Having been written and performed live before the Beatles were signed, Ask Me Why was an early Lennon-McCartney collaboration, with the main idea coming from John Lennon. It appeared as the B-side to Please Please Me, and on the album of the same name. Lyrically it is a conventional but well-crafted love song. Musically it is impressively mature for such a young songwriting partnership; unpretentious but sophisticated. It is romantic and very definitely not an out-and-out rocker. As performers the Beatles were never one trick ponies; on the debut album they could run the gamut from A Taste Of Honey through to Twist And Shout; the contrast between I Saw Her Standing There and Ask Me Why shows that they were already capable of writing excellent songs at both ends of that spectrum.
The Beatles Bible‘Ask Me Why’ was first released as the b-side of The Beatles’ second single ‘Please Please Me’ in 1963. Later that year it appeared on the album of the same name.
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WikipediaThe original idea took inspiration from Smokey Robinson and indeed the initial guitar figure is quoted from the Miracles’ What’s So Good About Goodbye. Despite this, the influence is not immediately obvious because the Beatles singing, playing and arrangement have an independent character that adds something distinctive. Smokey Robinson, and the Beatles other key influences were showing Lennon and McCartney what could be done with a pop song, expanding their horizons, providing new demanding standards to aim for, and a new palette of colours, rather than simple templates for them to follow.
John, Paul and George had gained huge experience of playing together and had already build up their own musical vocabulary of harmonies and instrumental phrasing, so that rather than simply copying their influences they were automatically translating them into their own self-confident style.
Although Ringo was still pretty new to the band at this time, his ability to bring subtle and coherent drum parts to suit each song was one of the main reasons to recruit him into the band. Until he joined the Beatles their musical vocabulary had not had the rhythmic versatility they needed.
Though boom-boom-boom-boom suited many of the songs, difficulties arose when the Beatles went for variety. John, Paul and George saw how Pete struggled with other styles and tempos – Mark Lewisohn
With Ringo’s arrival, they could find arrangements that did justice to the full range of their songwriting ideas. Here the rhythm is a latin-flavoured sidestick groove that brings to mind ballroom dancing. After each line (with flowing legato harmonies from the outset) the beat almost comes to a standstill before the next phrase; an imaginary couple turn on their heels. The “I can’t believe” section seems to switch into a cha-cha.
Overall, Ask Me Why is a very convincing track for the debut album and an excellent B-side to the first single, the song predated Please Please Me and it showed Lennon and McCartney were already fully-formed and gifted songwriters.