Inside the wild 13-hour recording session that launched The Beatles’ career
The Beatles enjoyed countless monumental days in their career, from their first show in Hamburg to their performance on the roof of Apple Corps on Savile Row. However, one of the most crucial days in their time together came on February 11th, 1963, when the group spent 13 hours making magic at Studio Two of EMI Studios.
The Liverpudlians entered the studio in the morning, and three sessions took place over the day. They were only supposed to carry out two sessions on a cold February day, but The Beatles were inspired and couldn’t resist returning to Studio Two to record even more songs.
The day’s activity began at 10am when they laid down ten recordings of ‘There’s A Place’, followed by nine takes of ‘I Saw Her Standing There’. After three hours in the studio, the engineers and staff assisting the group decided to divert for a lunch break, but the Fab Four had other ideas.
Tape operator Richard Langham was shocked by the work ethic of The Beatles, and he said in The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions: “When we came back they’d been playing right through. We couldn’t believe it. We had never seen a group work right through their lunch break before.”
Everybody reconvened for the beginning of the second session at 2:30pm, and they carried the prolific pace from the morning into the afternoon. The first track they took on during that spell was ‘A Taste Of Honey’, which took seven takes to perfect.
After finishing ‘A Taste Of Honey’, George Harrison recorded his lead vocals for ‘Do You Want To Know A Secret’, and The Beatles got another track in the can. After completing those two, John Lennon added overdubs to ‘There’s A Place’ and ‘I Saw Her Standing There’.
Before the afternoon session was over, they somehow managed to squeeze in the recording of ‘Misery’ before having a well-deserved break at 6:30pm. They caught their breath for an hour before heading back to Studio Two and returning to work. It began with 13 takes of ‘Hold Me Tight’, which they later re-recorded for With The Beatles because they struggled to lay down a complete recording on the February evening. However, that was the only faux pas of the day.
Following this setback, they recorded three takes of Arthur Alexander’s ‘Anna (Go To Him)’, followed by ‘Boys’, which featured Ringo Starr on lead vocals. Harrison then took over from the drummer on vocals for a cover version of ‘Chains’ by The Cookies, and Lennon then led the group through a cover of The Shirelles’ ‘Baby It’s You’. It had now reached 10pm, and The Beatles should have gone home as EMI Studios was supposed to close its doors for the evening, but the band weren’t prepared to go home just yet. In their mind, they needed one more track, and they proceeded to go to the canteen to decide upon their next move.
According to the sound engineer Norman Smith, quoted in The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions: “Someone suggested they do ‘Twist And Shout’, the old Isley Brothers’ number, with John taking the lead vocal. But by this time, all their throats were tired and sore – it was 12 hours since we had started working. John’s, in particular, was almost completely gone, so we really had to get it right first time, The Beatles on the studio floor and us in the control room. John sucked a couple more Zubes [throat sweets], had a bit of a gargle with milk and away we went.”
When The Beatles discussed recording a cover of ‘Twist and Shout’, it was a decision made on the fly, and in their fatigued state, they couldn’t foresee the song becoming one of their signature tracks. Those 13 hours at EMI Studios on this particular February when they somehow completed Please, Please, Me epitomised the band’s career and set a frantic pace they followed throughout the 1960s.
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