The Beatles: From Me To You (Drum Cover)

The Beatles’ third UK single “From Me to You” was released on April 11, 1963 and later saw a US release on May 27, 1963. It was covered by Del Shannon and became the first Lennon/McCartney song to enter the US pop charts. The Beatles’ version backed with “Thank You Girl” on the flipside, failed to chart during its first US release but was released in the US a second time in January 1964 backed with “Please Please Me” and reached the #41 spot.

The song was recorded on March 5, 1963, the same day as “Thank You Girl”, and an early version of “One After 909”. An early version of “What Goes On” was to be recorded on this same date but was never attempted. Six takes of the song were attempted with seven edit pieces following. The song’s lineup featured John Lennon vocals, rhythm guitar, and harmonica, Paul McCartney on vocal, bass, George Harrison on lead guitar, and Ringo Starr on drums. The song has a Merseybeat sound similar to the songs on Please Please Me. Once released, the song became the group’s first number one hit in the UK knocking Gerry And The Pacemakers’ “How Do You Do It” off the spot. It was also the first of eleven consecutive #1 hit singles The Beatles released.

On “From Me To You”, Ringo used his Premier drum kit and plays a simple but effective 8th note pattern on the hi hat with a consistent bass drum pattern. The pattern does change during the bridges. Ringo plays variations of the same fill throughout the song, either on the snare drum, or throwing in the rack tom as well. The fills are similar to what you hear in “I Saw Her Standing There”, “Boys”, “There’s A Place”. and other songs from around the same time. During the song’s outro, Ringo switches to the ride cymbal to accent those hits and three stroke rolls on the toms. Due to how the song was recorded and mixed, the drums in the outro are rather hard to hear, but isolated tracks help decipher what is being played. For this video, the drums are more prominent than what you hear on the record.

That’s about it! Thanks for watching and stay tuned for more to come!