The Beatles: With The Beatles - 1963
"Still, the heart of With The Beatles lies not in the covers, but the originals" - Stephen Thomas Erlewine - AllMusic
Six cover versions in its fourteen tracks, this is an album of covers and short love songs, but its cultural effect was far greater than the sum of its parts.
For me, like the later Beatles For Sale it seems very much a Lennon album. He dominates the whole thing, let's be honest, as he did much of The Beatles' early output. He was the band leader, of that there was no doubt. His voice and lyrics are what one remembers mainly after a dose of this album. McCartney is notable for his lack of presence, indeed Harrison takes centre stage just as much, it seems.
Anyway, she's got the devil in her heart....
The first two songs are classic Lennon early sixties rockers - It Won't Be Long is excellent with "yeah yeahs" similar to the as-yet unreleased She Loves You. John Lennon said of it - "It was only after a critic for The Times said we put 'Aeolian cadences' in 'It Won't Be Long' that the middle classes started listening to us. ... To this day, I have no idea what 'Aeolian cadences' are. They sound like exotic birds." In fact, the critic, William Mann, had written this about the song Not A Second Time, but Lennon's point that people were beginning to take their songwriting seriously holds good. All I've Got To Do is not far behind. The sound is superb on both of them, either in stereo or mono. Both these songs are so clearly "Lennon" in their lyrics, their sound and their vocal delivery, reminding me of the three openers to 1964's Beatles For Sale album.
Don't Bother Me is one of those melancholic but tuneful Harrison songs (his first lead vocal and composition) that actually sounds like a Lennon song, both lyrically and vocally. It has an atmosphere to it, though, that I feel all Harrison's songs had. They must not be dismissed, not at all.
Despite its trite lyrics and slightly piss-taking vocal from Lennon, Little Child is rousing and harmonica-driven, with Lennon and McCartney sharing vocals. It has a huge bass sound on it too and is very typical early Beatles - energetic, lively and slightly bluesy rock 'n' roll. It could almost be The Stones.
Till There Was You is a cover of a country love song that appeared in a 1957 Broadway show entitled The Music Man, sung by McCartney. This sort of thing was ideal for housewives' favourite McCartney and ensured that teenagers' parents, while disapproving of the boys' comparatively long hair, ruefully admitted that songs like this were "nice" and "at least you could hear the words". Ringo's bongo hammerings are totally incongruous, however.
Less impressive, though, was the next one - to this day I still believe the guitar at the beginning of Chuck Berry's Roll Over Beethoven is totally messed up, although I have to admit that the rest of it rocks, big time, with a resonant bass line and a surprisingly good rock vocal from Harrison. Chuck Berry it ain't though, and 1973's cover by the Electric Light Orchestra blew all other versions away. The song carried a message to the young generation to get with the new sound, cats.
Hold Me Tight is a largely McCartney-sung Buddy Holly-esque number that both he and Lennon, along with many critics, disliked. Actually, I quite like it, loving its big bass sound and rolling drums. I understand that it is seen as lyrically throwaway, but probably no more than many of Lennon/McCartney's early songs. It was a song that was written for the first album but eventually ended up here.
Ringo Starr takes vocals for the first time on this album on I Wanna Be Your Man, a song famously also covered by The Rolling Stones. As one who always preferred The Stones to The Beatles, I have to give credit to the lively punch of this one, after all it was The Beatles' song, anyway, but the Stones' one still takes the biscuit. It was the bluesiest thing The Beatles had done to date. Considered a lightweight number by many, it still packs one hell of a punch. Harrison contributes a great mid-song solo too.
A country number, Devil In Her Heart is very much of its time. It sounds pretty dated now, but still has an entrancing, innocent appeal to it. Harrison is on lead vocal, possibly because neither of the other two fancied it. Poor old George was left to deal with this sort of thing. Not A Second Time has a huge bass thud to it, a great sound quality and a similarly impressive Lennon vocal. Along with the two openers, it is another song that bellows "Lennon" when you hear it. It's all his song, isn't it?
The cover of Barrett Strong's early Motown single, Money (That's What I Want) also has Lennon raspingly rocking it up in Twist And Shout fashion. It is not up to the soulful, groovy, rhythmic original, for me, not by any measurement, despite what noted Beatles writer Ian MacDonald has said, but again, it is a more than acceptable cover. Starr comes into his own on here, though, pounding away with abandon.
A "good in parts" album overall - replace the covers with that run of killer singles and what an album we would have had. Even without those songs, though, the album still has a youthful, vibrant appeal. I come back to it quite a lot, actually, playing it more than Pepper. In fact, I've done that for years.
