Good Day Sunshine

AUTHORSHIP McCartney (.8) and Lennon (.2)
McCARTNEY: "It was really very much a nod to the Lovin' Spoonful's 'Daydream', the same traditional, almost trad-jazz feel. That was our favourite record of theirs. 'Good Day Sunshine' was me trying to write something similar to 'Daydream'. John and I wrote it together at Kenwood, but it was basically mine, and he helped me with it." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

LENNON: "Paul [wrote this]. But I think maybe I helped him with some of the lyric." Hit Parader (April 1972)

RECORDED
June 8, 1966, at Abbey Road, with overdubs added June 9

INSTRUMENTATION
McCARTNEY: bass, lead vocal
LENNON: harmony vocal
HARRISON: harmony vocal
STARR: drums
GEORGE MARTIN: piano

COMMENTS BY OTHERS
This song was praised, particularly for its construction, by Leonard Bernstein in a 1967 CBS news documentary. It Was Twenty Years Ago Today

Getting Better

AUTHORSHIP McCartney (.65) and Lennon (.35)

McCartney was walking his dog, Martha, during the early spring of 1967 when the sun came out and he thought, "It's getting better," which reminded him that Jimmy Nicol used to say that same phrase frequently. (Nicol was the drummer who had taken Ringo's place for five days in Denmark and Australia in 1964 when Ringo was ill.) When Lennon came over that day to continue writing material for Sgt. Pepper, McCartney suggested they write a song called "Getting Better." They worked on it for twelve hours, stopping once for a quick meal. They introduced the song to George and Ringo and recorded some of the instrumentation the next night. The Beatles: Illustrated and Updated Edition

Written at Cavendish Avenue, on the top floor, in Paul's music room. Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

McCARTNEY: "Wrote that at my house in St. John's Wood. All I remember is that I said, 'It's getting better all the time,' and John contributed the legendary line, 'It couldn't get much worse,' which I thought was very good. Against the spirit of that song, which was all super-optimistic - then there's that lovely little sardonic. Typical John." Playboy (December 1984)

McCARTNEY: "I just remember writing it. Ideas are ideas, you don't always remember where you had them, but what you do remember is writing them. Where I start remembering it is where I actually hit chords and discover the music, that's where my memory starts to kick in because that's the important bit; the casual thought that set it off isn't too important to me.
" 'Getting Better' I wrote on my magic Binder, Edwards and Vaughan piano in my music room. It had a lovely tone, that piano, you'd just open the lid and there was such a magic tone, almost out of tune, and of course the way it was painted added to the fun of it all. It's an optimistic song. I often try and get on to optimistic subjects in an effort to cheer myself up and also, realising that other people are going to hear this, to cheer them up too. And this was one of those. The 'angry young man' and all that was John and I filling in the verses about schoolteachers. We shared a lot of feelings against teachers who had punished you too much or who hadn't understood you or who had just been bastards generally. So there are references to them.
"It's funny, I used to think of the bad grammar coming from Chuck Berry but it's actually more Jamaican, like writing in slang. It just appeared in one of the verses, it felt nice, it scanned nicely, rather than 'I used to be an angry young man', 'me used . . .' We'd always grab at those things, lots of precedents with Elvis, 'ain't never done no wrong'. At school the teachers would have said, 'Isn't it terrible grammar?' and you'd say, 'Yeah, isn't it great?'" Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

John and Paul finished off the words to 'Getting Better' at Cavendish Avenue.

McCARTNEY: "I was sitting there doing 'Getting better all the time' and John just said in his laconic way, 'It couldn't get no worse,' and I thought, 'Oh, brilliant! This is exactly why I love writing with John'. He'd done it on a number of other occasions, he does a Greek chorus thing on 'She's Leaving Home', he just answers. It was one of the ways we'd write. I'd have the song quite mapped out and he'd come in with a counter-melody, so it was a simple ordinary story." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

Lennon said he wrote the lines about being cruel and beating the woman.

