Please Please Me | With the Beatles | A Hard Day's Night | Beatles for Sale | Help! | Rubber Soul | Revolver
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band | Magical Mystery Tour | The White Album | Yellow Submarine | Abbey Road | Let It Be
Past Masters | The Beatles Anthology | The Beatles: Get Back
- Absurdly Short Production Time: The band famously recorded almost all of this album's material in a nearly 13-hour marathon session. The 10 songs recorded that were joined by the previously-released "Love Me Do"/"P.S. I Love You" and "Please Please Me"/"Ask Me Why" Singles.
- Enforced Method Acting: The majority of the album was recorded in just one day, an exhausting 13-hour period. The intention was to make it sound as much like a Live Album as possible, and it's been stated that John Lennon's voice in "Twist and Shout" shows the wear and tear from all the work.
- One-Take Wonder: "Twist and Shout". John had a cold during the recording session, but kept on playing regardless. Since they had little recording time left, the band recorded it on one take. John's raspy voice blended really smoothly with the song, and producer George Martin threw it in, and the rest is history.note
- Referenced by...: Although not name-checked, the album is referred to by Philip Larkin in his poem "Annus Mirabilis".Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me)
Between the end of the "Chatterley" ban
And the Beatles' first LP. - Throw It In!:
- Paul McCartney's count-off "One, two, three, FAW!" at the beginning of "I Saw Her Standing There". This would normally have been cut from the final track, but the band liked the way he did it on one take so much that they ended up editing it into the beginning of the take that they actually used. When Vee-Jay Records first released the Introducing...The Beatles album, they incorrectly assumed it was a mistake and trimmed it down to just the "FAW!". Rock critic Greil Marcus recalled being astonished when heard that version for the first time in early 1964, since it sounded like Paul had opened the song by saying "FUCK!".
- In the stereo version of "Please Please Me", John flubs a line in the last verse at 1:53: instead of "I know you never even try, girl" he says "I know I never even try, girl" and then giggles. Because of technical issues, George Martin was forced to use an alternate take for the stereo mix.
- George flubs the bridge in "Do You Want to Know a Secret?": "I've known a secret for the week or two" (Remember, the whole album, except for four songs previously recorded for singles, was recorded in a single 10-hour studio session with virtually no edits or overdubs; it was largely the Beatles' live act, warts and all.)
- What Could Have Been: George Martin was a member of the Royal Zoological Society, and he tried to persuade them to allow the album cover picture to be taken in front of the insect house at London Zoo. They declined.
- Working Title: George Martin toyed with the idea of calling the album ''Off the Beatle Track''.
- Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: The decision to record a Cover Version of "Twist and Shout" was literally a last-minute choice. They were short one song for the album with time running out on their allotted studio time. NME reporter Alan Smith, who was at Abbey Road to report on the session, mentioned seeing them do the song in a live show and suggested they try it.
- Written-In Infirmity: John Lennon was sick for the day the group worked the 13-hour recording session and it shows in "Twist and Shout" which they saved for last. John admitted that his voice wasn't quite the same afterward, saying that his throat felt like sandpaper every time he swallowed for a few years.
