Review: The Beatles - Please Please Me (1963)
Tracks: 1) I Saw Her Standing There; 2) Misery; 3) Anna (Go To Him); 4) Chains; 5) Boys; 6) Ask Me Why; 7) Please Please Me; 8) Love Me Do; 9) P.S. I Love You; 10) Baby Itʼs You; 11) Do You Want To Know A Secret; 12) A Taste Of Honey; 13) Thereʼs A Place; 14) Twist And Shout.
REVIEW
There can hardly be any disagreements that Please Please Me is literally the «weakest» Beatles album, not just because it was their first one but also because, being their first one and all, it was recorded in such a rush: a record-setting 9 hours and 45 minutes of studio time altogether, from a young band with very little studio experience. Already guided by George Martin as the eye-opening studio guru, for sure, but by February 1963, the band and their producer had not yet even gotten to know each other all that well. The bandʼs original compositions were still few and far between: John Lennon as of yet somewhat struggling as a songwriter, Paul McCartney arguably feeling a little bit more self-confident, but stuck hands and feet in a typically early-Sixties simplistic teenage mindset, George Harrison not even beginning to look up to his «elders», and then thereʼs always Ringo — or, rather, there was beginning to always be Ringo, having quite freshly replaced Pete Best and not yet «proven» as an integral part of the band.
In short, there is no need to prove to anyone that Please Please Me represents the tender infancy of the Beatles. For most bands, such «tender infancy» is, at best, giggly-cute, at worst, confusing and ugly, but in both cases, normally, there is no good reason to listen to this music for a second time other than research purposes. And yet Please Please Me still stands up — despite all the flaws, the silliness, the rampant naïveness, and ʽAsk Me Whyʼ, which might just be the worst Beatles original ever composed (and is definitely the worst original Beatles song composed by John Lennon).
It all begins with "love, love me do / you know I love you". When the Ramones wrote lyrics like that twelve years later, they were taken as smart, ironic, streetwise minimalism. When the Beatles wrote them, they were sternly serious, or, more accurately, they did not give a damn — the words never mattered at the time, except for the stipulated convention that it had to be something about «love». As an artistic statement, ʽLove Me Doʼ has even fewer credentials than a Sesame Street composition (the latter ones have educational value at least). Big question, then: why does it stick so sorely in the head, much more so than the average Dave Clark Five or Billy J. Kramer & The Dakotas song? Melodically, it has very little going for it other than the main harmonica part, and the repetitive vocal melody that partially replicates it.
But there is this little matter of the Beatle-specific hook: the resolution of that melody during the extended "so plea-ee-ee-eeese..." bit — Iʼd bet my head on it that a hypothetical Billy J. Kramer would have been able to come up with everything in this melody but that particular resolution, which so admirably breaks up the monotonousness of the main part of the verse. In other words, we start out «simple, stupid», then add a tense «longing» effect with the "please", then bring it all to a natural conclusion with an accappella moment of half-comic «spookiness». It might seem stupid, but there is a touch of suspense, maybe even some primitive mystique, in the song — which makes it stand out among dozens of technically similar compositions of 1962, and explains its rapid chart success (No. 17 on the UK charts at the time), achieved, by the way, without any serious marketing / promotional campaign.
There is no such element of mystique in the follow-up single, ʽPlease Please Meʼ, which, instead, concentrates on overwhelming joy, conveying it with as much effect as a standard four-piece band in 1963 could be capable of. Lennonʼs harmonica is triumphant rather than menacing this time, the joint vocal harmonies sound as if George Martin was pushing them in a «Beethoven for teens» direction, and, again, the Beatle-specific hook: the "come on come on..." crescendo that nobody else could think of delivering at the time. The Dave Clark Five would later shamelessly steal that technique for ʽAny Way You Want Itʼ — but even if they had enough talent to more or less convincingly replicate the mood, they still did not come up with the better song.
It is interesting that, for all of the bandʼs Hamburg- and Cavern Club-acquired reputation as rough and tough onstage performers of genuine rockʼnʼroll, Please Please Me features only one genuine self-penned «rocker». I have always thought that, perhaps, had the Beatles started their recording career one or two years later, when mainstream fears towards «aggressive music» had already slightly diminished, they may not have had to endure the reputation of «softies» compared to the Stonesʼ tough guy image; on the other hand, had they started out later, they would not be so much in the lead — let alone the fact that there is no use in all these ifs and buts.
