The Beatles' "Love Me Do" was released 50 years ago, on Oct. 5, 1962.
As NME notes, "Love Me Do" was Recorded on Sept. 4 of that year and would eventually reach the number 17 spot on the British charts. It wasn’t an instant hit, though, taking three months to reach its peak in the last week of December.
With the release of the single, The Beatles (made up of Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Ringo Starr and George Harrison) set a precedent for themselves, implementing a strict rule that all the band's music would be written by the group.
“The fashion at the time was not for big groups to write their own material, so the Beatles were being quite radical in that sense by issuing a single that had written themselves,” said Hamish MacBain, assistant editor at NME.
"Love Me Do" was The Beatles first offering to U.K. music listeners, though most don’t consider the track to be the group’s best work.
“In terms of songwriting, it’s pretty basic, and it’s certainly not as good as the stuff they were coming out with a few months later,” said MacBain.
While the song was a British hit, it is in no way attributed to Beatlemania, which swept the United States the following year. By the time they broke into the U.S. markets, The Beatles had a couple of number one singles as well as a number one album.
In celebration of the milestone for the group, a restored version of the band’s 1967 "Magical Mystery Tour" film will be released, along with remastered vinyl versions of Beatle’s studio albums.
BBC Four TV will also air a documentary about “Love Me Do,” a treat for fans looking to learn more about the single's history.
Rare images of the band taken by Beatle’s photographer Robert Whitaker were recently released in the book With The Beatles. View a gallery of photos from the book below.
