PLEASE PLEASE ME | 2010
The series, Please Please Me, is a visual investigation of the Beatles’ 1963 single “Please Please Me.” The song was their first release in the US and, somewhat arguably, their first #1 single in the UK. In this respect, the song represents a cataclysmic shift in pop music and the culture at large. It is to contemporary pop music what Cubism was to visual art in the 20th Century.
For this series, I wanted to take on the question: How can a visual artist represent a piece of music? To this end, I picked a favorite song by my favorite band, which was originally conceived as a tribute to two of my other favorite singers.
For this series, I wanted to take on the question: How can a visual artist represent a piece of music? To this end, I picked a favorite song by my favorite band, which was originally conceived as a tribute to two of my other favorite singers.
Stories behind the paintings:
Roy Orbison
Upon hearing the original version of “Please Please Me,” which was strongly modeled on Roy Orbison’s “Only the Lonely” (1960), producer George Martin dubbed the song “rather dreary.” Lennon went to his home at Menlove Avenue, sped up the tempo and brought it back to EMI Studio Two. When the new version was in the can, Martin declared, "Gentlemen, you've just made your first Number One." Orbison, for his part, had toured with the Beatles in the UK in 1963. In fact, he started wearing his trademark dark glasses on that tour, having forgotten his usual pair on an airplane. When he first arrived in England he saw the amount of advertising devoted to the quartet and realized he was no longer the main draw. He had never heard of them and, annoyed, asked hypothetically, "What's a Beatle anyway?" to which John Lennon replied after tapping his shoulder, "I am." He became a big supporter of the band, and later performed with former Beatle George Harrison in the Traveling Wilburys. Orbison was also a life-long enthusiast for building model airplanes.
9 February 1964
In this image, three female fans are captured in the middle of the Beatles’ performance of “Please Please Me” on the Ed Sullivan Show, 9 February 1964. That evening, over 73 million Americans (45% of the population) watched their American debut. This performance, however, wasn’t aired until three weeks later, on 23 February. All this happened less than three months after the assassination of John Kennedy.
45 sleeve
The original paper sleeve for “Please Please Me,” as released by Parlophone records (Parlophone 45-R 4983) on 11 January 1963. The original multicoloured sleeve featured an abstraction built around concentric pentagon of various sizes. This reconsidered design alludes to the original sleeve, but as though conceived by a Cubist. While having dinner together in 1973, Dustin Hoffman inspired Paul McCartney to write “Picasso’s Last Words (Drink To Me)”. Hoffman had asked McCartney how he came up with ideas for writing songs. Paul replied that he didn’t know, “You just sort of do it, kind of pick them out of the air”. Dustin asked him if he could “write one now.” Paul agreed to try. So, Hoffman grabbed his copy of Time magazine that had an article about the recent death of artist Pablo Picasso. He told Paul the story about Picasso’s death and his famous last words, “Drink to me, drink to my health. You know I can’t drink anymore.”
Ewart Abner
Ewart Abner was the president of Chicago-based Vee-Jay records from 1961 to 1963. At the time, it was the most successful black-owned record company in the world. In 1962, Vee-Jay was contacted by Trans-Global (an EMI affiliate) about distributing a record that was #1 in England—“'I Remember You,” by Frank Ifield. Vee-Jay took the record, and as a throw in, EMI also passed along another contract—for the Beatles, who were enjoying some regional success in the UK. When “Please Please Me” hit #2 (or #1?) in early February of 1963, Vee-Jay decided to release the single in the US, which they did on 25 February (VJ 498). The group was such an unknown that their name was misspelled "Beattles" on the record label. The mess that followed Beatlemania was epic, worsened by lawsuits and the fact that Abner was keeping most of the financial data in his head. By 1963 he was out. By 1964, the Beatles were huge. By 1965, Capitol Records were distributing Beatles records and Motown was the most successful black-owned record company in the world.
23 February 1964
In this image, three female fans are captured in the middle of the Beatles’ performance of “Please Please Me” on the Ed Sullivan Show, 9 February 1964. That evening, over 73 million Americans (45% of the population) watched their American debut. This performance, however, wasn’t aired until three weeks later, on 23 February. All this happened less than three months after the assassination of John Kennedy.
Please Graph Me
This image is a graphical representation of me listening to “Please Please Me,” combined with the wavelength profile of the song itself. Each graph was measured entirely during the 2:02 duration of the song.
Illustrated in the graph are the following:
John Lennon (Pleas/Please Me)
In this image, John Lennon sings “Please Please Me” on the Ed Sullivan Show, 9 February 1964. Lennon’s inspiration for the song came from two sources—Roy Orbison’s “Only the Lonely” (1960) and Bing Crosby’s “Please” (1932). Crosby, who sold over half a billion records during his career, was also one of the pioneers of using reel-to-reel tape for recording. In 1947, he gave one of the first Ampex Model 200 recorders to his friend, musician Les Paul, which led directly to Paul's invention of multitrack recording. The Beatles later innovations with multitrack recording culminated with their masterpiece Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967).
