“Hello Little Girl” is the first song written by John Lennon, and credited to the Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership. According to Lennon, he drew on an old “Thirties or Forties song” that his mother sang to him. Written in 1957, it was used as one of the songs at the Beatles unsuccessful Decca audition in 1962. They recorded a home demo of it, with Stuart Sutcliffe on bass, which is available only on bootleg currently. Albeit different from the previous version with Sutcliffe, the Beatles’ version of the song can be found on Anthology 1, with John Lennon as the lead singer. The song appears in the 2010 biopic Nowhere Boy in a scene showing Lennon singing it for McCartney while recording it on a small reel-to-reel tape recorder. (More from Wikipedia)
Two of the earliest Lennon/McCartney songs are “One After 909” and “Hello Little Girl”, both written primarily by John Lennon; Wikipedia says that they date from 1957. “One After 909” was included on the Beatles’ very last album, Let it Be and was also performed during the famous rooftop concert that is included in the film, Let it Be.
“Hello Little Girl” was included on the Decca Records audition tape; there is also a home demo recording of the song that features Stuart Sutcliffe on bass guitar, which is currently available only on bootleg albums. A version of “Hello Little Girl” by the Beatles is included on Anthology 1.
Like “I Wanna be Your Man”, which was first recorded by the Rolling Stones, “Hello Little Girl” was one of the songs that they gave to others to record. A little known Liverpool band (at least in this country) called the Fourmost first recorded “Hello Little Girl” in 1963 and made it to #9 on the British charts; Gerry and the Pacemakers also recorded the song in this time period.
(June 2015)
