What was the First Beatles Song You Heard? When & Where were you?

[cedartop52]

'She Loves You' on a transistor radio, Marion, Iowa, KCRG

[golfreggie]

Please Please Me only sold approx. 7000 copies in the US, and was re-released on Jan 30, 1964 after the success of I Wanna Hold Your Hand. That 7000 sold in the US in early 1963 is probably why I never heard it. Once it was re-released it quickly shot up the charts in early 1964: Source: The Beatles Bible website

[Silly Moustache]

Yes, I remember it well. October 1962 - The Friday "social club" at my secondary school. A large hall with music consisting of 45 rpm singles played on a school issue gramophone.

I was already a band member, playing Shadows, Ventures type material byut increasingly interested in R&B.
I heard the harmonica on Love Me Do and thought they were an interesting new R&B band (sorry - group).

I thought "they should do well!"

[Yrksman]

Not sure exactly, Please Please Me was familiar without necessarily noticing who the performers were. So that would be early 63. She Loves You changed my life. We were ahead over here of course. Saw them Aug 9 1964 at the Futurist Theatre, Scarborough, Yorkshire. That was a small theatre which has just been demolished. Two weeks to the day later, August 23, they played the Hollywood Bowl for the first time.

[tippy5]

Probably Please Please Me. A great song.

What a band. They had the teenage art schools for brain nimbleness. They loved Mersey beat Skiffle and Americana recordings. Then they went for extended tours in Germany to gel as a band with thousands of gigs before they pushed each other composing and performing hits. They are so talented. They paid their dues. They put in so much time with their music. Many of their 225 songs us baby boomers can sing without lyric sheets. I wonder 300 years from now if others will enjoy their music?

[RP]

Like many other boomers, I saw the Beatles perform on the Ed Sullivan Show. I really can't say if that was the first time I'd heard their music. For those who weren't around on 2/9/64...

[Mr. Jelly]

Yea. That Ed show was the first time I heard of them or heard them. My older brothers and sisters wanted to watch it so of coarse I did too. The thing that stuck about the whole thing was the excitement from the audience and the charming naughty boy smiles the Beatles wore. In other words it came across as an event. The music? Oh yea they played music.

[menhir]

It was either She Loves You or I Wanna to Hold your hand.

The little girls in the elementary school yard loved them, and us little boys hated them because the little girls loved them.

I remember the boys chorusing "The Beatles are refugees, the Beatles are refugees" at recess. We didn't even know what refugee meant, but we shouted it anyway. (We boys really didn't know what little girls were either, not at that age. )

Kids.

Truth be told though, we all loved the Beatles music and I still remember watching them when they first played the Ed Sullivan show...and all the girls screaming, too.

[Misifus]

“She Loves You,” Bowling Green State University, c1964.

[Rudy4]

"My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean".

My older brother was playing the 45 rpm record. I think I still have the 45 stuck away in all my stuff!

[Inyo]

Originally Posted by Rudy4

"My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean".

The lads played backup to lead vocalist/guitarist Tony Sheridan on that record (originally credited to Tony Sheridan and The Beat Brothers); Ringo Starr wasn't even on board yet. The Beatles lineup at that time (recording date: June 22, 1961) was John Lennon, George Harrison, Paul McCartney, bassist Stuart Sutcliffe (who attended the My Bonnie session, but didn't play--McCartney plays bass on My Bonnie, of course), and drummer Pete Best. Re-released in 1964 and went #26 US Billboard for The Beatles.

With My Bonnie, Tony Sheridan provides the second-best guitar solo on any Beatles recording (#1 guitar solo is of course Clapton on While My Guitar Gently Weeps):



And, for musicology-minded folks, here's the first recording of My Bonnie--by The Haydn Quartet in 1901:

[Cibby]

She Loves You. Also the first 45 I bought to it was on the Swan record label before there deal with Capital records. I still have it.

