Thank You Girl

Lots of stuff going on in my non-Beatles life today, many meetings and so forth. So for today let's just bop in our desk chairs to "Thank You Girl" and have done with it, yes?

This is a song John and Paul wrote together as a thank you to their fans for making them super-duper famous and stuff. Aw. You are welcome, lads.

The song's cute and fun, and would have been their third single, except that it was decided that "From Me to You" was stronger. "Thank You Girl" ended up on the B side. Even here, early on and in a simple song, they've doing some things that are remarkably clever-- I especially like the coda, with the reverb effect thing they put on their vocals, so that the "oh-- oh-- oh--" stuff gets almost a Motown sound, and just sounds that much more meaningful. And Ringo's drum fills sound like little winks at the end there. Plus, I'm a sucker for John on the harmonica.

I love songs like this. They sound like they're having a blast, don't they? The live version on Live at the BBC sounds like even MORE fun. There's also a different version on The Beatles' Second Album, one of the atrocious hybrid albums released by Capitol, that features more harmonica-- I believe Capitol had to use an alternate take since Vee Jay had already released the single version in the States, though it could also just be one of those head-scratching Capitol decisions-- I'm not positive.

Anyway, now at least I feel more in the mood to face this very long day. Thank YOU, Beatles.

"Thank You Girl," released in the U.K. as B-side to "From Me to You," April 11, 1963; in the U.S. on Vee Jay as B-side to "From Me to You," May 6, 1963.