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| {{Album infobox |
{{Album infobox | | ||
| Name = With the Beatles | | Name = With the Beatles | | ||
| Type = ] | | Type = ] | | ||
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| *'']'' ] | | *'']'' ] | | ||
| Last album = '']''<br />(]) | | Last album = '']''<br />(]) | | ||
| Last cover = PleasePleaseMe.jpg | | |||
| This album = '''''With the Beatles'''''<br />(]) | | This album = '''''With the Beatles'''''<br />(]) | | ||
| Next cover = HardDayUK.jpg | | |||
| Next album = '']''<br />(]) |}} | Next album = '']''<br />(]) |}} | ||
Revision as of 22:19, 26 October 2005
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With the Beatles was The Beatles' second album, recorded four months after the band's first album and released in late 1963.
The album features eight original compositions (including the first by George Harrison: "Don't Bother Me") and six covers, mostly of Motown and R&B hits. The album was released in the United States as Meet the Beatles! on January 20 1964.
This had advance orders of half a million, and sold another half by September 1965 - making it the second album to sell a million copies inside the UK (the first being the South Pacific soundtrack). It stayed top of the charts for twenty-one weeks, and if you include Please Please Me as well, then that means the Beatles occupied the top spot for 51 consecutive weeks. It even made number eleven in the singles charts (because at that time, it didn't matter what size the record was, all that mattered was how many copies it sold).
The Cover
The cover was shot by Robert Freeman on the 22nd August '63. He was already famous for working on the first Pirelli calendar (with all the pretty women) and he also shot Khrushchev in the Kremlin (with a camera, not a gun!). But it was his black-and-white photos of the jazz-legend John Coltrane that brought him to the Beatles attention. Paul remembered: “He arranged us in a hotel corridor: it was very un-studio-like. The corridor was rather dark, and there was a window at the end, and by using this heavy source of natural light coming from the right, he got that very moody picture which most people think he must have worked at forever and ever. But it was only an hour. He sat down, took a couple of rolls, and that was it.” Freeman himself remembered: “They had to fit in the square format of the cover, so rather than have them all in a line, I put Ringo in the bottom right corner, since he was the last to join the group. He was also the shortest.” The original idea was to paint the picture from edge to edge - with no bleeding, title.. nothing. But the big-wigs vetoed it, on the grounds that the Beatles weren't yet famous enough to carry a nameless cover. They also tried to pull it because the Beatles weren't smiling, and it was only after George Martin waded in that they won the day. Freeman was eventually paid £75 for his troubles (three times the normal fee).
Track listing
Side one
- "It Won't Be Long" (Lennon-McCartney)
- "All I've Got to Do" (Lennon-McCartney)
- "All My Loving" (Lennon-McCartney) SAMPLE (95k)
- "Don't Bother Me" (Harrison) SAMPLE (79k)
- "Little Child" (Lennon-McCartney)
- "Till There Was You" (Meredith Willson) SAMPLE (121k)
- "Please Mr. Postman" (Dobbin/Garret/Garman/Brianbert)
Side two
- "Roll Over Beethoven" (Berry)
- "Hold Me Tight" (Lennon-McCartney)
- "You Really Got a Hold on Me" (Robinson)
- "I Wanna Be Your Man" (Lennon-McCartney)
- "Devil in Her Heart" (Drapkin)
- "Not a Second Time" (Lennon-McCartney)
- "Money (That's What I Want)" (Bradford/Gordy) SAMPLE (83k)