LENNON: "I used to be cruel to my woman, and physically - any woman. I was a hitter. I couldn't express myself, and I hit." September 1980, All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono

RECORDED
March 9, 1967, at Abbey Road, with overdubbing March 10, 21, and 23

TRIPPING IN THE STUDIO

While overdubbing vocals for this song on March 21, Lennon felt ill. The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions: The Official Story of the Abbey Road Years 1962-1970

LENNON: "I never took it in the studio. Once I did, actually. I thought I was taking some uppers, and I was not in the state of handling it ... I suddenly got so scared on the mike. I said, 'What is it? I feel ill ...'" Lennon Remembers: The Full Rolling Stone Interviews from 1970

MARTIN: "He suddenly looked up at me. 'George,' he said slowly, 'I'm not feeling too good. I'm not focusing on me.' 'Come on, John,' I said. 'What you need is a breath of fresh air. I know the way up to the roof.'" Summer of Love
Just as John was explaining how amazing the stars were looking, Paul and George came rushing out on the flat roof. They knew that John was tripping and when they found out where George had taken him they ran anxiously to restrain him in case he thought he could fly off the unguarded parapet. Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

MARTIN: "The problem was where to go; there were the usual five hundred or so kids waiting for us at the front, keeping vigil like guard-dogs, and if we had dared to appear at the entrance there would have been uproar and they would probably have broken the gates down. So I took him up to the roof, above No. 2 studio. I remember it was a lovely night, with very bright stars. Then I suddenly realized that the only protection around the edge of the roof was a parapet about six inches high, with a sheer drop of some ninety feet to the ground below, and I had to tell him, 'Don't go too near the edge, there's no rail there, John.' " All You Need Is Ears : The inside personal story of the genius who created The Beatles

The session was cancelled. For some reason John did not have his car there, and in any case did not want to travel while having a bad trip, so Paul took him back to Cavendish Avenue.
McCARTNEY: "I thought, Maybe this is the moment where I should take a trip with him. It's been coming for a long time. It's often the best way, without thinking about it too much, just slip into it. John's on it already, so I'll sort of catch up. It was my first trip with John, or with any of the guys. We stayed up all night, sat around and hallucinated a lot." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

LENNON: "They all took me upstairs on the roof, and George Martin was looking at me funny, and then it dawned on me I must have taken acid. I said, 'Well, I can't go on, you'll have to do it, and I'll just stay and watch.' You know I got very nervous just watching them all. I was saying, 'Is it all right?' And they were saying, 'Yeah.' They had all been very kind, and they carried on making the record." Beatles in Their Own Words
McCartney offered to take John home, and when they got there Paul took LSD, too, to keep him company. McCartney said that was his first LSD experience. RS (September 11, 1986)

Paul took his second trip with John. On March 21, 1967, during the Sgt. Pepper sessions, John, Paul and George were overdubbing vocals on to a track of "Getting Better" in Studio Two at Abbey Road. John took out the little silver art nouveau pill box that he had bought from Liberty's and rummaged among his pep pills.
McCARTNEY: "He would open it up and choose very precisely: 'Hmm, hmmm, hmmm. What shall I have now?' Well, by mistake this night he had acid, and he was on a trip." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

INSTRUMENTATION
McCARTNEY: bass, lead and backing vocal
LENNON: lead guitar, backing vocal
HARRISON: lead guitar, tamboura, backing vocal
STARR: drums, bongos
GEORGE MARTIN: piano (striking the strings instead of the keys)

The tamboura is an unfretted lute, a huge Indian instrument with four strings that produce a droning resonant note. The Long and Winding Road: An Intimate Guide to the Beatles

Girl

AUTHORSHIP Lennon (.7) and McCartney (.3)
This song was composed during one of John and Paul's writing sessions out at Kenwood. Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

LENNON: "This was about a dream girl. When Paul and I wrote lyrics in the old days we used to laugh about it, like the Tin Pan Alley people would. And it was only later on that we tried to match the lyrics to the tune. I like this one. It was one of my best." Beatles in Their Own Words

LENNON: " 'Girl' I liked because I was, in a way, trying to say something or other about Christianity which I was opposed to at the time." December 1970, Lennon Remembers: The Full Rolling Stone Interviews from 1970

