Carl on The Beatles songbook explored
Times flies and more than a month has passed since Please Please Me was posted as part of this series.
Perhaps this song is a true landmark in that it starts the tradition that continued through the rest of The Beatles career: the B Side of a single that is as good as (or nearly as good as) the A side. A song whose quality far surpasses 99% of the rest of singles’ chart content.
But having said that I think it is fair to say that this is one of the more obscure songs from the very early days and It is difficult to understand why.
This contrasts markedly with the schmaltz of P.S. I Love You. It can be argued that it’s equivalently sentimental, but is much more muscular and musically far more interesting. But then it is a vocal by John, so it is hardly surprising.
I’m not sure when I first heard this. We had neither the Please, Please Me single nor album. It’s not on The Red Album and given how rare it was to hear any “popular” music on the old Light Service, be it by The Beatles or anyone else, the restrictions on needle-time, never mind it being the B side of a single it’s hard to pinpoint when it was. Yet it sounds as familiar to me as most of the Beatles songs from this era.
Here’s a live version from the BBC sessions (which wouldn’t be when I heard it, because shows like Saturday Club were never on in our house.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_28t_mQRycw&list=RD_28t_mQRycw#t=14
I was looking for “Ask Me Why” in the Beatles Monthly Poll of 1983, presuming it to be somewhere between 150 and 210 when, lo-and-behold, there it is in a very creditable 93rd (110 votes). Think Stoke City or West Bromwich Albion; you imagine they’ll get relegated, they finish 9th.
Of course, its high placing may have had something to do with the then recent re-release of the “Please Please Me” 45.
It’s arguably the most anonymous song in the whole Beatles canon. It can’t lay claim to be the first b-side, it doesn’t have the allure of a stand-alone b-side, its position on the album (side 1, track 6) is almost designed to make you miss it, and even on the “All My Loving” E.P. it sits, rather uncomfortably, alongside (behind) “All My Loving!”
And yet it would get in my Fabs Top 20.
What d’you mean by “a stand-alone b-side”?
I believe he means a non-album B-side.
This is fascinating stuff Carl – keep it up! I’m not sure I’ve ever heard ‘Ask Me Why’. It sounds ‘familiar’ simply because it has so many typical Beatles ingredients which we all know by osmosis and yet, yes, it is kind of anonymous and unmemorable. Having played the clip I now can’t remember anything about it (except the rather cheesy woo-woo-woo backing vocal bit, which seems to be in ballroom cha-cha-cha tempo).
Yep, appeared on an L.P. unlike, say, “Thank You Girl.”
A few years ago Queen put out three compilations under the title “Deep Cuts,” the purpose of which was to champion the lesser-known parts of their back catalogue.
Retailing at £6/7 each absolutely no one bought them, but the idea (if it hadn’t been Queen!) seemed a pretty good one.
If The Beatles stuff ever goes the same way, “Ask Me Why” would be a prime contender for CD1 Track 1.
Ah, thanks Colin. I was trying to imagine a 7″ single with only one side, and it made my brain hurt.
I’ve got one. This
https://www.discogs.com/Kaiser-Chiefs-You-Can-Have-It-All-Light-Orchestral/master/321782
now’t on b-side, hence hilarious title
Mini – you might like to know that I have a one-sided single from 1970 by Wizz Jones & Formerly Fat Harry.
Again, this sounds to me like something from Cliffs “75 at 75”. Its a long way from this to “I Am The Walrus”. This project while not yet turning into a Beatles uber fan is fascinating. I cant wait for the transition from average rock and roll band to world domination
If I don’t buck up my ideas that will be a long time coming.
Hey, that sounds like a cue for a song:
I know it well from a cassette I taped off Swedish radio in the early 80s, a long show where they played lots of stuff from those BBC sessions, I think they had a copy of (some of) it in their own archive IIRC, perhaps bought and broadcast at the height of Beatlemania and suddenly rediscovered by someone in the 80s who made a radio special out of the material. But I think I might have thought that it was a cover version of someone else’s material, as most of the other songs performed were. Things like “Three Cool Cats” and…um, that’s the one I remember right now! I still have the tape somewhere of course, borderline hoarder as I am! Never bought the official release of those BBC sessions though.
It’s a nice enough song, but terribly well behaved and polite!
The lyrics are banal, but the tune and John’s vocal are lovely and the bit that goes “Ask Me Why, I’ll say I love you and I’m always thinking of you …”, still makes me go a little gooey inside.
Didn’t think I should open another Beatles thread so I might as well place this pearl of wisdom right here. No, don’t thank me.
I’ve just noticed that the German language versions of “She Loves You” and “I Want To Hold Your Hand” have translators as co-writers. Pointless information-tastic.
In the case of “Sie Liebt Dich” one is Lee Montague.
Who? you ask.
Well, he (apparently still alive) turned up in The Baron, Danger Man, Department S, The Sweeney, Minder, Bergerac, Dempsey & Makepeace … everything really … and also “How I Won The War” alongside Lennon.
A stalwart character actor on British TV who can genuinely claim to have co-written a Beatles song.
Why hasn’t this man been knighted?