In any case — the one rocker in question is a stupendous rocker. Paulʼs "one, two, three, FOUR!" countdown that opens the song was specially glued on to the final master tape from another take — a genius decision, giving the album an energetic blast-off start, again, sounding like nothing before it. The idea behind the LP was to give the audiences a slight approximation of a Beatles live show; clearly, this was incompatible with George Martinʼs perennial quest for sonic perfection, but the few «live» elements that they did incorporate still gave the record a huge advantage. To me, the main hero of ʽI Saw Her Standing Thereʼ, however, is the other George: it is his lead work, both in between the verse lines and on the solo, that gives the song its genuine tough edge. The vocals, harmonies, lyrics may all be «teen fluff» (although the "she was just seventeen" bit was slightly risqué at the time), but Georgeʼs echo-laden licks, some of which seem to be imitating 1950s guitar gods such as Scottie Moore, are the true grit of the song. The transition into the instrumental section is one of the ass-kickingest moments in Beatle history.
As for the other originals, I have always thought of ʽMiseryʼ as tremendously underrated — not only does it have a fabulously catchy melody, but there is something deeply disturbing as well about how the bitter-tragic lyrics of the song clash with its overall merry mood: how is it possible to sing lines like "without her I will be in misery" when the singer is clearly having a hard time preventing himself from toppling over in spasms of laughter? (The truly disturbing realization about it is that the song might easily have reflected Johnʼs genuine feelings about his affairs). The rest is fluff indeed, ranging from passable (ʽP.S. I Love Youʼ — Paul in his songwriting infancy stage) to quite awkward (the already mentioned ʽAsk Me Whyʼ: the most fake song John ever wrote, trying to convey an atmosphere of care and tenderness of which he barely knew anything at the time — the whole song is a mess of poorly strung together clichés that are really grating).
ʽThereʼs A Placeʼ is frequently found in comparisons with the Beach Boysʼ ʽIn My Roomʼ due to both of them exploring the topic of «loneliness» in the lyrics, but if we dig from there, there is no question that the Brian Wilson song is the better of the two — its slow, melancholic musical backing fully matches the word, whereas the Lennon song is upbeat and optimistic (but not devoid of subtlety: its harmonica blasts are notably sterner and sadder than the ones on ʽPlease Please Meʼ). Still, the vocal harmonies are beyond reproach.
Of the six covers, Arthur Alexanderʼs ʽAnnaʼ is a fantastic achievement — on the instrumental plane, the band extracts and amplifies its main melodic hook in the form of a finely shaped, mysteriously resonating guitar riff; and in the vocal department, John finds a good way to let go of the self-restraining mannerisms of traditional black R&B and actually convey a believable tragic atmosphere in the bridge section. Goffin and Kingʼs ʽChainsʼ is given to George, who does a fine job of transposing his natural slight tongue-tiedness onto the songʼs message of love confusion; and the Shirellesʼ ʽBaby Itʼs Youʼ, like so many other songs the Beatles did, simply converts the originalʼs excessive «roundedness» into sharper angles. One might argue that at this particular juncture, John was actually a better singer than songwriter: his sandpaperish approach to sentimental R&B gives the material a sharper, more street-wise edge than any other white interpreter’s at the time, with a unique combination of scream, roar, and nasal twang on the high notes ("can’t help myself!...") that has an air of instant believability to it. He would never get better as a singer than he already is on this album — but he would never get worse, either, all the way up to his dying day.
It is useless to speculate on whether Please Please Me already sows the seeds of the grand successes to come. The Beatles certainly do not come across as enthusiastic revolutionaries when you listen to Paul telling us how he is coming home again to you love, or even when John is screaming his head off throughout ʽTwist And Shoutʼ, trying to beat the Isley Brothers at their own game (I think he did beat them — except, of course, the Isley Brothers probably did not need to go home and nurse their voices with cough drops after the recording session). But it also never really seems as if they just went into the studio to record some songs, knock off an LP and be done with it. All of the little things I have mentioned show ambition, and lots of it: a strong desire, right from the start, to be the very best at what they are doing, otherwise there is no point in doing it in the first place. And there is a clear understanding of the long-playing record as the proper medium to do it — a realization that it is a bit humiliating when your fourteen song-long collection consists of two well-written hit singles surrounded by a sea of useless filler.
Which is why Please Please Me, after all these years, holds together quite fine as an album, unlike 99% of pop-oriented LPs from 1963 (too bad for the Wilson brothers, who did not start properly understanding the LPʼs potential until All Summer Long). It is slight, occasionally clumsy, lyrically trivial, not devoid of very strange decisions (such as saddling Ringo with ʽBoysʼ, a tune that was perfectly fine when the Shirelles did it, but predictably earned him a gay image with certain audiences), yet it is unmistakably Beatles, and everything that is unmistakably Beatles deserves an endorsement without any need for meditation on the subject. And anyone who tries to slight it too much should just try to remember the names of at least ten other pop LPs from 1963 without calling on the Internet for help. Might be a chore even for some of those who had already struck their teens back in the day.
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