If there is a ‘sound’ of Beatlemania, an aural expression of the moment in time when music, culture and society began to be shaken to their core by the atomic blast generated by the Fab Four, there are a few candidates you could point to. In literal terms, there is the Live at the Hollywood Bowl album, when you can hear the teenage contingent of the world going bonkers just by being in the presence of the Moptops, reflecting the deafening hysteria that greeted the band’s every appearance (the songs they are playing at those 1964 and ’65 shows are almost an afterthought). A Hard Day’s Night captures the moment when, fresh from conquering the USA, the Fabs had the world at their feet and felt confident enough to unleash a barrage of brilliant self-penned numbers which redefined notions of what pop stars were supposed to be, allying inarguable songwriting genius with the irrepressible cocktail of looks, charisma, humour and stage presence which had already captured hearts across the globe. And if you wanted to boil it all down to one song, you’d be hard pushed to top ‘She Loves You’ as the moment when the floodgates opened and The Beatles began taking root in the world’s DNA. But, for me, the record which really enshrines the moment in time when anything seemed possible – a promise the band made good on in the most extraordinary, unimaginable fashion – is the one they began recording 60 years ago this summer, With The Beatles.
I have to come clean and say, straightaway, that With The Beatles is probably my least favourite of their regular EMI studio albums (excluding the half-hearted mish-mash that is Yellow Submarine), though by that I of course mean it is their least brilliant. Many believe it’s a significant step up from their debut, Please Please Me, and – in some respects – I’d have to agree. It’s more assured, the production has more punch and polish, and some of the original compositions are terrific (if not matching the sustained quantum leap they would make by the time of A Hard Day’s Night). That said, track-for-track, I think its predecessor has a slight edge. By the band’s own high standards, With has a couple of clunkers (‘Little Child’ and ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’) which weigh it down a little. But there is so much to love about this record, it doesn’t really matter. Even the weaker numbers are performed with jaw-dropping gusto, and the confidence that success brings surges through every note they play. Please Please Me saw them plant their flag in the ground and shout: “We’re here, you need to listen to us”; With The Beatles was them saying: “Now we’ve got your attention, we’re going to flex our muscles and show you what we can really do.” It was the perfect album to not only consolidate and strengthen their vice-like grip over UK pop music, but also spearhead their assault on the US in the (albeit slightly different) form of Meet The Beatles early in 1964.
Unlike their debut, the bulk of which was famously recorded in a single day, With had a comparatively leisurely gestation, put together over seven sessions spanning July-October 1963. True, they did have to fit in visits to Abbey Road around a hectic touring schedule, BBC radio sessions, photoshoots and personal appearances (they were heavily promoting ‘She Loves You’ during this period, which saw their profile and popularity explode), but there is a cohesion and consistency to the album which belies any kind of piecemeal approach. The Fabs were quick learners, and their work here is a world away from their first, tentative foray into the EMI recording studio a year earlier when they began to cut ‘Love Me Do’. Their harmonies and call-and-response singing are spectacular, and their ensemble playing is super-tight – listen to the stop-start precision of ‘Don’t Bother Me’ or ‘Please Mr Postman’, for example. George Martin was also figuring out how to get the most out of them as a studio band, rather than simply recording them as a live act. This album has a fuller, richer sound than Please Please Me. Paul’s bass and Ringo’s drums are higher in the mix, giving the songs more ballast, while more prominent piano (sometimes played by Martin himself) and the introduction of acoustic guitars and bongo drums on ‘Till There Was You’ provided extra texture, and signalled they were already moving away from the strictures of a simple pop combo sound. And if you want to hear early, unfettered soulful singing from John Lennon, this is the place to go. He just opens his mouth and sings his heart out, in quite astonishing fashion.
John sings lead on ‘It Won’t Be Long’, which more than meets the peerless standards of Beatles album openers and might even be my favourite track on the record. With an irresistible chorus (playfully parodying the ‘yeah, yeah, yeah’ refrain sweeping the UK that summer/autumn), breathless pace, clever vocal interplay, a reflective middle section which builds to a mini-crescendo of its own and a chiming guitar riff from George, it’s damn-near perfect. Their attention to detail and relentless desire to squeeze every last drop from a song is already apparent, too, with Paul delivering an extra-frantic “yeah!” in the final chorus and the whole runaway train screeching to a stop in a bed of flowery harmonies.
They instantly switch gears with another Lennon number, the languid but achingly tender ‘All I’ve Got To Do’. The first of several numbers showing a debt to Smokey Robinson, John’s voice is actually quite restrained in the verses (though knowing and sexily mesmeric in the way he spins out the second “that’s all I-I-I-I-I’ve got to do”). But this just sets up another impassioned delivery in the middle section, brilliantly supported by Paul’s and George’s backing vocals. The wordless “mmmm” repeat of the verse at the end is another masterstroke (as if words can’t really capture the intimacy he’s singing about), and special kudos to Ringo for the jerky but expertly played rhythm at the heart of the song. Martin’s production chops really shine on this one too, giving it a really clean but powerful sound. It’s one of those tracks you might overlook on first hearing, but I find I like it more with each passing year.