#1 Hit
When the band finished recording the final version of “Please Please Me” on 26 November 1962, producer George Martin addressed the group over the studio' talkback system: "Congratulations, gentlemen, you've just made your first number one." He was correct, to a degree. At the time of the single's release, 11 January 1963, there was no standard singles chart in Britain. In some - Melody Maker, New Musical Express and Disc - it did indeed reach number one, after six weeks on sale. In the Record Retailer chart, however, it only reached number two. The Beatles had to wait until "From Me To You" to score their first bona fide chart topper. The image here features a copy of the Paul McCartney/Stevie Wonder 45 “Ebony and Ivory.” The song, which appeared on 1982’s Tug of War—the first McCartney album released after John Lennon’s assassination—spent seven weeks atop the American Billboard charts. It was later named as the tenth worst song of all time by Blender magazine. Lyrics from the “Please Please Me” b-side “Ask Me Why” are collaged into the painting.
Please Please Please Please . . . Please Me
This painting was conceived, improvised, and completed while listening to nothing but “Please Please Me”—approximately 25 times.
EMI Headquarters
Angus McBean was asked to take the distinctive colour photograph of the group looking down over the stairwell inside EMI's London headquarters in Manchester Square. George Martin was to write later: “We rang up the legendary theatre photographer Angus McBean, and bingo, he came round and did it there and then. It was done in an almighty rush, like the music. Thereafter, though, the Beatles' own creativity came bursting to the fore". In 1969, the Beatles asked McBean to recreate this shot. Although the 1969 photograph was originally intended for the then-planned Get Back album, it was not used when that project saw eventual release in 1970 as Let It Be. Instead, the 1969 photograph, along with an unused photograph from the 1963 photo shoot, was used in 1973 for the Beatles retrospective albums 1962–1966 and 1967–1970. (www.wikipedia.com) In this image, only the abstract space remains—the Beatles having disbanded in 1970, and the building demolished in the late 1990s. Notably, the staircase was dissembled and painstakingly rebuilt at EMI’s new headquarters.
Please Pleas Me
John Lennon: “’Please Please Me’ . . . 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. I heard Roy Orbison doing 'Only The Lonely' or something. That's where that came from. And also I was always intrigued by the words of 'Please Lend Your Ears To My Pleas,' a Bing Crosby song. I was always intrigued by the double use of the word 'please.' So it was a combination of Bing Crosby and Roy Orbison." This image is based on a still from the 1933 film Please, in which Bing serenades a reluctant young woman through a window.
How long must I play the role of
A gloomy Romeo?
Oh, Please.
Say you're not intending to tease
Speed that happy ending and please
Tell me that you love me too.
Roy Orbison
Upon hearing the original version of “Please Please Me,” which was strongly modeled on Roy Orbison’s “Only the Lonely” (1960), producer George Martin dubbed the song “rather dreary.” Lennon went to his home at Menlove Avenue, sped up the tempo and brought it back to EMI Studio Two. When the new version was in the can, Martin declared, "Gentlemen, you've just made your first Number One." Orbison, for his part, had toured with the Beatles in the UK in 1963. In fact, he started wearing his trademark dark glasses on that tour, having forgotten his usual pair on an airplane. When he first arrived in England he saw the amount of advertising devoted to the quartet and realized he was no longer the main draw. He had never heard of them and, annoyed, asked hypothetically, "What's a Beatle anyway?" to which John Lennon replied after tapping his shoulder, "I am." He became a big supporter of the band, and later performed with former Beatle George Harrison in the Traveling Wilburys. Orbison was also a life-long enthusiast for building model airplanes.
9 February 1964
In this image, three female fans are captured in the middle of the Beatles’ performance of “Please Please Me” on the Ed Sullivan Show, 9 February 1964. That evening, over 73 million Americans (45% of the population) watched their American debut. This performance, however, wasn’t aired until three weeks later, on 23 February. All this happened less than three months after the assassination of John Kennedy.
45 sleeve
The original paper sleeve for “Please Please Me,” as released by Parlophone records (Parlophone 45-R 4983) on 11 January 1963. The original multicoloured sleeve featured an abstraction built around concentric pentagon of various sizes. This reconsidered design alludes to the original sleeve, but as though conceived by a Cubist. While having dinner together in 1973, Dustin Hoffman inspired Paul McCartney to write “Picasso’s Last Words (Drink To Me)”. Hoffman had asked McCartney how he came up with ideas for writing songs. Paul replied that he didn’t know, “You just sort of do it, kind of pick them out of the air”. Dustin asked him if he could “write one now.” Paul agreed to try. So, Hoffman grabbed his copy of Time magazine that had an article about the recent death of artist Pablo Picasso. He told Paul the story about Picasso’s death and his famous last words, “Drink to me, drink to my health. You know I can’t drink anymore.”
