Review of Please Please Me (1963)

REVIEW:

There are those who say: “The best part of Please Please Me is Paul McCartney’s ‘One-Two-Three-Faw!!’ before ‘I Saw Her Standing There.’”

And Paul did that count with such gusto because he was upset it took them nine takes to get the song right.

And people said Paul was a pervert because the lyric changed from “She was just seventeen / never been a beauty queen” to “She was just seventeen / you know what I mean?”

And Jerry Seinfeld said: “No, Paul, we don’t know what you mean.”

And everybody in the audience roared with laughter.

But what Seinfeld may not have realized was that Paul was fifteen when he wrote it and was in fact after a more mature bird.

And “Twist and Shout” got everybody riled up because John’s voice was ragged and he was “sucking down Zubes” all day because The Beatles had about ten minutes to record fourteen songs.

And Lennon said: “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, c’mon baby now!” And on the second refrain on the third “c’mon” people claim they can hear his larynx split like string cheese.

And when kids born after the Cold War heard that “Twist and Shout” wasn’t a Ferris Bueller song they thought: “Wow, the Beatles really did rock.”

And it's possible their parents didn’t have the heart to say “the Isley Brothers really did rock.”

And six of the fourteen songs on Please Please Me are covers.

And there’s a good group of well-meaning people who say: “There’s four songs worth a damn on this.”

And I say there’s six:

“I Saw Her Standing There” 

“Twist and Shout” (originally by the Isley Brothers) 

“Anna” (originally by the Shirelles) 

“Boys” (with Ringo on vocals; originally by Luther Dixon and Wes Farrell) 

“Please Please Me”

“Do You Want to Know a Secret”