"Love Me Do" strikes me as totally, completely, wholly... okay. It's a song I think would be forgotten today if it'd been from some other band. Enjoyable but not 1/10th as good as "Please Please Me" - that was the first song that really showed what the Fabs could do...
I think so too...it does sound pretty new and different for 1962, so I can see why it got some attention in Britain on its release. But if they had continued in that vein (as most groups of that era did if they got a hit), they never would have made it big.
Didn't know that tune, but hearing it float about my apartment from the 'puter just now, I could almost hear Elvis' FIRST IN LINE.
I like the first version all right (can't tell what version the vid was 'cause I can't play it), well, I guess I like both all right, but just all right. It's one of the first tunes Lennon and McCartney ever wrote together and it sounds it. But, it's a part of the 'canon' so it can't be left out...
This is not a bad song. It's not "A Day In The Life" but for a first song, it's pretty catchy. I agree that much better stuff was on the way, but this coupled with "PS I Love You" was a fine 45.
Although they are considered somewhat of a one hit wonder, they went to number 12 with "People Say", and # 20 with "Iko Iko". This is a gorup that I think their biggest hit is not as good as their other single releases. I see the appeal of Chapel of Love, though... and it IS a good song, well produced. I just like their other songs better. I mean, how cool is it to turn the Alphabet song into a pop record?
The first hit (and as such, the first No. 1 hit) on Red Bird Records, the label founded by Jerry Lieber, Mike Stoller and George Goldner. It was also the first No. 1 hit on the Hot 100 for writers Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich (their previous best was No. 2 for "Be Me Baby"). I love it.
It's as easy as 1-2-3 Personally I wouldn't listen to that one (ABC), but I like Iko Iko, - have it on a movie soundtrack cd - The Rainman.[/QUOTE]
"Chapel of Love" is one of those songs I loved as a kid, but that haven't aged all that well in my view. I do still love Bette Midler's version, though. I love the Dixie Cups' "Iko Iko", too (which they reportedly believed was a traditional New Orleans song; it was really written in the early fifties and I think the composer is still alive?).
The Dixie Cups were the only American group to hold down the #1 spot in the first half of '64. A throwback to the girl pop of the earlier 60s, it was an instant classic that still gets referenced due to it's universal subject matter. The kids loved it and the parents weren't put off by all that noisy rock & roll. In fact, a quick glance at the upper reaches of the chart of this period shows older, more traditional pop songs like Love Me With All Your Heart, Hello Dolly and People were still quite popular and would jockey with the new kids for months to come.
The one station we had here in Baton Rouge that went from Oldies to "Classic Rock from the 70s to the 90s" has suddenly become a Clear Channel news-talk station as of January 1. I suppose this was done so that the station could earn some commercial revenues; it was formerly music only with nothing but station IDs.
I have been fortunate enough to see a rather large collection of New Orleans based music acts at one or another of the former New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Society Festivals, and the Dixie Cups were among them (along with Fats, Frankie Ford et al). Love the song, as much as I love the music of Louisiana.
"Love Me Do" is kind of a dirge and a slight one at that, but really memorable. Sort of an unusual earworm. Can't imagine it going to #1 in the absence of Beatlemania, but then stranger songs had hit the top in just the previous year, so who knows...
Yeah, me too - "Chapel of Love" sounds more 1962 to me than 1964. Pleasant tune but not one that's aged all that well...
I think it was a very forward sounding track back in the day -- the unusual harmonies, the mouth organ and the mechanical rythm that sounds like a drum machine. It's not a great composition but it is a good record. I always found "Love Me Do" and "Please Please Me" singles as sounding as if they had been recorded 4-5 years later than (most of) the rest of the "Please Please Me" stuff.
The post-doowop era wasn't over yet in 1964. There were still a few holdouts. I don't think that sound started disappearing until '65.
I think that's why the Beatles hit as hard as they did - bare-bones rock & roll was returning to the charts. After two or three years of teen-idol pop, something like "Love Me Do" must have been a welcome return to basics.
