“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 Fourmost’s version of this song is on The Songs Lennon and McCartney Gave Away. (More from Wikipedia)
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.
I don’t know anything about the Fourmost except that I think they were the band that I saw in an early booklet or paper about the Beatles who were holding their guitars as though they were violins. I haven’t been able to find that photo on the Internet though. “Hello Little Girl” by the Fourmost opens Side 2 of an album called The Songs Lennon and McCartney Gave Away.
(June 2015)
