Published on Aug 6, 1998
The Beatles released their second album,
With The Beatles, in 1963. At that point of time they were
the biggest rock band in the UK and about to embark on their first
tour of the United States. Every Beatles album, including this one,
is an important piece of rock and roll history. But based solely on
its own merits,
With The Beatles is a fun album although not a great
one.
If the title
With The Beatles does not sound familiar to Americans, it is
because Capitol Records decided to release an altered version here
titled
Meet The Beatles. This version contained two less songs, but
unlike its British counterpart, included their big hit at the time,
“I Want To Hold Your Hand.” However when Capitol converted the
Beatles catalog over to CD’s, they decided instead to release the
original British albums, probably thinking it would be difficult to
sell the more numerous American releases. (Incidentally, all the
Beatles non-album singles can be found on the CD’s
Past Masters Volume I and
II.)
For the most part I prefer the British releases, but in the case
of
With The Beatles, the exclusion of “I Want To Hold Your
Hand”, one of their best early songs, does hurt the album a little.
Instead, we get “It Won’t Be Long” which is a nice, typicially
Beatlesque song with it’s yeah yeah yeah’s, that somehow falls
short of their best early singles. And “I Wanna Be Your Man”, which
has drummer Ringo Starr singing lead, also comes off sounding like
just another “I Want To Hold Your Hand” wannabe.
John Lennon and Paul McCartney were still developing as
songwriters. Their output for this album is an improvement over
that of their previous album,
Please Please Me, but not quite as good as that of their
next album,
A Hard Day’s Night. “All I’ve Got To Do” is a
semi-successful attempt at rewriting the Burt Bacharach/Hal David
song “Baby It’s You” which they covered on
Please Please Me. And songs like “Not A Second Time”, “Hold
Me Tight”, and “Little Child” are pleasant enough ditties that are
helped greatly by the Beatles overall charisma. Most of the
Lennon/McCartney songs on this album are pretty good, but not up
their usual standards.
The
major exeception to this being “All My Loving” which is
about as good a song as the Beatles have ever released. It has one
of those Beatlesque melodies that is sure to stick in your head for
a long time, and the lyrics are cute. George Harrison contributes
one song: the midtempo pop number “Don’t Bother Me.” I especially
like the attitude of this song.
Other than “All My Loving”, the major highlights on
With The Beatles come from some of the cool covers they
perform. They rock with abandon as Harrison does a dead-on Chuck
Berry guitar lick for “Roll Over Beethoven.” And the Beatles are
absolutely on fire for Berry Gordy’s “Money”. With Lennon’s
kick-ass vocals, their version easily surpasses the original. It is
Lennon’s soulful singing again, along with able backup singing by
McCartney and Harrison, that put their cover of Smokey Robinson’s
“You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me” out of the stratosphere.
The Beatles, eclectic as ever, do a respectable job with the
ballad “Til There Was You” which came from the Broadway musical
The Music Man. I find some of their non-rock moments like
this one endearing. I appreciate that they listened to a lot of
different kinds of music to come up with their unique sound. For
example, they weren’t afraid to cover the girl groups of the time
and their version of the Marvelettes’ “Please Mr. Postman” is very
playful. On the other hand, I do think their rendition of the
Donays’ “Devil In Her Heart” is a bit on the cheesy side.
If you were going to start a Beatles collection, there are
several albums I would pick up before
With The Beatles. Even if you are interested in their early
sound in particular, I would recommend
A Hard Day’s Night over this one. But that does not mean
that this is not an enjoyable album; on the contrary, this album
successfully shows a band with plenty of talent and charisma. It is
a testament to the Beatles that one of their lesser albums
is this good.