Do You Want To Know A Secret

CHART ACTION
UNITED STATES: Also issued as a single more than a year after it was recorded, during the frenzied days of Beatlemania in the United States. The song, on Vee Jay, entered the Top 40 in mid-April 1964, hitting No. 2 during its nine-week run. Vee Jay re-released it August 10, 1964, but it didn't chart. The Long and Winding Road: An Intimate Guide to the Beatles

AUTHORSHIP Lennon (.5) and McCartney (.5)
It would be some time before George began writing his own material and 'Do You Want To Know A Secret' was written for him. Based on an original idea by John, it was essentially what Paul calls a 'hack song', a 50-50 collaboration written to order. John says that he based the tune on 'Wishing Well' from Walt Disney's 1937 cartoon Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs. Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

LENNON: "I wrote this one. I remember getting the idea from a Walt Disney film - Cinderella or Fantasia. It went something like: "D'you wanna know a secret, promise not to tell, standing by a wishing well." Beatles in Their Own Words

LENNON: "[My mother] used to do this little tune when I was just a one- or two-year-old. . . . The tune was from the Disney movie. . . . So, I had this sort of thing in my head and I wrote it and just gave it to George to sing." September 1980, All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono

LENNON: "I wrote that one, but I can't say I wrote it for George. I was in the first apartment I'd ever had that wasn't shared by fourteen others. I'd just married Cyn and Brian Epstein gave us his secret little apartment that he kept in Liverpool for his sexual liaisons separate from his home life. He let Cyn and I have that apartment. Now my mother was a singer, not professional, but she used to get up in pubs and things like that. She had a good voice, and she used to do a little tune when I was one or two years old. The tune was from a Walt Disney film, Cinderella or Fantasia. It went something like, 'Do you wanna know a secret, promise not to tell, standing by a wishing well.' So, I had this sort of thing in my head and I wrote it and just gave it to George to sing. I thought it would be a good vehicle for him, because it only had three notes and he wasn't the best singer in the world. In those days, his singing ability was very poor because he hadn't the opportunity and he concentrated more on guitar. So I wrote that one, not for him, as I was writing it, but when I had written it, I thought he could do it." The Beatles Off the Record: Outrageous Opinions & Unrehearsed Interviews

Harrison said this song (or its recording) was inspired, to some extent, by "I Really Love You," a rhythm and blues hit for the Stereos in 1961. Musician (November 1987)

RECORDED
February 11, 1963, at Abbey Road

INSTRUMENTATION
McCARTNEY: bass, backing vocal
LENNON: rhythm guitar, backing vocal
HARRISON: lead guitar, lead vocal
STARR: drums

MISCELLANEOUS
This song was part of the Beatles' concert repertoire in 1963. The Complete Beatles Chronicle
Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, also managed by Brian Epstein, recorded a version of this song. It was released in Britain on April 26, 1963 (backed with a McCartney song, "I'll Be on My Way"), and was a big hit: No. 1 for two weeks. Although it bombed in the United States, Kramer's U.K. success proved for the first time that Lennon-McCartney songs could be hits for other artists. That began a long and fruitful career for the pair as songwriters for other artists. The Long and Winding Road: An Intimate Guide to the Beatles
Lennon, solo on acoustic guitar, recorded the demo of this song for Billy J. Kramer in a lavatory. The toilet was flushed at the end of the tape. Lennon told Kramer that the lavatory was the quietest place he could find to make the recording. Lennon : The Definitive Biography