By contrast, of course, ‘All My Loving’ hits the bullseye on first listen and never shifts. In much the same way as he produced the perfect rock ‘n’ roll song with ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ on the previous album and would nail the romantic ballad with ‘And I Love Her’ on their next record, Paul masters the pop song idiom here. It’s the perfect marriage of a memorable lyric (how good is “I’ll pretend that I’m kissing/The lips I am missing”?) with a zinger melody, propelled in the verses by John’s rattling rhythm guitar and broken up by George’s inspired country-and-western-style solo, one of his most impressive early performances. Paul’s wide-eyed, soaring vocal is the icing on the cake. While John was undoubtedly the most prolific half of the Lennon/McCartney partnership at this stage, some of Macca’s contributions were worth their weight in gold.
Meanwhile George was starting to dip his toe into the composing pool, and ‘Don’t Bother Me’ is an excellent first effort. Characterised by a thick, draggy sound, the song itself has a distinctly moody, introverted flavour which was new to the The Beatles’ oeuvre. True, John had sung of being home alone and sobbing his heart out over his love, but George actively pushes people away in this one. In all other respects, though, it hits all the marks set by John’s and Paul’s songs of the era – a rollicking rhythm, great tune (I especially love the middle section) and fine group playing. It’s well up to the standards of his bandmates’ originals, which makes it all the more odd that no further Harrisongs appeared on the following two albums and not until almost two years later.
The quality control does take a dip on ‘Little Child’, a flimsy Lennon/McCartney song which screams ‘throwaway’. But even here, they make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear with another full-throttle, dynamic performance. The instrumental break is especially good, with George Martin welding together John’s wailing harmonica, Paul’s hammering piano and some powerhouse Ringo drumming to explosive effect. Then we get a breather with ‘Till There Was You’, the album’s first cover and the band’s first full-on acoustic work-out, which gives free rein to Macca’s romantic crooner tendencies of the period. While their version is based on a jazzy rendition by Peggy Lee, the song’s Broadway musical origins come through in the lyrics, where cheesy references to birds, roses, dawn and dew abound; and if you listen to Paul’s vocal on their take of the song during the unsuccessful Decca Records audition almost two years earlier, it is a little cloying by Beatles standards. But the tone here is just right, a much more mature, sincere interpretation, perfectly supported by the simple, uncluttered arrangement and a gorgeous, expressive solo from George, who really demonstrates his versatility on this. The song is hugely important, for two reasons – first, it helped broaden the Fabs’ appeal to many adults who had assumed they were just tuneless, rowdy rockers; second, it’s effectively a dry run for the numerous acoustic ballads which would flow effortless from Paul’s pen over the decades which followed (only with stronger lyrics).
The band then switches to the Tamla Motown part of their repertoire with ‘Please Mr Postman’ (originally released by The Marvelettes), and it’s an absolute corker. This album is all about energy, and it’s cranked up to maximum here – from the urgent, shouted intro, to the way the band crashes in a few bars later (like they can’t hold back another second), to John’s pleading, heart-wrenching, impatient vocal (he doesn’t even finish one line, he’s so desperate to get onto the next) to the furious fade-out. Anyone who’s ever waited agonisingly for a letter (or maybe text/email these days) which never comes could relate to the raw bundle of emotions masterfully captured here. It’s another contender for the album’s stand-out track and, after ‘Twist and Shout’, probably my favourite of all the band’s covers.
‘Roll Over Beethoven’, the Chuck Berry classic with George singing lead, falls a little short in comparison, but is still a solid rocker. It really swings, thanks in part to John’s chugging rhythm part and the infectious handclaps, while Harrison’s double-tracked boyish vocal and sparky guitar solo are spot-on. While the overall production is a little too clean for my taste, and there are other Berry songs I prefer, it remains a decent way to kick off the second half of the album. And despite its detractors (including Paul himself, who has dismissed it as “work song” over the years), I think ‘Hold Me Tight’ is pretty good, too. Yes, Macca’s vocal is a bit wobbly in places, but the pile-driving guitars give the tune real muscle and there’s an earnest intimacy about the pounding middle section (“You-ou don’t know…what it means to hold you tight”) that I’ve always loved. I also like the way it kind of collapses in an exhausted heap at the end.
