second. Look at Ringo's hair. This is so early, they don't even have the moptop look pinned down. But before too long, the world will fall in love with them, and a global hysteria will break out over these four young men that the world had never seen before, and probably will never again. At least in the original magnitude of Beatlemania.
I Saw Her Standing There is the perfect example of why the early Beatles were so good. This is, in my mind, one of the greatest straight up pop songs ever written. It sounds sort of raw, it's fast and makes you move, the chorus is great, and there are random claps to really emphasize the thing. I find it great. The next song,
Misery is a Lennon-McCartney song that sort of has a deeper meaning I think, that Lennon and McCartney might not have realized. Lennon and McCartney had a sort of unspoken bond with each other. Both of them had tragically lost their mothers at young, young ages. Paul's mom died of cancer when he was 14. John's mom died when he was 17. After Lennon's mother died, he sort of went into himself, and Paul was the only one who could reach him. In those days, John and Paul would skip school and spend hours in a tiny room with each other writing songs. They would do this four or five times a week. They had one of the most intensely close relationships in rock history between two band members.
Anna (Go to Him) is a song written by Arthur Alexander. Their version of the song is really quite good, this is one of the first times I am hearing this osng, and I really like Lennon's performance, he almost sounds like he's in pain. And I like the melody and hook, it's great songwriting. Good job Arthur Alexander, whoever you are. The next song is also a cover,
Chains, written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King. It was a minor song. The Beatles really liked to cover obscure tracks by artists that they loved, especially in these early days. This album is actually The Beatles playing a regular set they would play, they just suggested songs to each other in the studio and they played them. That sort of process, interestingly enough, reminds me of the first album of another monumental artist in the 60s, Bob Dylan. In the documentary No Direction Home, he explains that he just played songs as they came to him. I find it interesting how their debut album's process of recording was so similar, since they would come to mutually inspire each other, Dylan influenced by The Beatles to be electric and expand musically and The Beatles influenced by Dylan to expand conceptually and lyrically. The next song is also a cover and it's sung by Ringo,
Boys. I find this song really infectious, it sounds like the stereotypical rock and roll song from the 50s. Ringo does a good job.
Ask Me Why is the typical sappy Beatles love song. It isn't bad, but it isn't really great. The best part is the melody when they sing "I can't believe, it's happened to me." I feel like I've heard something like that in a lot of pop songs. Their next song,
Please Please Me is quite the catchy little pop song. At first, their producer George Martin(I think of as the fifth Beatle) didn't have confidence in their songwriting abilities. The boys convinced him to let them play a song they wrote. When they were finished, George Martin said "Congratulations Boys, you've just written you're first number 1.", and he was right, it went number 1 on the British charts.
Love Me Do was the first song they recorded that got onto the British charts. It's a nice little pop song, and the harmonica is a nice touch.
P.S. I Love You is well...it's uh. It's not very good. Moving on, I don't even want to talk about it.
Baby It's You sounds like a song that should be played at a slow moving 50s high school dance. It's OK, but not better than OK. Just OK. I just realized they didn't write it, so I 'll cut the guys some slack.
Do You Want To Know A Secret is a totally different story. The first chord sounds like the beginning of some D.ick Dale surf song. The lyrics are boring, but the instruments and the beat are actually sort of interesting. It's also the first song on their albums that is sung by George, but he didn't write it. I like how his voice gets rough and ragged at some places.
A Taste of Honey is also another of those weird songs. The lyrics really are bland, but the beat and the melodies and the music are really interesting. They didn't write it, it's an old pop standard.
There's A Place is probably the most overlooked song on the album. I
REALLY think this is a good song, excellent songwriting by Lennon and McCartney. I love their voices, since this album was recorded in one session, you hear their voices are all harmonizing and are all sort of rough and soar in the same exact places in the song. I find it great. Listen to Paul's voice, it goes up highest, he's really going at it during some spots. And then, the immortal cover version of
Twist and Shout, perhaps best ever recorded vocals. His voice was one take away from being completely gone, so there was a sort of tension while recording it. They all knew they only had one try. It was the last song of the session and he was sort of sick. That totally screwed his voice. I love this version of the song, one of the best covers in rock history, all due to a soar voice.
7/10