![\"Paul](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Paul-McCartney-John-Lennon-Ringo-Starr-George-Harrison-1963-The-Beatles-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jp.jpeg\")
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Credit: Far Out \/ Alamy<\/p>\n
Mon 20 July 2026 7:48, UK <\/p>\n
It was the eleventh hour for The <\/a>Beatles<\/a>. After a full day of recording songs for their debut album, Please, Please Me, they were down to their last song. The band had purposefully saved their cover of The Top Notes\u2019 \u2018Twist and Shout\u2019 for last, as John Lennon would have to scream his lungs out.<\/p>\n \u201cSomeone suggested they do \u2018Twist and Shout\u2019 with John taking the lead vocal,\u201d engineer Norman Smith remembered. \u201cBut by this time all their throats were sore; it was 12 hours since we had started working. John\u2019s, in particular, was almost completely gone so we really had to get it right the first time.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cThe Beatles on the studio floor and us in the control room,\u201d Smith remembered. \u201cJohn sucked a couple more Zubes (a brand of throat lozenges), had a bit of a gargle with milk and away we went.\u201d<\/p>\n Lennon had been suffering a cold during the recording process and could be heard coughing throughout the sessions. He was just about to lose his voice when the band reached \u2018Twist and Shout\u2019, so to prepare himself, Lennon took off his shirt and got down to business.<\/p>\n \u201cJohn was stripped to the waist to do this most amazingly raucous vocal,\u201d engineer Cris Neal recalled. \u201cThe next morning Norman Smith and I took a tape around all the studio copying rooms saying to everybody: \u2018What the hell do you think of this!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI knew that \u2018Twist and Shout\u2019 was a real larynx-tearer and I said, \u2018We\u2019re not going to record that until the very end of the day, because if we record it early on, you\u2019re not going to have any voice left,\u2019\u201d producer George Martin remembered. \u201cSo that was the last thing we did that night. We did two takes, and after that John didn\u2019t have any voice left at all. It was good enough for the record, and it needed that linen-ripping sound.<\/p>\n In hindsight, the circumstances almost seem perfectly suited to the song itself. \u2018Twist and Shout\u2019 isn\u2019t built on polished vocal technique or delicate phrasing; it thrives on urgency, abandon and the feeling that the singer is pushing themselves beyond their limits. By the time Lennon stepped up to the microphone, he was living the emotions in real time.<\/p>\n That authenticity is part of what has allowed the recording to endure for decades. Countless artists have covered \u2018Twist and Shout\u2019, but few have matched the sheer physical commitment captured on The Beatles\u2019 version. Rather than sounding compromised by exhaustion, Lennon\u2019s ravaged voice gave the performance a sense of danger that no amount of studio perfection could have replicated.<\/p>\n Although Martin remembered doing two takes, only the first take is known to have been recorded. A second attempt was started, but Lennon\u2019s voice was completely gone. The version of \u2018Twist and Shout\u2019 that appears on Please, Please Me was the only take that The Beatles ever recorded in the studio. <\/p>\n \u201cThe last <\/a>song<\/a> nearly killed me<\/a>,\u201d Lennon later remembered. \u201cMy voice wasn\u2019t the same for a long time after; every time I swallowed it was like sandpaper. I was always bitterly ashamed of it, because I could sing it better than that; but now it doesn\u2019t bother me. You can hear that I\u2019m just a frantic guy doing his best.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n![\"Paul](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1761679152_959_Paul-McCartney-John-Lennon-The-Beatles-1964-Far-Out-Magazine-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/a>Credit: Far Out \/ Eric Koch for Anefo<\/p>\n
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<\/a> The Far Out Beatles Newsletter<\/p>\n