Friday, October 05, 2012
A half a century since Love Me Do. I don't bloody believe it.
The Guardian:
"Listening to it with fresh ears, Love Me Do sounds unlike anything else in the charts of the day... Love Me Do is weird. It's not compressed to hell.. nor string-sweetened.. It's dry, stark, almost "live": the extreme simplicity of the lyric and, on occasion, the stop/start, almost halting arrangement (check out the oddly burlesque bass drum "boomph" at around 1'52") makes you think that this is a group operating near the limits of their ability.
The lyric, while entirely within period romantic cliches, is both slightly awkward – "love me do": who ever says that when they're chatting someone up? – and direct ("someone like you"). Which makes it a pretty faithful expression of teen courting rituals, with their mixture of uncertainty and desire."
Enjoy.