Session One: The first time the song premiered in the recording studio took place the first time The Beatles (with Pete Best) entered an EMI recording studio. This occurred on the historic date of June 6th, 1962. They recorded four songs during this two-hour session (6:00 to 8:00 p.m.) and “Ask Me Why” appeared last. Brain Epstein had thought, mistakenly, that Martin was impressed by the classic renditions of older songs that The Beatles worked up, but after attempting“Besame Mucho” , it was apparent that originals were what EMI wanted to hear, given that publishers Ardmore and Beechwood were looking to secure publishing deals for original material from The Beatles' first single. This suited the band just fine; they wanted to record original material anyway. After an unknown number of takes were performed of “Love Me Do” and “P.S. I Love You,” they then presented “Ask Me Why” for consideration.
George Martin apparently wasn’t present during the complete session this day, but was called in from the studio canteen (where he was taking a tea break) to hear them perform “Love Me Do.” Since Martin then took over the rest of the session, he was present during their unnumbered takes of “Ask Me Why” on that day, which occurred approximately at 7:30 pm. At the conclusion of this session, Martin, and associate producer Ron Richards determined that the material recorded on this day was not worthy of record release and another session needed an immediate future date. Nonetheless, this recording apparently was lost or recorded over shortly thereafter.
Session Two: The second session for the song was actually not a recording session at all. This occurred on September 4th, 1962, which was the second time The Beatles (this time with Ringo) were in EMI studios. They arrived for a rehearsal session at 2:30 pm (which lasted until 5:30 pm) in order to rehearse songs to determine which would grace the B-side of their first single. “How Do You Do It” was already chosen by George Martin to be the A-side, so after rehearing this song, they rehearsed five other original songs. “Love Me Do” and “Please Please Me” were performed for sure, but noteworthy sources indicate that “Ask Me Why” was one of the other three.
In the end, of course, Martin chose “Love Me Do,” as the A-side and “P.S. I Love You” for the B-side of their first record since publishers' disputes argued against releasing “How Do You Do It” on either side of their first single. “Ask Me Why” was then left for consideration for another time.
Session Three: November 26th, 1962 saw the actual recording of the song as we all know it. This three-hour session, to record both sides of their second single, started at 7:00 p.m. and ended at 10:00. The group actually arrived at the studio at 6:00 for a rehearsal session.
The first two hours wrestled recording “Please Please Me,” which Martin chose for the A-side of the single. After a short tea break, they returned at approximately 9:00 to record six takes of “Ask Me Why,” the sixth deemed best. This fetched a completely live performance with no overdubs or edits.
At that time, “Ask Me Why” wasn’t the guaranteed choice for the B-side of their second single. They also recorded an unnumbered amount of takes of a new original song entitled “Tip Of My Tongue.” After several attempts at recording this song, George Martin decided that the arrangement needed more work and said "leave it for another time." This, of course, never happened, and the song transferred over to Tommy Quickly to record, which he did in July of 1963.
The decision to pass on “Tip Of My Tongue” left “Ask Me Why” as the B-side to “Please Please Me.” One thing rang certain; The Beatles wanted both sides of their second single, like their first, to be original compositions.
Mixing: Three mixes took place. The first was a mono mix made on November 30th, 1962. This was deemed suitable for the single release, which occurred in Britain on January 11th, 1963.
A further mono mix, as well as a stereo mix followed during the control room session for the “Please Please Me” album, which happened on February 25th, 1963. Apparently, George Martin felt that the original mix of the song needed a touch of reverb to match the rest of the album. Since the original session tapes were still available, a true stereo mix could be done. These mixes are the ones available to this day.
Song Structure and Style
This song could probably win an award for being the most complicated and confusing song structure in the early Beatles catalog. It is true that all conventional rules of songwriting went out of the window in later years, such as with “Happiness Is A Warm Gun.” But as for The Beatles songwriting styles throughout their entire career, there are only a few exceptions to the established song structures common in popular music. This truly is one of those exceptions. To an average listener, “Ask Me Why” may seem like just your average early Beatles song with its distinctive harmonies and breaks. But when analyzed, it can easily be determined that Lennon and McCartney hadn’t quite fallen into their songwriting “groove” yet.
This is not to say that the song is “bad” by any stretch of the imagination. Quite on the contrary, “Ask Me Why” has an understated charm. It flows with the precision that comes from extensive rehearsal and performance, being that it had been part of their “stage act” for many months before the recording session. The structure of the song may be confusing when under scrutiny, but The Beatles had all the changes down perfectly. They knew where the song was going, and that’s all that counts.
The best analysis of the song's structure shows that it consists of a ‘verse/ altered verse/ bridge/ refrain’ pattern (which we’ll call abcd). But after this pattern occurs, we see a ‘verse/ refrain/ bridge/ refrain’ pattern (which show as adcd). Adding to the confusion is the number of breaks that occur throughout the song, possibly with the intent of creating a transition from one part of the song to the other. This may be hard to follow, but we’ll discuss a play-by-play to make things clearer (or more confusing).
The song first starts out with a two-bar instrumental introduction, which includes a break and the opening words of the first verse. The style of having the opening words of the verse come before the first bar of the verse happens in many Beatle songs throughout their career, such as “All My Loving” and “All I’ve Got To Do.” The distinctive background harmonies of Paul and George are heard immediately backing John’s lead vocal. The first verse has an odd thirteen bars, which include two breaks.
The song then enters into a second 13-bar verse, which initially sounds identical to the first verse structurally, but is altered at the end to create a suitable transition into the bridge which follows. Only one break occurs during this altered verse.
The bridge has a standard eight bars but ends with a pronounced break which strongly emphasizes the harmonized word “misery.” The song then goes into what appears to be another verse because of it starting with the title of the song in the lyrics, but is very quickly revealed to be a refrain, which ends the series of the song’s components with a proper resolution.
The sequence then appears to repeat, as another 13-bar verse begins, but we are then thrown a curve-ball by repeating the refrain, which could indicate the conclusion of the song. But, no! We then enter into the identical bridge from the first sequence (ending in the pronounced “misery”) and then, for the third time, repeat the refrain again, ending with a small classy guitar flourish from Harrison.
Definitely no fault emerges in the performance, as all vocals are spot-on pitch and all instruments play flawlessly. Harrison is found to be in especially good form, showing him equally adept at crooner tunes as he is doing Carl Perkins or Chuck Berry. Ringo has all the breaks down perfectly, even though he had inherited this original song from the likes of Pete Best before him. Lennon’s vocals crack at times, but it only comes across as adding character to the vocal performance.
As for the lyrics of the song, it is simply a somewhat cliché-heavy ode to the joys of being in love. McCartney admitted that at times the lyrics in their songs were secondary to the musical structure, such as this earlier entry in the Lennon/McCartney songbook, positive much better lyrical content was to come. The focus of the song should most definitely pillar on the song's structural complexity.
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