The Beatles have had more number-one albums on the British charts and sold more singles in the UK than any other act. According to the RIAA, they are the best-selling band in the United States, with 177 million certified units. In 2008, the group topped Billboard magazine's list of the all-time most successful "Hot 100" artists. As of 2013, they hold the record for most number-one hits on the Hot 100 chart with 20. They have received 7 Grammy Awards, an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score and 15 Ivor Novello Awards. Collectively included in Time magazine's compilation of the 20th century's 100 most influential people, the Beatles are the best-selling band in history, with EMI Records estimating sales of over one billion units. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the Beatles as the best artist of all-time.
This is the first in a series of 20 caches to celebrate the Beatles' twenty U.S. number-one singles.
"Love Me Do" is the Beatles' first single, backed by "P.S. I Love You" and released on 5 October 1962. When the single was originally released in the United Kingdom, it peaked at number seventeen; in 1982 it was re-promoted (not re-issued, retaining the same catalogue number) and reached number four. In the United States the single was a number one hit in 1964, although it did not chart until after the group's break-through success with "I Want To Hold Your Hand."
The song is an early Lennon–McCartney composition, principally written by Paul McCartney in 1958–1959 while playing truant from school at age 16. John Lennon wrote the middle eight (bars). Their practice at the time was to scribble songs in a school notebook, dreaming of stardom, always writing "Another Lennon-McCartney Original" at the top of the page. "Love Me Do" is intrinsically a song based around two simple chords: G7 and C, before moving to D for its middle eight. It first profiles Lennon playing a bluesy dry "dockside harmonica" riff, then features Lennon and McCartney on joint lead vocals, including Everly Brothers style harmonising during the beseeching "please" before McCartney sings the unaccompanied vocal line on the song's title phrase. Lennon had previously sung the title sections, but this change in arrangement was made in the studio under the direction of producer George Martin when he realised that the harmonica part encroached on the vocal (Lennon needed to begin playing the harmonica again on the same beat as the "do" of "love me do").
On 4 September 1962, Brian Epstein paid for the Beatles, along with their new drummer, Ringo Starr, to fly down from Liverpool to London. After first checking into their Chelsea hotel, they arrived at EMI Studios early in the afternoon where they set up their equipment in Studio 3 and began rehearsing six songs including: "Please Please Me", "Love Me Do" and a song originally composed for Adam Faith by Mitch Murray called "How Do You Do It?" which George Martin "was insisting, in the apparent absence of any stronger original material, would be the group's first single." Lennon and McCartney had yet to impress Martin with their songwriting ability, and the Beatles had been signed as recording artists on the basis of their charismatic appeal: "It wasn't a question of what they could do [as] they hadn't written anything great at that time. But what impressed me most was their personalities. Sparks flew off them when you talked to them."
During the course of an evening session that then followed (7:00 pm to 10:00 pm in Studio 2) they recorded "How Do You Do It" and "Love Me Do". An attempt at "Please Please Me" was made, but at this stage it was quite different to its eventual treatment and it was dropped by Martin. This was a disappointment for the group as they had hoped it would be the B-side to "Love Me Do". The Beatles were keen to record their own material, something which was almost unheard of at that time, and it is generally accepted that it is to George Martin's credit that they were allowed to float their own ideas in the first instance. But Martin insisted that unless they could write something as commercial as "How Do You Do It?" then the Tin Pan Alley practice of having the group record songs by professional songwriters (which was standard procedure then, and is still common today) would be followed.
MacDonald points out, however: "It's almost certainly true that there was no other producer on either side of the Atlantic then capable of handling the Beatles without damaging them - let alone of cultivating and catering to them with the gracious, open-minded adeptness for which George Martin is universally respected in the British pop industry." Martin rejects however the view that he was the "genius" behind the group: "I was purely an interpreter. The genius was theirs: no doubt about that."
"Love Me Do"
Love, love me do.
You know I love you,
I'll always be true,
So please, love me do.
Whoa, love me do.
Love, love me do.
You know I love you,
I'll always be true,
So please, love me do.
Oh, love me do.
Someone to love,
Somebody new.
Someone to love,
Someone like you.
Love, love me do.
You know I love you,
I'll always be true,
So please, love me do.
Oh, love me do.
Love, love me do.
You know I love you,
I'll always be true,
So please, love me do.
Whoa, love me do.
Yeah, love me do.
Whoa, oh, love me do.
All you need is love, and to make this cache a favorite!
Congratulations to zzbob for FTF!