McCARTNEY: "It was John's original idea but it was very much co-written. I remember writing 'the pain and pleasure' and 'a man must break his back', it was all very working-on-the-chain-gang. My main memory is that John wanted to hear the breathing, wanted it to be very intimate, so George Martin put a special compressor on the voice, then John dubbed it.
"It was always amusing to see if we could get a naughty word on the record, 'fish and finger pie', 'prick teaser, 'tit tit tit tit'. The Beach Boys had a song out where they'd done 'la la la la' and we loved the innocence of that and wanted to copy it, but not use the same phrase. So we were looking around for another phrase, so it was 'dit dit dit dit', which we decided to change in our waggishness to 'tit tit tit tit', which is virtually indistinguishiable from 'dit dit dit dit'. And it gave us a laugh. It was to get some light relief in the middle of this real big career that we were forging. If we could put in something that was a little bit subversive then we would. George Martin might say, 'Was that "dit dit" or "tit tit" you were singing?' 'Oh, "dit dit", George, but it does sound a bit like that, doesn't it?' Then we'd get in the car and break down laughing. So I credit that as being towards John but I put quite a bit in. It wasn't one that he came in with fully finished at all." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

RECORDED
November 11, 1965, at Abbey Road, during the last session for the album

McCARTNEY: "Listen to John's breath on 'Girl.' We asked the engineer to put it on treble, so you get this huge intake of breath and it sounds just like a percussion instrument." Compleat(b)

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

McCARTNEY: "I remember going with Jane, Ringo and Maureen on a holiday to Greece, and nobody knew who we were. And we were trying to sell ourselves the whole holiday, 'We are in popular singing group back in England,' and they were going, 'Uh, push off, gringo.' 'No, no, really, we are . . .' The band at the hotel were actually quite good, they really had a bit of acoustic stuff down and had obviously been playing there for years. In fact, in the song 'Girl' that John wrote, there's a Zorba-like thing at the end that I wrote which came from that holiday. I was very impressed with another culture's approach because it was slightly different from what we did. We just did it on acoustic guitars instead of bouzoukis." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

Goodbye

AUTHORSHIP McCartney (1.00)
Naturally Mary Hopkin needed a follow-up to "Those Were The Days". Over in Cavendish Avenue Paul quickly wrote one called "Goodbye".
McCARTNEY: "I didn't have in mind any more Russian folk songs so I just wrote one for her. I thought it fit the bill. It wasn't as successful as the first one but it did all right. My main memory of it is from years later, going on a boat trip from the north of Scotland to the Orkney Islands. The skipper of the boat was called George, and he told me it was his favourite song. And if you think of it from a sailor's point of view, it's very much a leaving-the-port song. He had the strangest Scottish accent, almost sort of Norwegian, as the Orkneyans do. He was quite proud of the fact that that was his favourite song." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

"Goodbye" entered the British charts at number five, but didn't make it to the top. Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

McCARTNEY: "After 'Goodbye', Mary and I didn't work together again. She wanted to do a more folky album, and I felt that if she wanted to do that I wasn't really interested in producing it. I don't think it was a very good idea in the end."
The album, Earth Song/Ocean Song, was produced by Tony Visconti, whom she married in 1971. After that, she more or less left the business to have children, though she made appearances on records as diverse as David Bowie's Low in 1977 and an entire album sung in Welsh, The Welsh World of Mary Hopkin, in 1979. Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

For No One

AUTHORSHIP McCartney (1.00)
This song was written in March 1966 when Paul and Jane were on their skiing holiday in Klosters, Switzerland. They had rented a chalet high above Klosters, about half a mile from the town.

McCARTNEY: "It was very nice and I remember writing 'For No One' there. I suspect it was about another argument. I don't have easy relationships with women, I never have. I talk too much truth." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

RECORDED
May 9, 1966, at Abbey Road, with the vocal overdubbed May 16, and French horn solo overdubbed May 19

INSTRUMENTATION
McCARTNEY: bass, piano, harpischord, lead vocal
STARR: drums, tambourine
ALAN CIVIL: horn

Denni Brain, the premier horn player in Britain, was originally booked to play the French horn solo. As usual, George Martin did not stint in hiring the best session players for the Beatles and in this case there was an element of excitement looking forward to that session. Unfortunately, Dennis Brain died in a car crash before the session and Alan Civil took his place, both on the session and as Britain's top player. Paul hummed the melody that he wanted the French horn to play and George Martin wrote out the score. When it was finished, George pointed out to Paul that the high note went just beyond the top of the horn's range and showed him the reference book used for orchestral writing which showed the top notes of orchestral instruments. George Martin said, "But you know, these good players, they can play above the range." Paul said, "Let's try him then."

