“Please Please Me” is a song and the second single released by English rock group the Beatles in the United Kingdom, and the first to be issued in the United States. It was originally a John Lennon composition, although its ultimate form was significantly influenced by George Martin. John Lennon: “‘Please Please Me’ is my song completely. It was my attempt at writing a Roy Orbison song, would you believe it? I wrote it in the bedroom in my house at Menlove Avenue, which was my auntie’s place.” The single was released in the UK on 11 January 1963 and reached No. 1 on the New Musical Express and Melody Maker charts. The single, as initially released with “Ask Me Why” on the B-side, failed to make much impact in the US; but when re-released there on 3 January 1964 (this time with “From Me to You” on the B-side), it reached number three on the Hot 100. (More from Wikipedia)
Other 1970’s recordings have danced around gay issues, such as Rod Stewart’s 1976 minor hit “The Killing of Georgie” – about the murder of a gay friend of his in New York back when he was in Faces – and it was an open secret that Freddie Mercury was gay though closeted; he was the frontman of a band called Queen after all. It was many years later though before openly gay songs and performers would arrive on the popular music scene, such as British musician Tom Robinson in the late 1970’s (he collaborated with Peter Gabriel on one EP that I own), and mid-1980’s sensation Frankie Goes to Hollywood. By the way, it is interesting that the first hit songs by arguably the two most famous Liverpool rock bands – the Beatles’ “Please Please Me” and Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Relax” – deal fairly openly with the topic of oral sex.
(March 2013)
