Twist And Shout
Russell/Medley

 

Lyrics:
Well, shake it up baby now
Twist and shout
Come on, come on, come, come on baby now
Come on and work it on out
Well work it on out, honey
You know you look so good
You know you got me goin' now
Just like I know you would

Well, shake it up baby now
Twist and shout
Come on, come on, come, come on baby now
Come on and work it on out
You know you twist, little girl
You know you twist so fine
Come on and twist a little closer now
And let me know that you're mine, woo

Ah, ah, ah, ah
Yeah, shake it up baby now
Twist and shout
Come on, come on, come, come on baby now
Come on and work it on out
You know you twist, little girl
You know you twist so fine
Come on and twist a little closer now
And let me know that you're mine
Well shake it, shake it, shake it, baby now
Well shake it, shake it, shake it, baby now
Well shake it, shake it, shake it, baby now
Ah, ah, ah, ah
Availability:
Anthology 1
Please Please Me
Introducing The Beatles
The Beatles Story
The Early Beatles
 

Lead Singer: John

Recording: 11/27/62 (BBC), 2/11/63, 6/17/63 (BBC), 7/3/63 (BBC), 7/16/63 (BBC), 7/17/63 (BBC), 7/30/63 (BBC), 8/1/63 (BBC), 9/3/63 (BBC), 11/4/63 (BBC)
Mixing: 2/25/63
Length: 2:32
Take: 1

What Goes On? Anomalies

1:19
In George's solo, he carries one too many strings on the downstroke of the third pass through the riff. I've always liked the chord that this accident makes :)
1:25
Careful study of Paul's first "aaah" will show that half way through the pitch flattens slightly.

 I do know that Lewisohn states clearly that this recording is one complete take, and that the following take was useless because John's voice was shredded. Having said that, I'll try and make this next sentence clearer, because it's causing some readers stress ...

>This seems like an edit between two takes, although only one basic take was recorded (the second being abortive due to John's voice being gone!).

I say "seems like" because it is uncharacteristic for John or Paul to sing out of tune like that, and it is odd (fortuitous?) that he corrects it on a beat. This makes it feel like, I say, feel like, the joining of two takes, or of an edit piece. But as this cannot be the case, then John just snapped his pitch down realising his mistake.

Thanks to Stephen Moss for pointing out the error that no-one noticed, all of this was originally attributed to Paul's voice. The order of the "aah's" is clearly John first, Paul and George together next (but one of these is very faint). We discussed this, and came up with the following. Discuss ...

1 bar John (Note A)
1 bar Paul (Note C#) and George faintly, fade in (Note F#) (Making chord A6th)
1 bar George (Note E)
1 bar Paul (goes to Note G) (Making chord A7th)
Then Paul and John jump up notes, I believe
John takes Paul's note (Note C#), Paul goes wild.

Let's see how that grabs people ... either way it's still an anomaly :)

2:27
"Aaay" during last chord (Paul?)
2:29
Cough during fadeout - most likely John, after that vocal!

 This has also been suggested as a percussion sound (stick on rim), or hihat.

 

Notes:

A big hit for The Beatles, this song was originally recorded on June 2, 1962 by The Isley Brothers. During The Beatles marathon recording session on February 11, 1963, this was the last song that they recorded. By day's end, Lennon's voice was shot, and as he said, "I couldn't sing the damn thing, I was just screaming." So in just one take, severed vocal chords and all, Lennon recorded his best rock n' roll song ever, on par with McCartney's "Long Tall Sally."

 

© 1960 and 1963 Screen Gems-EMI Music Incorporaten, USA. EMI Music Publishing Limited, London WC2. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.
Ten BBC broadcasts: 12/4/62 on Talent Spot, 4/18/63 on Swinging Sound '63, 6/25/63 on Pop Goes The Beatles, 7/4/63 on Beat Show, 8/6/63 on Pop Goes The Beatles, 7/21/63 on Easy Beat, 8/24/63 on Saturday Club, 8/27/63 on Pop Goes The Beatles, 9/24/63 on Pop Goes The Beatles and 11/10/63 on Royal Variety Performance.