Love Me Do

[Spiritinthesky]

5th Oct 1962, The Beatles debut single 'Love Me Do' was released in the UK. It spent 26 week's on the chart peaking at No.17. Beatles producer George Martin has said when 'Love Me Do' was released, it was the day the world changed.

Read the full story: http://www.thisdayinmusic.com/pages/love_me_do

[dmg]

Two chords was it?  Utter rubbish.

[twm]

You have to hear it in the context of what else was going on at that time and what had been going on in the preceding years. And, with the benefit of hindsight, what it started. 

While "Love Me Do" was a hit, it was not, as "spirit ..." showed, a big hit. It may have been released in October 1962 but it wasn't until December that it reached #17 in the RECORD RETAILER chart, by which time The Beatles had almost a month out of the national public eye, with a 13-night residency in Hamburg and a short tour of northern Scotland. It was really only after those that The Beatles released "Please Please Me" and began to build their national reputation - more prestigious and larger venues and more radio and TV shows, for example. By the spring of 1963, the very notion of popular music in Britain had begun to change (beat clubs opening all over the place and the charts no longer being filled with American hits) and, by the middle of 1963, the national press began to feature The Beatles, and beat groups generally, in a more consistent and more synpathetic way, while, by then, the weekly music press and the teenage weeklies (mainly for girls, it has to be said) were providing blanket coverage.

"Love Me Do" may have been a simple, almost pre-teen, song but it really did presage huge changes in Britain.


   

[vgonis]

May I add that apart from the simplistic "everything started from there" , the consciousness of the world about music changed with the Beatles, something that even Elvis, who was first, hasn't managed. Following the development of their music, from pre-teen bubble gum, to mini symphonies, the world grew up with them . If you had listened to their early songs when you are 8-10 you would have loved them, with no other logic beyond it. . (I intend to introduce them to my kids like this, and every 8-12 months give them the next album, just like it happened, really. )

[dmg]

"Love Me Do" may have been a simple, almost pre-teen, song but it really did presage huge changes in Britain.
   

For the better?

I won't elaborate any further but I get quite angry when I see everyone in the media being pro Beatles and "oh weren't they great" etc when phrases like drug abuse, domestic violence and terrorist organisation are never very far away from them.  I make no apologies for my total dislike of this band.

[vgonis]

dmg, I try to understand why you mix ethics and personal life with their music. I do believe that we should take into account the life and actual doings of the artists, but the Beatles weren't Gadafi (oh, sorry he was the good one, done in for the oil) Sadam (no, no he was framed for oil, as well) G.W.Bush (that's the one).
If they were criminals and by buying their music you helped them, I would say NO as well. But come on, these things you mention  are everyday life for many people, without the gift of music. They were-are just human. So focus on the music. And not their early work, I, too, am bored with it. But from 1966 onward it is a whole new world. Even new bands would be proud to produce one song like these. As I mentioned before, I don't like to delve into anybody's personal life, and when I read biographies, I tend to read them as literature and not so much about the facts.   And I don't try to change your mind, only trying to understand.

[twm]

Nor should you apologise for your dislike of The Beatles, dmg. You have every right to hold your view and to express it.

In my posting, I gave no indication of whether I liked The Beatles or not, nor whether I liked everything they did or not.

What I tried to do was to explain the impact they had (and I doubt even you would deny that) and to try to make clear that, while the 50th anniversary of the release of "Love Me Do" is being marked now  in 2012, the impact wasn't really felt until the following year (and, factually, you would have difficulty disputing this).

And the change was not necessarily caused by The Beatles. They grasped it, embodied it even, and made the new opportunities it offered apparent to others.  But others were there, too.

As to whether the changes were for the better, there were upsides and downsides, winners and losers - as with virtually all change. I would judge the changes that took place, on balance, to have been for the better.

[dmg]

If they were criminals and by buying their music you helped them, I would say NO as well. But come on, these things you mention  are everyday life for many people, without the gift of music. They were-are just human. So focus on the music.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/649397.stm

[vgonis]

dmg, I see what you mean but the article is rather in Lennon's favour. It states that everything FBI has been accusing him, is probably a huge lie. And from all people Lennon, a known pacifist, funding the IRA? I have heard this one before, but I didn't believe it then and no evidence to believe it now. People lie, and "officers" lie as well. But even if everything is true, in retrospect, how can we judge the actions of a man at a different time? And how can we accept murderous decisions made by politicians on the same subjects, only as political errors and not the different opinions-mistakes of a man as crimes? That said I want to underline that I am against the loss of human life. But as Noam Chomsky used to say,  it is very hard to tell apart the terrorist from the liberation army fighter, nowadays.
 

[superval99]

I read an article yesterday from someone very close to Brian Epstein, who said he had personally bought 10,000 copies of "Love Me Do" and encouraged band members etc to buy as many copies wherever they went, to ensure that the record got into the charts!   He said he had seen them all piled up in Epstein's cellar!   

I saw The Beatles many times at lunchtime gigs at the cavern in 1961 and whilst they were a great little band, I don't think most of us there would have predicted they would have become so big as they did.   People say now that they knew it would happen, but we never did.  My friends and I were a bit incredulous but very pleased when it did happen, though, because we had known them before they were famous.   

[vgonis]

Val, thanks for the info! Of  course you only describe a story that I have heard for at least two dozens of bands and artists. And I guess it has happened to many more that we don't know of or haven't heard since. It is a sort of kick-start that is being used, and some people actually deserved it, since it was the only chance to prove their talent. 
 

[superval99]

It is a sort of kick-start that is being used, and some people actually deserved it, since it was the only chance to prove their talent.

Nowadays we have The X Factor!          

[Love Expresso]

I love the term "lunchtime gigs". Have never heard it before.

LE

[twm]

I doubt The Beatles themselves, in 1961, would have predicted that they'd become as big as they did.

Incidentally, I think "Love Me Do" was written several years before it was recorded and released but I would have to dig out some of my books to confirm this.

[superval99]

Were you ever at the Cavern when The Beatles performed, twm?    To this day, I will never forget the smell of the place - a mixture of mould, sweat, perfume and carbolic soap/Jeyes fluid!