From: dmac@julia.math.ucla.edu (saki)
Subject: Re: The Fabs' first compositions
Organization: UCLA Mathematics Department
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 92 18:37:03 GMT

In article <6367@m1.cs.man.ac.uk> ross-c@scs.leeds.ac.uk (R Clement) writes:
>In article <randall.718332578@seashore> randall@informix.com (Randall Rhea) writes:
>
>>Martin makes an interesting comment in "The Making of Sgt. Pepper":
>>
>>   John and Paul couldn't write a good song at all when they started.
>>   "Love Me Do" was the best they could come up with.  The blossoming
>>   of their songwriting talent later was remarkable.
>>
>>He was speaking the truth.  The Lennon-McCartney songs on the Decca
>
>Not true! They had written "I saw her standing there" which is a classic
>song.

I think Martin tends to black-and-white the situation somewhat. But who
wouldn't after thirty years?

There's no handy documentation concerning the Beatles' (more properly,
Lennon & McCartney's) compositional growth. They didn't keep a logbook
of their brainstorms, alas. The best information we have comes from the
occasional home-system tape (like the Quarrymen rehearsals), wherein
we might hear a song taking shape ("Hello Little Girl", "I'll Follow The
Sun"); or a photograph (L&M practicing "Seventeen", later "I Saw Her Standing
There"); or handwritten lyrics. Anecdotes are often helpful; both John and
Paul had recollections about their collaboration, sometimes disagreeing
over the facts. All these methods leave open the question of absolute
dating. We can get close, but not always right on the mark.

But after Brian Epstein took them over officially in December 1961, and the
Boys started getting record auditions, extra bookings, and radio dates,
it seems to me there was a qualitative change in their songwriting, which
previously had been of the "Thinking Of Linking/Hello Little Girl" variety.
I wouldn't call it mature songwriting, by any means, but it was a step in
that direction. Sometime between their first radio appearance in March 1962
and their EMI audition in June 1962, a more substantive collection of songs
was being written, including "P.S. I Love You", "Ask Me Why", "Love Me Do",
perhaps the slow Orbisonesque "Please Please Me". They may have played these
before the actual recording began on 6 June. Several of them show up in the
official log as having been recorded, the tape of which no longer exists.

For Martin to claim that they couldn't really write is somewhat unfair.
Their songs may not have had the verve of "How Do You Do It?", but Martin
was stuck in the hit-parade mode when he hired the Beatles. His idea of
top-notch songwriting revolved around popular hacks (you should pardon the
term) like Mitch Murray, and the songs popularized by Cliff and the Shadows.

I don't think he suspected the Fabs' talent was as promising as they 
themselves thought. And to give Martin a little credit (which he 
deserves :-) , the Boys had considerable trouble at first with catchy 
arrangements. Their tendency (if we can base this on "working" versions
of songs) was to start out slow and speed the tempo as needed. Usually,
it was needed (to wit, "Please Please Me"). And Martin did a great deal
to flesh out their arrangements, to double choruses, repeat intros, add
essential instrumentation (piano, organ, celeste).

I suspect the Beatles *could* write a good song when they started
with Martin---IMHO "Ask Me Why" is more technically and compositionally
interesting than "Love Me Do", though perhaps their demo of it wasn't
so hot. And being rather timid in studio till they got their ground-legs,
perhaps they were disinclined to argue about their music when it still
needed work of some sort; perhaps this explains why "Please Please Me"
and "Ask Me Why" were held back till they experienced necessary
revisions of style. This would explain why the much-simpler "Love Me
Do" was given the green light.

As far as "I Saw Her Standing There", I'm unable to pinpoint its 
existence as early as the EMI audition, though a tape of an early
run-through (when the song was still characteristically slow and
even had a harmonica accompaniment) suggests that it existed in
the latter half of 1962. My guess with this one is that if it *had*
existed on 6 June, and the Boys had played it for Martin, he would
have picked it over "Love Me Do". We have an undated photo of John and 
Paul strumming away over notebook lyrics, titled "Seventeen"; from
their style of dress and the locale (Paul's dad's house on Forthlin
Road), I think this song can be further pinpointed to August-October
1962, but no earlier. The presence of the wailing harmonica in the
early taped version would certainly suggest that John had had his
close encounter with Bruce Chanel's/Delbert McClinton's "Hey Baby"
(the Beatles appeared with them on 21 June 1962), but the absence (as
far as we can tell) of "Seventeen" from the EMI audition lineup (so
far as the records indicate) leads me to think that it was just about
to see the light of day, but not quite there.

--
"The Lana Sisters, clad in pink, added a welcome feminine flavour.
'Much better than those Beatles' I heard one gentleman remark."
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saki (dmac@math.ucla.edu)
Newsgroups: rec.music.beatles