The Beatles were always meant to be a united front. While people like to think that Ringo Starr lucked into the role of a lifetime in more ways than one, Paul McCartney was known to liken the group to four corners of a square, with everyone contributing equally to the main idea of the band and no one being replaceable. While George Harrison had to spend some time before growing into a songwriter, John Lennon believed enough in him to write ‘Do You Want to Know a Secret’ as his vehicle.
When the group first brought their material to George Martin, though, the producer was not thrilled with what he heard. They had already brought in Pete Best to play a rickety version of ‘Love Me Do’, and even when Starr got behind the kit, Martin’s decision to bring in a session drummer to play in his place probably did nothing to boost the new guy’s ego.
Listening to Harrison’s guitar playing, you can hear a little bit of his apprehension before he even got behind the mic. Many of his leads tend to have a hesitating groove half the time, almost as if he was trying his best to play in time, but never quite sure whether he’d hit the right note or not.
Since Please Please Me was meant to capture their live sound, Harrison had to spend some time singing. Although he does a serviceable job on the cover of the Goffin/King song ‘Chains, ‘Do You Want to Know a Secret’ serves his voice a lot better, not having too many notes and keeping it very gentle in the arrangement.
Then again, it helps that the entire track itself is a little bit out of tune. Although it’s gone down in legend that the group recorded their debut in one day in the studio, nowhere is it more apparent than this song, especially when you try to play it in standard tuning and end up realising that none of their guitars are near conventional tuning.
For Lennon, it didn’t matter as long as it sounded right, and since ‘The Quiet One’ was still learning, ‘Do You Want to Know A Secret’ was more about giving him confidence as a singer, saying, “I wrote it and just gave it to George to sing. I thought it would be a good vehicle for him because it only had three notes, and he wasn’t the best singer in the world. He has improved a lot since then, but in those days, his singing ability was very poor. So I wrote that – not for him as I was writing it, but when I had written it, I thought he could do it.”
And it’s not like Harrison didn’t know how to put his best foot forward. Granted, his vocal tone isn’t close to McCartney’s croon or Lennon’s intensity, but the conviction in his voice is a much-needed change of pace from their usual tone. There’s still a hint of that nervous energy when he goes for a few notes, but for a song that’s all about telling your crush how much you love them, it actually fits pretty well.
When Harrison came to the studio with ‘Don’t Bother Me’ one album later, it was clear that he wasn’t just looking to get in on the vocal harmonies. He had his eye on becoming a true artist, and by the time the group got to the latter half of their career, they saw ‘The Quiet One’ turn from the timid kid behind the fretboard to one of the strongest songwriters of his generation.