McCARTNEY: "George was in for the crack, he liked that. He said, 'It'll work, it'll work.' On the session Alan Civil said, 'George?' and looked at us both. He said, 'George, you've written a D,' and George and I just looked at him and held our nerve and said, 'Yes?' And he gave us a crafty look and went, 'Okay.' We did the same trick on 'Penny Lane' with David Mason on the piccolo trumpet, and he almost never forgave me for it because the only thing people ever asked him to do after that was high trumpet stuff." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

COMMENTS BY BEATLES
McCARTNEY, on why he redid Beatles songs for the film Five My Regards To Broad Street: " 'For No One' I'd never done anywhere, ever. I'd written the song, took it to the studio, one day recorded it, end of story. It's just a record, a museum piece. And I hated the idea of them staying as museum pieces." Washington Post via Musician (February 1985)

LENNON: "Another of his I really liked." Hit Parader (April 1972)

Get Back

CHART ACTION
Two disc jockeys played a version of the song before it was released. Hearing it convinced the Beatles that more remixing was needed. The song was remixed April 7, 1969, for the final version. The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions: The Official Story of the Abbey Road Years 1962-1970

UNITED KINGDOM: Released as a single April 11, 1969. It entered the chart at No. 3 April 23. A week later it was No. 1, where it stayed for five weeks. Sales topped 530,000 copies. The Long and Winding Road: An Intimate Guide to the Beatles

UNITED STATES: Released as a single May 5, 1969. It entered the Top 40 May 10 and climbed to No. 1 for five weeks, totaling twelve weeks in the Top 40. The single sold more than 2 million copies.
The single was also a No. 1 hit around the world, including in Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, West Germany, France, Spain, Norway, Denmark, Holland, and Belgium.
Worldwide sales were estimated to have exceeded 4.5 million. The Long and Winding Road: An Intimate Guide to the Beatles

AUTHORSHIP McCartney (1.00)
It was basically Paul's song, composed in the studios at Twickenham for the now abandoned television show. Paul had a rough idea for the words and music and began jamming it out. John joined him and together they worked on some lyrics. Typically these were partly lifted from newspaper stories: in this case about the plight of Kenyan Asians, who were rushing to get to Britain before the passing of the Commonwealth Immigration Bill which would have denied them entry. Intended as a parody on racist attitudes, the line, 'Don't dig no Pakistani taking all the people jobs!' was dropped early on as being too easily misconstrued. The rest of the third verse went through various changes, ending up in the final demo as:
Meanwhile back at home too many Pakistanis
Living in a council flat
Candidate Macmillan tell me what your plan is
Won't you tell me where it's at.

Meanwhile the fascist National Front was beating up Pakistanis on the streets and the right-wing politician Enoch Powell was predicting race war and "rivers of blood" so, to avoid any possibility of inflaming the situation, the entire verse was ultimately dropped. As Paul later insisted, "The words were not racist at all. They were antiracist. If there was any group that was not racist it was the Beatles". But they did not want to be a hostage to misinterpretation. On a more frivolous level, the Jo Jo in the song was a fictional character.
McCARTNEY: "Many people have since claimed to be the Jo Jo and they're not, let me put that straight! I had no particular person in mind, again it was a fictional character, half man, half woman, all very ambiguous. I often left things ambiguous, I like doing that in my songs." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

McCARTNEY: ". . . When we were doing Let It Be, there were a couple of verses to 'Get Back' which were actually not racist at all - they were anti-racist. There were a lot of stories in the newspapers then about Pakistanis crowding out flats - you know, living sixteen to a room or whatever. So in one of the verses of 'Get Back,' which we were making up on the set of Let It Be [the film], one of the outtakes has something about 'too many Pakistanis living in a council flat' - that's the line. Which to me was actually talking out against overcrowding for Pakistanis. . . . If there was any group that was not racist, it was the Beatles. I mean, all our favourite people were always black. We were kind of the first people to open international eyes, in a way, to Motown." RS (September 11, 1986)
The Beatles made at least two public gestures against racism: They consented to perform on September 11, 1964, in Jacksonville, Alabama, only after the promoters agreed to admit nonwhites to the show, and on July 29, 1966, they refused to sign a contract for a series of concerts in South Africa. The Beatles Diary, Volume 1 : From Liverpool to London

