Comments on: Please Please Me

By: MikeP

MikeP — Mon, 10 Dec 2018 17:49:04 +0000

“Interesting, but you have many faults…” Interesting, but so do you, Johan.
Your love-obsession with Lennon/hate-obsession with McCartney, your repeated, baseless , and non-factual misinformation that you’ve disseminated here so often (and present as “facts”), and your condescending, arrogant attitude toward those you DO bring facts, quotes, and the like to the discussion of which you choose to disagree… well, that’s just the start of the list of your many faults, Johan.
The FACT is you weren’t there, you don’t know, and your saying otherwise won’t change the first two.
Now I’ll move on the more rational, sensible posters here….

By: Danny

Danny — Mon, 19 Mar 2018 06:44:21 +0000

Sorry, I think you need to think a little more about what he is pleading for. She Bop, Turning Japanese and I Touch Myself are about masturbation…….

By: Jacob

Jacob — Sun, 28 Jan 2018 23:36:15 +0000

Both John and George pick the open E string before it starts.

By: Jacob

Jacob — Sun, 28 Jan 2018 23:34:05 +0000

Is it true that George (Harrison) wasn’t supposed to play the lead line in the beginning? I heard somewhere that the producers kept yelling at him when he played it but he still ended up playing it anyway.

By: Slipper of the Yard

Slipper of the Yard — Sun, 10 Dec 2017 22:06:16 +0000

What opening chord?

By: Slipper of the Yard

Slipper of the Yard — Sun, 10 Dec 2017 22:05:04 +0000

He was indeed. Learned his trade as a pipe band drummer. The best and most technical drummers in the world.

By: Slipper of the Yard

Slipper of the Yard — Sun, 10 Dec 2017 22:03:16 +0000

After ‘Love me do’ George Martin wanted the next release to be ‘How do you do it’ a double entendre song written by British songsmith Mitch Murray. The band dug their heels in and said they wanted to do their own song . Martin relented and agreed they could do so if it was as good as the song he had in mind. It is no co incidence that Lennon brought ‘Please Please’ me to the table as this was also a double entendre song.

By: MikeP

MikeP — Wed, 12 Jul 2017 03:08:05 +0000

Don’t know what you think you’re listening to, but the drumming on the version on Anthology (with Andy White), is vastly different to the single and album release (Ringo).

I really wish certain know-it-alls (read: know-nothings) would just stop this nonsense.

By: MikeP

MikeP — Wed, 12 Jul 2017 03:04:51 +0000

Seems the only one lying is you. (to be charitable, we’ll just say you’re mistaken).

By: Robert

Robert — Tue, 25 Apr 2017 23:50:56 +0000

“Love Me Do wasn’t a big success at all…” to quote Johan, but it did hit number one in Australia and the United States. I guess those two smaller markets don’t count?

By: Steve Rich

Steve Rich — Thu, 28 Apr 2016 22:19:43 +0000

One poster has castigated Andy White , he happened to be one of the greatest session drummers this country has ever produced

By: Some guy

Some guy — Mon, 14 Mar 2016 11:43:58 +0000

With George Martin’s passing last week, it is worth remembering his invaluable contribution to “Please Please Me”.

I don’t think it is exaggerating one bit to call this song a rock masterpiece, and a true collaboration between John Lennon, the other Beatles, and the ‘fifth Beatle’ George Martin.

If this song had not launched them into the “topper-most of the popper-most”, would hundreds of people like us be on the internet fifty years later talking about some long-forgotten band from Liverpool?

BTW,I find the discussions above about the drumming very interesting. I’m a longtime fan, but have to admit I can’t tell the difference between Andy White’s sound and Ringo’s. (Pete Best I can usually recognize by his dull, lifeless style which seems to get in the way of Paul’s bass feel.)

Anyway, RIP George Martin… and Andy White, too!

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 19:45:26 +0000

“McCarthey is never the star of a John Lennon song”…

Two words: Come together. Paul’s bass riff MAKES this song – PLUS drums, vocals etc., the sum of their talents was obviously what made them the greatest. But the bass is the real thing in that song. He played the keyboard solo as well.

Paul added so many fantastic features to so many Lennon songs: The keyboard intros to Strawberry fields and Lucy in the sky, most of the music to In my life, the idea with the loops in Tomorrow never knows…

So he’s kind of the secret star behind many of their most memorable parts – and many people STILL won’t accept the fact that he was more than the cute one, OR they accuse of him bossing everybody around…

Just stop with the comparing and putting up a “fight” between Paul and John and trying to take away anything from either of them.

By: GrahamT

GrahamT — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 03:18:32 +0000

Don’t be silly. Whether as performers, arrangers and/or co-writers, they each regularly enhanced the other’s song for the collective good.

By: Johan cavalli

Johan cavalli — Sat, 12 Dec 2015 11:12:00 +0000

To DarrenS
Yes, I think Lennon was greater as composer.
I hope you are right when you say it´s unnecessary to keep John´s genius alive,
OK, let´s enjoy their music.

