#35 The Beatles- With The Beatles

The toppermost of the poppermost once again, now with added Motown…

(Parlophone)

Released: 22nd November 1963

Topped the chart:

1st December 1963 (for 21 weeks)

Twenty-one weeks total.

Released eight months to the day from their country-swallowing debut, The Beatles were nonetheless a completely different beast by the time of their sophomore, With The Beatles. Over the summer, The Beatles had gone from hot new flashes-in-the-pan to the biggest act in British pop history thanks to the success of the rollicking, adrenalizing single She Loves You, the group’s second (or third, depending on who you ask) number one single that became the biggest selling 45 to that point.

From there, Beatlemania was a phrase coined in the Daily Mail in October 1963 to describe the delirium young people experienced and the sheer volume of screaming that the band faced everywhere they went. In the weeks between this and the release of With The Beatles, the foursome played the Royal Command Performance, tearing through She Loves You and Twist and Shout in front of the Queen Mother and over 21 million viewers at home. Please Please Me had also sat atop the album charts for well over six months consecutively and, while many, including the band themselves, still saw The Beatles’ brand of pop music as having an expiry date, it was clear that this was the dominant force in British music in 1963.

As a result, like any classic sequel there is a greater confidence coming into With The Beatles and, though it was still largely recorded in a hurry on days between tour dates (six whole days of recording- luxury!), the panic of Please Please Me has fallen away. And as with the majority of sequels, With The Beatles doubles down on what worked best first time around—more of the same but with a bit more sophistication and experience; higher highs and lower lows. Even the cover (photographed by Robert Freeman in half-shadow, as a nod to Freeman’s own work with John Coltraine and photos taken of the younger Beatles in the 1960s by Astrid Kirchherr) suggests more confidence—no longer feeling the need to smile for the sake of it, Lennon almost smirking menacingly out to his teenage audience.

Case in point, It Won’t Be Long and Money (That’s What I Want), respective opener and closer. Like Please Please Me before it, With The Beatles is structured to place the most thrilling tracks to start and finish. The former recalls not only I Saw Her Standing There with its amphetamine rush, but also She Loves You with its “yeah, yeah, yeah” refrain. This time though, there’s the addition of a bluesier, slower middle eight in a minor key that adds a little bit of different texture to proceedings, and the song wraps in a barbershop style rising harmony. Money, meanwhile is another cover of a Black American artist (Barrett Strong, scoring the first Motown hit record in 1959) which brings the album to a raucous close.

As with, Please Please Me, it’s challenging to find new angles on an album that has graced an unfathomable number of record collections over the years. So, to recap: yes, All My Loving is an early McCartney classic in an era dominated by Lennon; no, Not a Second Time is not troubling anyone’s Beatles top 10; yes, a number of the covers (Please Mister Postman, You Really Got A Hold On Me, Money) introduced the UK to Tamla Motown and come within a breath of beating them, while the Chuck Berry cover (Roll Over Beethoven) breezes right past the original; and yes, Till There Was You was a lovely one for your Nan to enjoy.

With The Beatles does feature some forgotten corners though. Little Child is often derided in Beatles fandom, but listening today it’s hard to remember why—it’s a little throwaway, but as a harmonica-powered rocker with John Lennon in full voice, it’s an enormous amount of fun. George Martin’s dynamo-powered piano overdub doesn’t exactly hurt, either.

Don’t Bother Me, meanwhile, usually only gets its flowers as the debut from the pen of George Harrison. And, yes, he would go onto write much, much better songs in the later 60s, but as a bad romantic mood in the middle of a record awash with happy-go-lucky boy-meets-girl bubblegum, it sounds like a grumpy headache and is a welcome little bit of grit. It’s also significantly better than Lennon’s attempt at the same idea, Not a Second Time. It helps that Harrison’s vocals sound more confident this time around, and while this and his two covers (Beethoven and Devil in Her Heart) might not show off Lennon and McCartney’s depth, they are at least in tune and feel at least a little richer.

While it lacks Please Please Me’s ramshackle charm and energy, With The Beatles represents a move into confident showmanship that proved The Beatles were here to stay. With Liverpool on top at the end of 1963, it was time for London to start fighting back with the best they had to offer. Let battle commence.

Score: 8/10

PS: With the 60th anniversary of The Beatles arrival in America at the end of 2024, focus has shifted to the American edition of this album, Meet The Beatles!! From 1964 to 1966, The Beatles albums would be slaughtered by their American label Columbia and re-ordered seemingly at random to increase the number of LPs available to the American buying public. Most are worse than their British counterparts…with the exception of Meet The Beatles!! By dumping many of the covers and porting over I Want to Hold You Hand, I Saw Her Standing There and This Boy, it’s a record that combines the increased sophistication of this album with the pure rush of energy that Please Please Me and their singles provided. It’s no wonder that the American fell so hard and so fast as a result.

Track listing:

SIDE A

1.      It Won’t Be Long

2.      All I’ve Got to Do

3.      All My Loving

4.      Don’t Bother Me

5.      Little Child

6.      Till There Was You

7.      Please Mr Postman

SIDE B

8.      Roll Over Beethoven

9.      Hold Me Tight

10.  You Really Got a Hold on Me

11.  I Wanna Be Your Man

12.  Devil in Her Heart

13.  Not a Second Time

14.  Money (That’s What I Want)