RECORDED
January 27 and 28, 1969, at Apple Studios

INSTRUMENTATION
McCARTNEY: bass, lead vocal
LENNON: lead guitar, harmony vocal
HARRISON: rhythm guitar
STARR: drums
BILLY PRESTON: electric piano

MISCELLANEOUS
Preston was the first guest artist to be credited on a Beatles single. The disc's credit reads: "The Beatles with Billy Preston." The Long and Winding Road: An Intimate Guide to the Beatles

Apple took out a full-page ad in the May 17, 1969, issue of Rolling Stone for the "Get Back"/"Don't Let Me Down" single. It was headed: THE BEATLES AS NATURE INTENDED. RS (May 17, 1969)

COMMENTS BY BEATLES
McCARTNEY: "We were sitting in the studio and we made it up out of thin air . . . we started to write words there and then. . . . When we finished it, we recorded it at Apple Studios and made it into a song to rollercoast by." Own Words and used in RS (May 17, 1969) ad.

LENNON: "That's a better version of 'Lady Madonna.' You know, a potboiler rewrite. . . . I think there's some underlying thing about Yoko in there. . . . You know, 'Get back to where you once belonged': Every time he sang the line in the studio, he'd look at Yoko." September 1980, All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono

LENNON: "'Get Back' is Paul. That's a better version of 'Lady Madonna.' You know, a potboiler rewrite." All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono

From Me To You

CHART ACTION
UNITED KINGDOM: Released on April 11, 1963, as the A side of the Beatles' third single. It entered the pop chart one week later at No. 6 and a week later was at No. 1, where it stayed for five more weeks. The Long and Winding Road: An Intimate Guide to the Beatles

UNITED STATES: Released as a single May 27, 1963, on Vee Jay. It failed to break into the Top 40. Vee Jay released it again 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)
Lennon and McCartney wrote this together on February 28, 1963, while on a bus traveling from York to Shrewsbury during a tour with headliner Helen Shapiro. The Complete Beatles Chronicle

ROGER GREENAWAY, of The Kestrels: "The Beatles at this time had had their first No. 1, and John and Paul were writing songs at the back of the coach. Kenny Lynch, who, at this time, fancied himself as a songwriter, sauntered up to the back of the coach and decided he would help John and Paul write a song. After a period of about half an hour had elapsed and nothing seemed to be coming from the back, Kenny rushed to the front of the coach and shouted, 'Well, that's it. I am not going to write any more of that bloody rubbish with those idiots. They don't know the music from their backsides. That's it! No more help from me!' The song that John and Paul were writing at this time was a track called 'From Me To You'." The Beatles Off the Record: Outrageous Opinions & Unrehearsed Interviews

LENNON: "There we were, on a coach going from York to Shrewsbury, not taking ourselves seriously, and just fooling around on the guitar, when we began to get a good melody line and we really started to work on it. Before that journey was over, we had completed the lyric and everything. We were so pleased! We knew that we had just written our next A-side. What puzzled us was why we'd thought of a name like 'From Me To You'. In fact, it had me thinking until recently when I picked up the NME to see how we were doing in the charts, when I realised that 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 Us To You' column." The Beatles Off the Record: Outrageous Opinions & Unrehearsed Interviews

McCARTNEY: "We wrote 'From Me To You' on a bus. It was great. That middle eight was a great departure for us. Say you're in C, then go to A minor, fairly ordinary, C, change it to G, and then F, pretty ordinary, but then it goes, 'got arms', and that's a G Minor. Going to G Minor and a C takes you to a whole new world. It was very exciting." The Beatles Off the Record: Outrageous Opinions & Unrehearsed Interviews

McCARTNEY: "I played it on the piano and thought, 'No, no one's going to like this.' So I played it to my dad and he thought it was a lovely tune, and that's how it was. You value other people's opinions." The Beatles Off the Record: Outrageous Opinions & Unrehearsed Interviews

McCARTNEY: "I remember thinking, 'We've really made it,' when I was lying in bed, early one morning, and I heard a milkman whistling 'From Me To You'. Actually, I'm sure that I once heard a bird whistling the song. I swear I did!" The Beatles Off the Record: Outrageous Opinions & Unrehearsed Interviews