By: DarrenS

DarrenS — Thu, 10 Dec 2015 20:31:59 +0000

“You have many faults”. Sheesh, sounds like my wife. 🙂

Seriously, let it go man. They wrote a lot of stuff together and a lot of stuff apart. They threw in lines here and there (and Paul gives John credit on a lot of “his” stuff, like Penny Lane, Michelle, Getting Better, Eleanor Rigby, I Saw Her Standing There, to name a few).

My main point was the constant bickering about this issue starts to take away from the enjoyment of the music. As for nicking little pieces here and there from other songs, everyone ripped little things off from everyone (“Here come old flat top” ring a bell?). That’s composition, man. In fact, go get a copy of the Everly Brothers’ “And She Kissed Me” and see if one of the lines doesn’t leap out at you.

Look, I get that you are trying to keep John’s genius alive and free from Paul’s greedy fingers. It’s admirable, but unnecessary. It is very apparent that neither would have ascended to their places in history without the other. The fact that you feel Paul is ripping off John’s legacy (with George Martin’s help, apparently) is unbecoming. Yes, John was all you said he was. Paul was pretty good too, no?

And Yesterday has virtually nothing in common with Do You Want to Know a Secret. I refuse to let you convince me of that. You seem to want to suggest Paul was a second class nothing who rode John’s coattails to fame and then, after he dies, stole all of his genius. That’s ridiculous.

Oh, and the Strawberry Fields thing was a joke. Read it in the context of my argument. I am not sure if English is your native language, but it was sarcasm.

As to PPM (staying on topic :)), I love it. It is fun to play, and it rocks (and it wouldn’t have rocked without George Martin)

By: Graham Paterson

Graham Paterson — Thu, 10 Dec 2015 05:48:46 +0000

Written by John Lennon, this song was a huge step forward musically. I love the opening chord, it is so distinctive. Lennon originally sung it in a slower Roy Orbison style. George Martins idea to speed it up works a treat. Ideal as title song for their first album.

By: Johan cavalli

Johan cavalli — Sat, 21 Nov 2015 13:04:36 +0000

To DarrenS
Interesting, but you have many faults. I am keen on this matter. Beatles is music history, and history description went wrong. You are an example of how McCartney´s and George Martin´s PR activity has succeeded.
–Please Please Me. You are talking about arrangement. I am talking about the c o m p o s i t i o n. What do you think for example Irwing Berlin, from 1930s, would have said if somebody who had arranged his song, called himself a co-composer. Today McCartney admit Please Please Me is a completely Lennon composition, but formerly McCartney would conceal if it is a Lennon composition by saying “we wrote it together”, which could mean everything. The original version was exactly the same melody, but slower.
–Do You Want to Know A Secret. I am talking about the m e l o d y, despite it´s today is so hot to only talk about the chords. McCartney recorded Yesterday 1965, but composed it probably in the beginning of 1964, according to George Martin. Lennon composed Do You Want to Know A Secret already in 1962, it had some connection with his first marriage. Didn´t you know that? Of course McCartney, George Martin and the establishment don´t say anything about the similarity with Yesterday. But I have heard many people, outside the establishment, reminding it´s resemblance with Yesterday.
–Strawberry Fields Forever. You can´t be serious?? You say it´s “a masterpiece because of Paul´s playing the harmonium in the beginning”! The point with the song is the music behind “living is easy …” with the melody in one note, but the background music is instead changing. When the song was released a critic said it resembled Wagner, I think the intro to Lohengrin. By the way, McCartney is playing mellotron, not harmonium.
You are a splendid example of how McCartney and George Martin have succeeded in their PR activity. McCartney will always win PR fights in small, but cunning means. Even though the faults in history description would be corrected, the old faults in literature will never die. The written words have an enormous power.

By: Johan cavalli

Johan cavalli — Sat, 21 Nov 2015 11:11:40 +0000

I wrote to you, but it dissapeared.

By: DarrenS

DarrenS — Wed, 18 Nov 2015 13:14:36 +0000

You do realize they worked on PPM together, on at least one occasion, in Paul’s house on Forthlin Road in 1962, right? Sitting side by side at the piano, working on it. From this, it would appear that John wrote it and then he and Paul worked on the arrangement together. The Orbison reference is about the original version, which no one’s ever heard, because it was never recorded.

This ridiculous arguing about who was better or more important between the 2 of them gets old fast. No one with any real intelligence disparages John Lennon’s songwriting abilities, least of all Paul. It’s come to the point with some people that you can’t write a statement like “I love song X by either John or Paul” without someone saying that the best part is the contribution by the other of the 2.

And Yesterday has virtually nothing in common with DYWTKAS other than they may, at rare moments, follow similar chord patterns (which many songs do). Remember, Paul had that song around for ages, asking anyone and everyone if they recognized the melody. Don’t you think someone would have pointed out your similarity if it was true? Why not argue that the PPM progression from E to the G-A-B is copied by Paul at the start of “The Night Before” with the progression from D to F-G-A. It’s the same silly point, right?

Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll go back to listening to the MMT album. I am up to Strawberry Fields Forever, which, as we all know, is a masterpiece because of the way Paul plays the harmonium at the beginning. 😉