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Author Topic: Was Please Please Me the breakthrough?  (Read 1862 times)

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Loco Mo

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Was Please Please Me the breakthrough?
« on: August 27, 2021, 03:08:11 AM »

I have the impression that Please Please Me was the hit record that ignited the Beatles amazing rise to stardom.  After it was recorded, George Martin told them:  "Gentlemen, you have your first number one record."  I think I'm remembering this quote correctly.

I was listening to the album and thought about the fact that the album was named Please Please Me.  So I think it must have been considered the force behind the album.  It's really a great song.  Ask me Why precedes it and I think both of these songs are sung very well and with much heart and energy.  Those Beatles vocals are stunning, IMO.
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Moogmodule

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Re: Was Please Please Me the breakthrough?
« Reply #1 on: August 27, 2021, 03:46:11 AM »

Hey Loco

Yep I agree. Definitely Please Please me is what really kicked them off as national stars in the Uk. And it convinced George Martin to let them do a whole album. Apparently he could have called their contract fulfilled after the first single. Calling the album Please Please me was probably an easy decision to take advantage of the success of the single.

There’s now controversy though whether George Martin’s prediction was fulfilled. There were apparently several charts used at the time and Please Please Me got to number 1 on two but only to number 2 on the other. Because that chart went on to be the main UK singles chart, PPM is now not considered to be a genuine number 1. It wasn’t included on the compilation 1 in the early 2000s because of this.

Regardless it’s a great pop song. One of my favourite of their early singles. And Ask me Why I think is a really well put together tune. I’m surprised George Martin heard it earlier and dismissed it as not being very good.
« Last Edit: August 27, 2021, 10:57:16 AM by Moogmodule »
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Hello Goodbye

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Re: Was Please Please Me the breakthrough?
« Reply #2 on: August 27, 2021, 10:11:58 AM »

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blmeanie

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Re: Was Please Please Me the breakthrough?
« Reply #3 on: August 27, 2021, 11:08:54 AM »

I think something Loco said needs clarification (for me at least), was Please Please Me the album recorded and named before Please Please Me the single was released?  If so, the foresight to name the album PPM was incredible.  If not, then never mind.
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Moogmodule

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Re: Was Please Please Me the breakthrough?
« Reply #4 on: August 27, 2021, 12:16:17 PM »

The album was recorded only after the single had been released and done well. Even then it wasn’t a fait accompli that it would be called Please Please Me. George Martin’s first idea was to call it Off the Beatle Track, one of those corny Goon-like puns that he must have liked since he used it for his later album of orchestrated Beatle songs.
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Normandie

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Re: Was Please Please Me the breakthrough?
« Reply #5 on: August 27, 2021, 04:31:27 PM »

It's really a great song.  Ask me Why precedes it and I think both of these songs are sung very well and with much heart and energy.  Those Beatles vocals are stunning, IMO.

I enthusiastically second that, Loco Mo. Please Please Me is one of my absolute top favorite Beatles songs (and it's my son's favorite). Ditto for Ask Me Why. The vocals are, as you said, stunning.

And it convinced George Martin to let them do a whole album. Apparently he could have called their contract fulfilled after the first single.

Interesting; I hadn't been aware of that—or, more likely, I'd read it and simply forgotten. Sometimes I think I should take notes as I do my Beatles reading.

-----------------------------------------------

I'm surprised that Please Please Me didn't receive more pushback for its content. Did John not come right out and say the song was about "edge-of-the-bed virgins"? And I suspect, from all that I've read about John, that the lyrics in fact refer to a request for a particular sexual favor from a girl. I wouldn't be at all surprised if that's what was going through his mind. So, given that other songs were banned or restricted on the basis of much less potentially "offensive" alleged intent, I'm a bit surprised that this one was not (although I'm glad, because it is a great song).

« Last Edit: August 27, 2021, 05:05:40 PM by Normandie »
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Loco Mo

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Re: Was Please Please Me the breakthrough?
« Reply #6 on: August 27, 2021, 09:40:59 PM »

Normandie:  Only John knows for sure about the PPM reference.  I never thought of it that way.  Sometimes I don't think of something until someone else does.  And then I nod my head thinking "well, yeah, that makes sense."

Moogmodule:  I'm glad George Martin didn't name the album "Off the Beatle Track."  That doesn't even sound good.

blmeanie:  I'm glad you asked that question about the album title.  I hadn't thought of it.  I thought the album came first, not the single.

