Listen to John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s isolated vocals on The Beatles song ‘From Me To You’
Building on the success of their first two singles, ‘Love Me Do’ and ‘Please Please Me’, The Beatles released ‘From Me To You’ in the April of 1963, marking their first single to top all UK charts. The brilliance of those early singles is their minimalism. With just guitar, bass and drums providing the backing, John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s vocals hold every ounce of our attention, guiding us through yet another perfectly-honed pop song. Here, we’ve bought you an isolated recording of those iconic vocals.
‘From Me To You’ was written while The Beatles were driving in their tour bus to a show in Shrewsbury. “The night Paul and I wrote ‘From Me To You’, we were on the Helen Shapiro tour, on the coach, travelling from York,” Lennon recalled in Anthology. “We weren’t taking ourselves seriously – just fooling around on the guitar – when we began to get a good melody line, and we really started to work at it.”
John continued: “Before that journey was over, we’d completed the lyric, everything. I think the first line was mine and we took it from there. What puzzled us was why we’d thought of a name like ‘From Me To You’. It had me thinking when I picked up the NME to see how we were doing in the charts. Then I realised – we’d got the inspiration from reading a copy on the coach. Paul and I had been talking about one of the letters in the From You To Us column.”
The Beatles were sharing the bus with Kenny Lynch, who was yet to write a hit single but, according to Roger Greenway of The Kestrels, still decided to help Paul and John write the song at the back of the bus. After half an hour, nothing had come of the writing session, at which point Kenny apparently decided that he’d had enough and scolded Paul and John for not knowing how to write a tune.
‘During the recording of ‘From Me To You’, the Beatles recycled a motif they’d used on ‘Twist and Shout’: their signature “Whoo!” falsetto. The characteristic vocal would become one of the group’s early trademarks, winding up on their next single: ‘She Loves You’. Though less remembered than some of their earlier and subsequent singles, ‘From me To You’ was an essential building block in The Beatles’ early career. Make sure you check out John and Paul’s isolated vocals below.
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