50 Years After the Demise of John Lennon's Vocal Cords

On February 11, 1963, during one of the coldest winters anyone could remember, The Beatles entered Abbey Road Studios in St. John's Wood, London, to record a batch of filler tunes for their first album. They had spent the winter touring England with an unremarkable pop singer named Helen Shapiro. Their second single, "Please Please Me," had just become their first major hit, sneaking into the British top twenty. It would rocket to number one by the end of February. Almost exactly a year later, the Fab Four would land in New York and find themselves beset by a mob of crazed Americans.

But on that February afternoon in 1963, The Beatles went to work like an ordinary pop group. Guided by producer George Martin, they bashed out their tunes briskly, using as few takes as possible. By the end of the day they had committed 11 songs to tape. (In contrast, the 13 tracks of 1967's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band took 129 days to record.)

Four of the 11 were Lennon-McCartney originals; the rest were covers repurposed from the band's well-honed live act. The second number they played, "I Saw Her Standing There," was a stunner. A cheeky countdown ("One, two, three, FAW!") introduces a tight Merseybeat groove, driven by Paul McCartney's propulsive bass and John Lennon's bluesy rhythm guitar. The first couplet is sung with an audible leer by McCartney: "Well, she was just seventeen, / You know what I mean." Mm hm, I do. Rock-n-roll.

But where "I Saw Here Standing There" was slyly risqué, the final track The Beatles recorded on February 11 was a goddamn lust-bomb.

Shredded by a heavy cold and a marathon session of tuneful yelling, Lennon's vocal cords were not long for the world. "Every time I swallowed," he later said, "it felt like sandpaper." But 11 PM was approaching, and the group had yet to lay down its most demanding song, a cover of an R&B hit called "Twist and Shout." Recorded in 1962 by The Isley Brothers as a "La Bamba"-style dance number, "Twist and Shout" was reworked by The Beatles into a balls-to-the-wall rager - one that required an ecstatic, throat-ripping lead vocal.

So after a glass of milk, Lennon strapped on his Rickenbacker 325, stood shirtless at the head of the band, and delivered the most thrilling rock performance I've ever heard.



Holy mackerel, that's exciting. Happy 50th deathiversary, John Lennon's vocal cords; you did God's (or perhaps Aphrodite's) work.