Hello Goodbye:  I can't read that article.  It opens on Pinterest but when I expand it, it stays tiny and blurry.  I know I've seen and read it elsewhere in the past but I wouldn't mind reading it again.  Thanks.
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Normandie

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Re: Was Please Please Me the breakthrough?
« Reply #7 on: August 27, 2021, 10:02:58 PM »

Normandie:  Only John knows for sure about the PPM reference.  I never thought of it that way. 

I guess I just have one of those mind that strays into the gutter on occasion.  ;)
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blmeanie

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Re: Was Please Please Me the breakthrough?
« Reply #8 on: August 27, 2021, 10:09:43 PM »

I guess I just have one of those mind that strays into the gutter on occasion.  ;)


you are not alone...

here is a version of details on the song http://www.beatlesebooks.com/please-please-me
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Normandie

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Re: Was Please Please Me the breakthrough?
« Reply #9 on: August 27, 2021, 10:26:00 PM »



^^^^

A-ha, so I wasn't entirely off base! Thanks for sharing that link, blmeanie—I forgot about that site and its interesting details. 
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Loco Mo

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Re: Was Please Please Me the breakthrough?
« Reply #10 on: August 27, 2021, 11:33:46 PM »

Normandie:  When I was very young, I don't think I thought about what song lyrics meant.  If I liked a song, I would just sing along to it.  But the words usually didn't mean anything to me.  Take "Love me do," for example.  I just sang the words.  In fact, "Love me do" still means nothing to me in terms of lyrics.

Also, there's been lots of songs I've never understood the words to anyway and it never really mattered.  The classic of this genre was "Louie, Louie," by the Highwaymen.  But there's other more popular songs I had trouble understanding but no problem singing.  I can't think of any at the moment.  Oh, yes, I can.  Fleetwood Mac - "Everywhere."  And it doesn't matter.  I don't need to know the lyrics.

Besides, I couldn't possibly have understood what PPM meant at the time.  Someone would really have had to explain that to me in the simplest and bluntest terms possible.  It may still have gone over my head.  I was quite the late bloomer in my life.  In fact, I don't know if I've ever really bloomed at all.  I think I'm technically a non-bloomer.
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Moogmodule

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Re: Was Please Please Me the breakthrough?
« Reply #11 on: August 28, 2021, 12:14:14 AM »


Moogmodule:  I'm glad George Martin didn't name the album "Off the Beatle Track."  That doesn't even sound good.


Agreed. It’s basically a Dad joke.
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nimrod

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Re: Was Please Please Me the breakthrough?
« Reply #12 on: August 28, 2021, 01:16:14 AM »

I always wondered why Saw her Standing there wasn't considered as a single, for me its better than the first three.
Still played a lot and danced to.
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Loco Mo

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Re: Was Please Please Me the breakthrough?
« Reply #13 on: August 28, 2021, 02:18:07 AM »

blmeanie:  Your link, http://www.beatlesebooks.com/please-please-me, was very interesting.  Here's two quotes from it that I find most remarkable.

Quote
America can indeed be grateful for the turn of events that led to the success of “Please Please Me” in Britain since, if this hadn’t happened, things wouldn’t have snowballed into international success for The Beatles. They would have remained a local Liverpool act and surely died a quiet death like most of the other local “beat” groups of their day.


Quote
However you slice it, the United States, as well as the rest of the world, can be immensely grateful for what The Beatles brought forward with this song. America would not have been impacted the way it was, nor would you be reading this today, if John Lennon hadn’t written a song entitled “Please Please Me.”


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Moogmodule

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Re: Was Please Please Me the breakthrough?
« Reply #14 on: August 28, 2021, 02:27:35 AM »

I always wondered why Saw her Standing there wasn't considered as a single, for me its better than the first three.
Still played a lot and danced to.

I’d rank it behind PPM but it is surprising it wasn’t in the mix.
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blmeanie

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Re: Was Please Please Me the breakthrough?
« Reply #15 on: August 28, 2021, 11:26:26 AM »

I agree that I saw her standing there would have been a #1 as well.

With it being the first song on the first album and some of my early Beatle fandom coming from watching the complete beatles on vhs over and over and the initial success in America was framed up with I saw her standing there as the song they used, I like to connect it to breaking through.  I get it, it wasn't actually but coulda shoulda?
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