With The Beatles
UK Release: November 22, 1963
Parlophone Records PMC 1206
Produced by: George Martin
Side One
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It Won't Be Long
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All I've Got to Do
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All My Loving
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Don't Bother Me
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Little Child
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Till There Was You
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Please Mister Postman
Additional Musicians:
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George Martin – piano on “You Really Got a Hold on Me”, “Not a Second Time” and “Money (That's What I Want)”
Side Two
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Roll Over Beethoven
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Hold Me Tight
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You Really Got a Hold on Me
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I Wanna Be Your Man
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Devil in Her Heart
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Not a Second Time
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Money (That's What I Want)
With The Beatles is the Beatles official second album and comes on the heels of 1963's mania started in the U.K. The album is slicker than it's predecessor, Please Please Me released exactly eight months earlier. And much like the debut album, this one again is split between six cover songs and eight originals. One of those originals, "Don't Bother Me" was written by George Harrison. And, again like it's predecessor, hit #1 in the U.K.
Beatlemania had yet to hit America by this time and The Beatles were just around the corner from their major U.S. break-out in February. This album can claim two hit singles on the Billboard Pop charts: "All My Loving" hit #45 and "Roll Over Beethoven" hit #68.
However, three days after this release, Canada did see the release of their version of Beatle albums, in the form of Beatlemania! With The Beatles. That album had identical songs with a slightly varied cover.
And although there is a U.S. counterpart, it would vary much more.
Meet The Beatles
US Release: January 20, 1964
Capitol Records (S)T 2047
Produced by: George Martin
Side One
I Want to Hold Your Hand
I Saw Her Standing There
This Boy
It Won't Be Long
All I've Got to Do
All My Loving
Side Two
Don't Bother Me
Little Child
Till There Was You
Hold Me Tight
I Wanna Be Your Man
Not a Second Time
Meet The Beatles was not the first U.S. Beatles album, but is the first by North American long-time distributors, Capitol Records. Vee-Jay Records obtained the rights to the majority of the songs from The Beatles U.K. debut album, Please Please Me and utilized that right to distribute many releases of those songs
US Release: January 20, 1964
Capitol Records (S)T 2047
Produced by: George Martin
What this U.S. released album did was provide a track listing predominantly written by The Beatles, instead of the split between covers and originals, as in With The Beatles. And the tracks provided included the debut hit single, "I Want To Hold Your Hand" and the Please Please Me track, "I Saw Her Standing There" (which was now the B-Side to the U.S. Capitol single, "I Want To Hold Your Hand"). Omitted were the cover songs; "Please Mr. Postman", "You Really Got A Hold On Me", "Roll Over Beethoven", "Money (That's What I Want)" and "Devil In Her Heart" - which were all ironically originally by black artists. The only cover song is "Til There Was You". And at this time, "This Boy" was previously unavailable on any U.S. or U.K. album but was the B-Side to the U.K. single, "I Want To Hold Your Hand" from October 1963. "This Boy" will later be released in 1987 on the Past Masters collection.
This album also reduced George Harrison's contributions from three on With The Beatles down to just one, "Don't Bother Me". And the omission of what might have been an obvious track, "She Loves You" was due to Capitol not yet owning the rights to the song. It was released on the Swan label in EMI's desperation of finding a North American distributor of Beatles records when no one else wanted to before Beatlemania hit - hence how Vee-Jay released the several albums in 1963 on just a small list of songs. Another label in the mix was Tollie, but we'll get to that in the 'Singles' section of this site.
And unlike the debacle of the many varied releases of the Please Please Me album, this album was cut down to just a few variants worldwide - with America being the biggest of them. And the songs omitted on Meet The Beatles that were on WIth The Beatles will appear on the next U.S. album, The Beatles' Second Album by April of 1964.
As a side note: You'll notice under the title of the album reads:
"The First Album by England's Phenomenal Pop Combo". That is a direct
statement by Capitol Records recognizing that they are the official Beatles
North American distributors. So the Vee-Jay releases in 1963 are not being counted as "official" releases. And the songs Vee-Jay Records released in 1963 will get an official Capitol release on various albums between Meet The Beatles and The Early Beatles album release in March of 1965.
A variation of Robert Freeman's cover photo (autographed by Paul McCartney). Click the photo to learn how to save Freeman's work