[Rudy4]

Originally Posted by Inyo

The lads played backup to lead vocalist/guitarist Tony Sheridan on that record (originally credited to Tony Sheridan and The Beat Brothers); Ringo Starr wasn't even on board yet. The Beatles lineup at that time (recording date: June 22, 1961) was John Lennon, George Harrison, Paul McCartney, bassist Stuart Sutcliffe (who attended the My Bonnie session, but didn't play--McCartney plays bass on My Bonnie, of course), and drummer Pete Best. Re-released in 1964 and went #26 US Billboard for The Beatles.

With My Bonnie, Tony Sheridan provides the second-best guitar solo on any Beatles recording (#1 guitar solo is of course Clapton on While My Guitar Gently Weeps):



And, for musicology-minded folks, here's the first recording of My Bonnie--by The Haydn Quartet in 1901:

Great stuff! Thanks for the info. It's interesting that My Bonnie was the B side of the 45, with the "hit" release as the A side. The 45 is buried in my storage boxes somewhere and I can't remember what the A side was...

[Yrksman]

Originally Posted by Charmed Life Picks

I did a little research. As far as I could find, the first Beatles single was "Please, Please Me," in Feb 1963, followed by "From Me to You," in May 1963, and "She Loves You." in Sept 1963. However, none these really broke through or received significant airplay.

That came on December 26, 1963, when "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" popped and went number one. This must have been about the time I heard it. I had an older brother who was more hip to these things.

scott memmer

The early three you mention were all UK chart toppers (Please Please Me only briefly and not in all charts). The first single, Love Me Do, reached number 17 in the UK in late 1962. Throughout their career the Beatles primary focus was the UK. They had no control over some of the early US releases. Hence the differences between British and American albums.

[FrankHudson]

Originally Posted by Charmed Life Picks

I did a little research. As far as I could find, the first Beatles single was "Please, Please Me," in Feb 1963, followed by "From Me to You," in May 1963, and "She Loves You." in Sept 1963. However, none these really broke through or received significant airplay.

That came on December 26, 1963, when "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" popped and went number one. This must have been about the time I heard it. I had an older brother who was more hip to these things.

scott memmer

Capital was the US branch of EMI (the UK label that signed the Beatles). They passed on releasing the Beatles recordings. UK records were not considered commercially viable in the US. (A. Bilk's "Stranger on the Shore" and the magnificent "Telstar" would put the first chink that wall).

VeeJay (a Black-owned Chicago R&B label) picked up the rights. WLS* (a powerful Chicago AM radio station that I listened to at night in Iowa) is by some reports the first station to play Beatles records in the US, but not a whole lot, and I'm pretty sure I never heard them on their air in those early 1963 days.

On the other hand I was a teenager reading small bits in newspapers and seeing a consequential report on CBS national TV news about this phenomenon in Britain where some group named The Beatles were causing Elvis level excitement with issues with crowd control etc. I assumed they would be some kind of exciting new sounding music--particularly after hearing and loving "Telstar" I assumed futuristic and different.

Ed Sullivan saw that same CBS TV news broadcast (his show as on the CBS network) and this may have led to the famous booking. Prior to the show, the Beatles records broke onto playlists all across the US, so I probably heard them on KIOA AM radio out of Des Moines. It may have been Please Please Me or I Want to Hold Your Hand.

I was disappointed. They sounded like some guys copying the then popular girl group sound. Not different enough! I didn't realize that they were doing a good job of the copying, nor did I know anything about them writing their own songs, or even the self-contained band aspect. I saw the Sullivan shows and the exuberance was contagious, but I still didn't much care for their music. A few months later I heard "If I Fell" on the radio which was slow almost Beach Boys/Four Freshman kind of vocal harmony thing and I was impressed, still not fully understanding that this was a self-contained band writing it's own stuff. I think I finally started to like the band when the Hard Day's Night movie came out. I was a dense guy with strong opinions about what was valuable in music back then, and maybe I still am but don't have the perspective to know it yet.

*The other station I would listen to at night (most stations had to reduce power at night and so I couldn't receive them in my small rural town, except for a handful of "clear channel" stations that would reach hundreds of miles) was "KOMA in Olkahoma." It's just possible that I'd hear their early morning DJ whose British accent was instantly valuable in the wake of the "British Invasion"--some guy who used John Peel as his air-name. Gee, I wonder what he did after that?