ng truant from school. John Lennon wrote the middle eight. The song was 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 UK, it peaked at number seventeen; in 1982 it was re-issued and reached number four. In the U.S. the single was a number one hit in 1964. "Love Me Do" begins with bluesy harmonica played by John Lennon, then features Lennon and McCartney on joint lead vocals although McCartney handles the low solo vocal line on the song's title phrase when all the instruments go silent. Lennon had previously sung these sections, but this change in vocals was made in the studio under the supervision of producer George Martin when the harmonica part was added, as Lennon needed to resume playing it on the same beat as the "do" of "love me do". Recording "Love Me Do" was recorded by the Beatles on different occasions with three different drummers: The Beatles first recorded it on 6 June 1962 with Pete Best on drums, as part of their EMI audition at Abbey Road Studios in London. By 4 September, Best had been replaced with Ringo Starr (producer George Martin did not approve of Best's drumming), and on that day the Beatles with Starr recorded a version again at Abbey Road Studios. One week later, on 11 September, the Beatles returned to the same studio to discover that Martin was dissatisfied with Starr's drumming, and they made a recording of "Love Me Do" with session drummer Andy White on drums while Starr played tambourine. As the tambourine was not included on the 4 September recording, this is the easiest way to distinguish between the Starr and White recordings. First issues of the single, however, did feature the Ringo Starr version, which was also included much later on the compilation albums Rarities and Past Masters, Volume One. The Andy White version of the track was included on the Beatles' debut UK album, Please Please Me, The Beatles' Hits EP, and all subsequent album releases on which "Love Me Do" was included. For the 1976 single re-issue and the 1982 "20th Anniversary" re-issue, the Andy White version was used. The CD single issued on 5 October 1992 contains both versions. The Pete Best version remained unreleased until 1995, when it was included on the Anthology 1 album. "Love Me Do", featuring Starr drumming, was also recorded eight times at the BBC and played on the BBC radio programmes Here We Go, Talent Spot, Saturday Club, Side By Side, Pop Go The Beatles and Easy Beat between October 1962 and October 1963. The version of "Love Me Do" recorded on 10 July 1963 at the BBC and broadcast on the 23 July 1963 Pop Go The Beatles programme can be heard on the Beatles album Live at the BBC. The Beatles also performed the song live on the 20 February 1963 Parade of the Pops BBC radio broadcast. In 1969, during the Get Back sessions, the Beatles played the song in a slower, more bluesy form than they had in earlier recordings. This version of "Love Me Do" is one of many recordings made during these sessions and subsequently appeared on some bootlegs. Lyrics: Lyrics: 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 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 oh, love me do Yeah, love me do Oh, love me do

ber 1962. When the single was originally released in the UK, it peaked at number seventeen; in 1982 it was re-issued and reached number four. In the U.S. the single was a number one hit in 1964. "Love Me Do" begins with bluesy harmonica played by John Lennon, then features Lennon and McCartney on joint lead vocals. McCartney sings the solo vocal line on the song's title phrase (and also its middle eight). 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 the harmonica part was introduced, as Lennon then needed to resume playing it on the same beat as the "do" of "love me do".This is illustrative of the live characteristics of this particular session, as when a similar situation occurred on another session with Please Please Me, the harmonica was superimposed afterwards using tape-to-tape overdubbing. "Love Me Do" was recorded by the Beatles on different occasions with three different drummers: * The Beatles first recorded it on 6 June 1962 with Pete Best on drums, as part of their EMI audition at Abbey Road Studios in London. * By 4 September, Best had been replaced with Ringo Starr (producer George Martin did not approve of Best's drumming),and on that day the Beatles with Starr recorded a version again at Abbey Road Studios. * One week later, on 11 September, the Beatles returned to the same studio to discover that Martin was dissatisfied with Starr's drumming, and they made a recording of "Love Me Do" with session drummer Andy White on drums while Starr played tambourine.As the tambourine was not included on the 4 September recording, this is the easiest way to distinguish between the Starr and White recordings. First issues of the single, however, did feature the Ringo Starr version, which was also included much later on the compilation albums Rarities and Past Masters, Volume One. The Andy White version of the track was included on the Beatles' debut UK album, Please Please Me, The Beatles' Hits EP, and all subsequent album releases on which "Love Me Do" was included. For the 1976 single re-issue and the 1982 "20th Anniversary" re-issue, the Andy White version was used. The CD single issued on 5 October 1992 contains both versions. The Pete Best version remained unreleased until 1995, when it was included on the Anthology 1 album. "Love Me Do", featuring Starr drumming, was also recorded eight times at the BBC and played on the BBC radio programmes Here We Go, Talent Spot, Saturday Club, Side By Side, Pop Go The Beatles and Easy Beat between October 1962 and October 1963. The version of "Love Me Do" recorded on 10 July 1963 at the BBC and broadcast on the 23 July 1963 Pop Go The Beatles programme can be heard on the Beatles album Live at the BBC. The Beatles also performed the song live on the 20 February 1963 Parade of the Pops BBC radio broadcast. In 1969, during the Get Back sessions, the Beatles played the song in a slower, more bluesy form than they had in earlier recordings. This version of "Love Me Do" is one of many recordings made during these sessions and subsequently appeared on some bootlegs. The song featured no harmonica by Lennon, and McCartney sang the majority of the song in the same vocal style he used for "Lady Madonna". No original master tapes of the 4 September version of "Love Me Do" are known to exist. Standard procedure at Abbey Road Studios at the time was to erase the original two-track session tape once it had been "mixed down" to the (usually monaural) master tape used to press records. This was the fate of the session tape for "Love Me Do" as well as several other early Beatles songs from 196263. However, at some point the mixdown master tape for this song was also lost, and apparently no backup copies had been made—thus, for many years the only existant recorded copies were the red label Parlophone 45 rpm vinyl records pressed in 1962. By the time the tapes had disappeared, the song's 11 September 1962 remake featuring Andy White had been released. EMI would not have been too concerned about the loss of the 4 September take, therefore, as it was now considered obsolete, and they may not have anticipated ever having any use for it again anyway. Around 1980, a reasonably clean, original 45 from EMI's archives was used as the "best available source" for the track's inclusion on the Capitol compilation LP Rarities. A few years later, a new master tape was struck, this time using another, better-sounding 45 supplied by a record collector, and this has served as the official EMI master tape for the original "Love Me Do" ever since.