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From album
Please Please Me
The Beatles · 1963 · Track 11
Details
ÁlbumPlease Please Me
Año1963
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The story behind
The melody of Do You Want to Know a Secret has a curious origin, inspired by a lullaby. John Lennon composed it based on "I'm Wishing," a song from Disney's 1937 animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. His mother, Julia, used to sing it to him when he was a child. The film's opening lines, "Do you want to know a secret? Do you promise not to tell?" seem to echo in the song's structure, almost as if they were a direct echo. Although the piece was credited to the duo Lennon–McCartney, John Lennon later acknowledged that, upon finishing it, he felt George Harrison's voice was ideal for performing it, partly because he had a limited vocal range at the time.
The recording of Do You Want to Know a Secret took place on February 11, 1963, as part of an intense ten-hour session at EMI Studios in London. It was a prolific day, during which nine more songs were recorded for the album Please Please Me. George Harrison, in addition to singing this piece, also performed "Chains" on that album. The peculiarity of the recording is that Harrison and John Lennon played acoustic guitars on separate channels: in the stereo mix, Harrison's is placed on the right and Lennon's on the left. In the United States, this song became the first top ten hit in which Harrison took on the role of lead vocalist, reaching number 2 on the Billboard chart in 1964. In the United Kingdom, a version by Billy J. Kramer with the Dakotas reached number 1 on the NME chart.