Next up is another of their greatest cover versions, their take on Smokey Robinson’s ‘You Really Got A Hold On Me’. The harmony singing on this is thrilling enough, but John’s raw yet remarkably controlled lead vocal is out of this world, like each word is tearing a chunk out of his heart. As an exploration of the bitter-sweet agony of being drawn to someone that you know is no good for you, it’s hard to beat, aided further by George’s understated, mournful guitar lines and yet more fantastic drumming from Ringo. As a band, they rarely sounded tighter than on this, years of playing together coming to glorious fruition on a performance which makes your head spin. By contrast, ‘I Wanna Be Your Man’ – hurriedly written by John and Paul as a gift for the nascent Rolling Stones – is a piece of repetitive fluff; but, once again, it is infused with such vitality and raucousness, they get away with it. Ringo sounds like he’s singing atop a runaway horse, John’s and Paul’s backing vocals are like sniggers from the sidelines, while George’s jagged solo captures the whole proto-punk feeling of the exercise. It’s mildly ridiculous, yet lots of fun all the same.
I never used to have a high opinion of ‘Devil in Her Heart’ (another girl group cover, this time an obscure B-side by obscure US outfit The Donays), either, but it has grown on me over the years. The song’s slight air of corniness (“no no, nay will she deceive”) is redeemed by the third and possibly best lead vocal from George on the album, which nails the innocence and trusting optimism the lyric demands. He also plays some tasteful guitar fills, while Lennon and McCartney come over as worried choirboys with their winning counterpart vocals. There’s nothing angelic about the next song, ‘ Not A Second Time’, another wonderful early Lennon tale of wounded love and betrayal. With the second half simply a repeat of the first it does sound a little under-developed, but it nonetheless throws some powerful emotional punches. John’s singing is confused, hurt and defiant all at the same time; the magic of the song is that while he swears he’s had enough of being messed around, the music tells you he’ll continue to fall over and over again. Some of the chord changes are amazing (this is the tune which famously elicited talk of “Aeolian cadences” from the highbrow music critic of The Times), and George Martin’s simple piano part adds extra weight to the proceedings.
And Martin is on piano again to great effect on the album’s closer, the band’s balls-to-the-wall cover of Barret Strong’s ‘Money (That’s What I Want)’. Another tune the band had performed at their doomed Decca Records audition the year before, the contrast between the two versions is even more stark than on ‘Till There Was You’. Whereas the 1962 take feels tentative, tepid and hurried, the With The Beatles version is bursting with swagger and intent. John pulls out another uncompromising vocal, excitedly supported by Paul and George, while Ringo’s drums sound colossal, bringing all the heft and presence Pete Best’s playing lacked. And the track gathers momentum as it goes, the band upping the ante as they near the finishing line, epitomised by John’s unhinged ad lib scream of “I wanna be free!”, a sure sign not only of the Fabs’ unashamed thirst for material success but also of their awareness that financial reward was just a means to an end. As a blockbuster finale, ‘Money’ doesn’t quite touch the heights of the earlier ‘Twist and Shout’, but it more than delivers what is required, like an erupting volcano pumping out one last blast of lava.
It seems almost beside the point to reflect on the album’s commercial success, but it’s worth noting a few points. With The Beatles was only the second album in the UK to sell more than a million copies, topping the charts for 21 weeks (which, combined with Please Please Me, gave the band 50 straight weeks as the top-selling LP act in the country – two weeks shy of a full year). Its US counterpart, Meet The Beatles (which featured a truncated, slightly different set of songs), was the Fabs’ passport to the big time Stateside, exploding in the early months of 1964 and eventually selling more than five million copies there. You could argue almost all of The Beatles’ albums were epochal in one way or the other, but there is a case to be made that this one was the most important of all. In the UK it proved beyond any doubt the band was not just a flash in the pan, and forced more serious music lovers to sit up and take notice. In the US, albeit in slightly altered form, it obliterated preconceptions of pop music, paved the way for the so-called ‘British invasion’ and helped establish not only the rock album format but also the very idea of rock music as we know it today.
When fans tend to rank their favourite Beatles albums today, With The Beatles tends to come quite far down the list, and I completely understand why – the Fabs would repeatedly scale even greater heights in the years to come. But there are people, especially music critics, who regard it as a five-star record in its own right, and that’s equally true. As The Beatles advanced and evolved with bewildering rapidity, this was their crowning farewell to their incarnation as a Liverpool and Hamburg club act; while listeners were still marveling over the fresh new sound captured on the album, the band was already off exploring new horizons, leaving the rest of the world to play catch-up for the remainder of the decade. But the beauty of With The Beatles is that it is the perfect snapshot of them in that moment when they began to shake the door of Western pop culture off its hinges, and it began to dawn on people some special was happening. Moreover, it remains an exhilarating listen, timelessly effervescent and brimming with invention, vigour and attitude. And for those of us who weren’t around to experience it at the time, it is a dose of Beatlemania on tap.
Free as a Blog 