markus heuger's
beabliography

Beabliography

Abstract 0377

Price, Charles Gower (2001), "American with a Liverpudlian accent. The first two Beatles' EMI singles." In: Yrjö Heinonen, Markus Heuger, Sheila Whitely, Terhi Nurmesjärvi and Jouni Koskimäki (eds.), Beatlestudies 3. Proceedings of the Beatles 2000 conference. Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä (Department of Music, Research Reports 23), 2001, 181-187.

From the first single produced in the U.K. by George Martin on the EMI subsidiary label Parlophone to the Beatles' phenomenal success in America with "I Want to Hold Your Hand" about a year later, the songs selected for single releases were Lennon and McCartney compositions. As record producers generally provided the songs to be recorded by new pop artists, the circumstances that led to this unusual situation resulted from the serendipitous interplay of the personalities involved: Martin, the Beatles, and their manager Brian Epstein. Epstein had confidently predicted the success that the Beatles would achieve in the U.K. with the first two singles, but it is a tribute to the brash perseverance of Lennon and McCartney that the first "A" side was not Mitch Murray's song "How Do You Do It' by a group called "Paul McCartney and the Beatles" without Ringo Starr on drums.

The intent of this article is to demonstrate the American influences both direct and indirect that shaped the Beatles' music in general, and the four Lennon and McCartney songs from the first two EMI singles in particular. By careful analysis of the lyrics, musical form, and sonic detail of each of the songs on the first two singles, concrete stylistic relationships between Lennon and McCartney's compositions and the American recordings and performers that influenced their music are explored in microcosm. Lennon and McCartney were drawn to the unusual turn of phrase or harmony in the music that they admired and played. In the process of improvising a composition, these ideas would emerge as small fragments from their memories to become integral parts of their songs. Many of the textual and musical details in the four songs can be traced to sources familiar to them.

The milquetoast blandness of most American and British pop in the early 1960s drove working-class British youth in the local club scenes to the American rockabilly and R&B from the 1950s blended with British skiffle and the contemporary American sweet soul such as the girl groups and Motown. The Beatles came out of this scene and took all of these essentially American styles and brought them together successfully in a way that no other band had done before them.