So You Think You Know About The Beatles?

By Billy Shears

"So You Think You Know About The Beatles?" is a unique collection of facts and trivia about The Beatles. Broken down by every album they released and also by group members, the book is jam-packed with little-known information about the Fab Four.
Packed with original artwork throughout, "So You Think You Know About The Beatles?"  is an essential reference guide for fans, quiz masters, and Beatles Geeks alike.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Billy Shears
• Release date: Mar 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215288726

Book preview

Contents

Beatles Albums in release order

Please Please Me

With the beatles

A hard day’s night

Beatles for sale

Help!

Rubber soul

Revolver

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts

Club Band

Magical mystery tour

(The white album)

Abbey road

Let it be

Paul McCartney Trivia

John Lennon Trivia

George Harrison Trivia

Ringo Starr Trivia

Beatles Albums in release order

Please Please Me

22nd March 1963

Track Listing

Side One

1 I Saw Her Standing There  

2 Misery  

3 Anna (Go to Him) 

4 Chains  

5 Boys  

6 Ask Me Why  

7 Please Please Me 

Side Two

1 Love Me Do  

2 P.S. I Love You  

3 Baby It's You 

4 Do You Want to Know a Secret 

5 A Taste of Honey 

6 There's a Place

7 Twist and Shout  

Recorded largely in a single day and released by Parlophone on 22nd March 1963, Please Please Me was the first official UK album released by The Beatles. It was recorded in a rushed fashion after debut single Love Me Do had reached a high of #17 on the UK chart the previous October.

Some songs were fully captured in a single live take, and the album features very few overdubs. This is in keeping with the band’s raw live sound that had built them a reputation in local Liverpool nightspots like The Cavern Club.

It is, of course, a highly influential rock album, containing several rock and roll standards and beginning the then unusual trend of bands writing their own material.

All original songs were credited to McCartney-Lennon; the more familiar Lennon-McCartney became a staple with their second album – With the Beatles.

Trivia

1. THE ALBUM TOOK LESS THAN 13 HOURS TO RECORD.

The album had to be recorded quickly in order to capitalize on the success of the Please Please Me single, which had been riding high on the charts for two months. Producer George Martin booked two consecutive studio sessions at EMI Studios on Abbey Road, starting at 10 a.m. on a Monday morning. They ran long, so Martin booked a third. They wrapped up Twist and Shout just as their studio time expired at 10:45 p.m.

2. IT WAS RECORDED ON THE CHEAP.

Despite the cost of the extra studio session, the whole day cost about £400 (or about $10,000 nowadays). Thanks to the Musicians' Union, each Beatle received a whopping £7.50 per session.

3. IT WAS ALMOST RECORDED LIVE AT THE CAVERN CLUB.

Martin wanted to capture the magic and excitement of The Beatles’ live performances at the Cavern Club, and even visited the space to work out the technical details for recording there. The timing didn’t work out, so Martin booked the studio instead—but the feel remains the same. It was a straightforward performance of their stage repertoire—a broadcast, more or less, Martin said. Lennon later agreed: That record tried to capture us live, and was the nearest thing to what we might have sounded like to the audiences in Hamburg and Liverpool. You don't get that live atmosphere of the crowd stomping on the beat with you, but it's the nearest you can get to knowing what we sounded like before we became the 'clever' Beatles.

4. THE TITLE WAS INSPIRED BY A BING CROSBY TUNE.

The song title (and thus the album title) was inspired by an old Bing Crosby song called Please. I was always intrigued by the words ‘Please lend your little ears to my pleas’—[a] Bing Crosby song. I was always intrigued by the double use of the word ‘pleas(e),' Lennon said.

5. THE SONG ITSELF ORIGINALLY SOUNDED MORE LIKE A ROY ORBISON SONG.

I’d heard Roy Orbison doing ‘Only the Lonely’ or something, Lennon admitted. George Martin wasn’t impressed with the ballad-style crooning—one account says he told them it was Too bloody boring for words—and suggested a more upbeat tempo. We were a bit embarrassed that he had found a better tempo than we had, McCartney said.

6. JOHN LENNON'S VOICE WAS TRASHED BY THE END OF THE DAY.

They had saved Twist and Shout for the end and knew they would only get one or two takes, because after nearly 13 hours of nonstop singing, John Lennon’s voice was shot. He took throat lozenges and gargled milk just to get