McCartney regards it as one of the first really good songs they wrote. It had different musical ideas and chords for the middle eight. The lyrics were a play on the words 'From You To Us', the name of the New Musical Express letters page.
McCARTNEY: "There was a little trick we developed early on and got bored with later, which was to put I, Me or You in it, so it was very direct and personal: 'Love Me Do'; 'Please Please Me'; 'From Me To You' - we got two of them in there; 'She Loves You' . . . The thing I liked about 'From Me To You' was it had a very complete middle. It went to a surprising place. The opening chord of the middle section of that song heralded a new batch for me. That was a pivotal song. Our songwriting lifted a little with that song. It was very much co-written. We were starting to meet other musicians then and we'd start to see other people writing. After that, on another tour bus with Roy Orbison, we saw Roy sitting in the back of the bus, writing 'Pretty Woman'. It was lovely. We could trade off with each other. This was our real start." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

LENNON: ". . . I think the first line was mine. I mean, I know it was mine. And then after that we took it from there. It was far bluesier than that when we wrote it." September 1980, All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono

Thursday 28 February 1963
Granada Cinema, Castle Gates, Shrewsbury, Shropshire
While travelling this day between York and Shrewsbury, on the coach containing the entire Shapiro entourage, John and Paul wrote the Beatles' next single, 'From Me To You'.
With this date Helen Shapiro resumed her role as headliner, and Billie Davis left the tour. The Complete Beatles Chronicle

RECORDED
March 5, 1963, at Abbey Road

LENNON: "We nearly didn't record it because we thought it was too bluesy at first, but when we'd finished it and George Martin had scored it with harmonica, it was alright." Beatles in Their Own Words

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

Lennon told singer Helen Shapiro that he sang the high falsetto part on this song and that "I can do the high stuff better than Paul." Coleman He apparently changed his opinion in the next year. (See: "A Hard Day's Night.")

MISCELLANEOUS
This song was part of the Beatles' concert repertoire in 1963 and 1964. The Complete Beatles Chronicle
This song introduced a Beatle trademark - a falsetto "whoooooo." It was so successful that it was used liberally in the next single, "She Loves You." Forever
The harmonica beginning of the British single differs from the opening of all other versions.
This song was used as the theme song for a radio series in England called From Us to You that starred the Beatles and consisted of five two-hour programs, from December 1963 through June 1965. For the program, the Beatles performed "From Me to You" but changed the lyrics to "From us to you."
Del Shannon recorded this song, releasing it as a single in the United States on June 3, 1963, about a week after the Beatles' version was released there. Shannon's version did not break into the Top 40. Shannon had performed on the same bill as the Beatles earlier in the year in Britain and undoubtedly heard the song in performance.
Three days before this song was released in the United Kingdom, John's son Julian Lennon was born, April 8, 1963.

COMMENTS BY OTHERS
HELEN SHAPIRO: "I remember John and Paul coming up to me to ask if I would like to hear a couple of songs that they had just written. They were looking for opinions because they were undecided about which should be their next single. We crowded around a piano and Paul played, while the two of them sang their latest composition. One was 'Thank You Girl', and the other was 'From Me To You', which I liked best." The Beatles Off the Record: Outrageous Opinions & Unrehearsed Interviews

RAY COLEMAN and LAURIE HENSHAW in MELODY MAKER: "The Beatles have a certain follow-up hit with 'From Me To You', but if this average song was done by a less prominent group it would mean little. An up-tempo number with the just so-so melody, it is not nearly so outstanding in originality as 'Please Please Me'. It's a best seller, inevitably, but the group ought to be able to do something better than this as a follow up to an initial hit." (April 13, 1963) The Beatles Off the Record: Outrageous Opinions & Unrehearsed Interviews

EMI spokesman: "Altogether it looks like being a much bigger record for The Beatles than 'Please Please Me'. They are going from strength to strength." (April 20, 1963) The Beatles Off the Record: Outrageous Opinions & Unrehearsed Interviews
HARRISON: "We're all knocked out over it. We didn't think it would go so fast. It's Fab!" The Beatles Off the Record: Outrageous Opinions & Unrehearsed Interviews