Ewart Abner
Ewart Abner was the president of Chicago-based Vee-Jay records from 1961 to 1963. At the time, it was the most successful black-owned record company in the world. In 1962, Vee-Jay was contacted by Trans-Global (an EMI affiliate) about distributing a record that was #1 in England—“'I Remember You,” by Frank Ifield. Vee-Jay took the record, and as a throw in, EMI also passed along another contract—for the Beatles, who were enjoying some regional success in the UK. When “Please Please Me” hit #2 (or #1?) in early February of 1963, Vee-Jay decided to release the single in the US, which they did on 25 February (VJ 498). The group was such an unknown that their name was misspelled "Beattles" on the record label. The mess that followed Beatlemania was epic, worsened by lawsuits and the fact that Abner was keeping most of the financial data in his head. By 1963 he was out. By 1964, the Beatles were huge. By 1965, Capitol Records were distributing Beatles records and Motown was the most successful black-owned record company in the world.
23 February 1964
In this image, three female fans are captured in the middle of the Beatles’ performance of “Please Please Me” on the Ed Sullivan Show, 9 February 1964. That evening, over 73 million Americans (45% of the population) watched their American debut. This performance, however, wasn’t aired until three weeks later, on 23 February. All this happened less than three months after the assassination of John Kennedy.
Please Graph Me
This image is a graphical representation of me listening to “Please Please Me,” combined with the wavelength profile of the song itself. Each graph was measured entirely during the 2:02 duration of the song.
Illustrated in the graph are the following:
- Temperature change
- Force of my foot tapping a force plate
- Position of my hand while air drumming
- Velocity of my hand while air drumming
- Torso movement (x-, y-, and z-axes)
John Lennon (Pleas/Please Me)
In this image, John Lennon sings “Please Please Me” on the Ed Sullivan Show, 9 February 1964. Lennon’s inspiration for the song came from two sources—Roy Orbison’s “Only the Lonely” (1960) and Bing Crosby’s “Please” (1932). Crosby, who sold over half a billion records during his career, was also one of the pioneers of using reel-to-reel tape for recording. In 1947, he gave one of the first Ampex Model 200 recorders to his friend, musician Les Paul, which led directly to Paul's invention of multitrack recording. The Beatles later innovations with multitrack recording culminated with their masterpiece Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967).
#1 Hit
When the band finished recording the final version of “Please Please Me” on 26 November 1962, producer George Martin addressed the group over the studio' talkback system: "Congratulations, gentlemen, you've just made your first number one." He was correct, to a degree. At the time of the single's release, 11 January 1963, there was no standard singles chart in Britain. In some - Melody Maker, New Musical Express and Disc - it did indeed reach number one, after six weeks on sale. In the Record Retailer chart, however, it only reached number two. The Beatles had to wait until "From Me To You" to score their first bona fide chart topper. The image here features a copy of the Paul McCartney/Stevie Wonder 45 “Ebony and Ivory.” The song, which appeared on 1982’s Tug of War—the first McCartney album released after John Lennon’s assassination—spent seven weeks atop the American Billboard charts. It was later named as the tenth worst song of all time by Blender magazine. Lyrics from the “Please Please Me” b-side “Ask Me Why” are collaged into the painting.
Please Please Please Please . . . Please Me
This painting was conceived, improvised, and completed while listening to nothing but “Please Please Me”—approximately 25 times.
EMI Headquarters
Angus McBean was asked to take the distinctive colour photograph of the group looking down over the stairwell inside EMI's London headquarters in Manchester Square. George Martin was to write later: “We rang up the legendary theatre photographer Angus McBean, and bingo, he came round and did it there and then. It was done in an almighty rush, like the music. Thereafter, though, the Beatles' own creativity came bursting to the fore". In 1969, the Beatles asked McBean to recreate this shot. Although the 1969 photograph was originally intended for the then-planned Get Back album, it was not used when that project saw eventual release in 1970 as Let It Be. Instead, the 1969 photograph, along with an unused photograph from the 1963 photo shoot, was used in 1973 for the Beatles retrospective albums 1962–1966 and 1967–1970. (www.wikipedia.com) In this image, only the abstract space remains—the Beatles having disbanded in 1970, and the building demolished in the late 1990s. Notably, the staircase was dissembled and painstakingly rebuilt at EMI’s new headquarters.
Please Pleas Me
John Lennon: “’Please Please Me’ . . . 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. I heard Roy Orbison doing 'Only The Lonely' or something. That's where that came from. And also I was always intrigued by the words of 'Please Lend Your Ears To My Pleas,' a Bing Crosby song. I was always intrigued by the double use of the word 'please.' So it was a combination of Bing Crosby and Roy Orbison." This image is based on a still from the 1933 film Please, in which Bing serenades a reluctant young woman through a window.
How long must I play the role of
A gloomy Romeo?
Oh, Please.
Say you're not intending to tease
Speed that happy ending and please
Tell me that you love me too.