When John Lennon met Paul McCartney one fateful summer day in 1957, he was playing "Come Go With Me" by the Del-Vikings. What was special about this song was that both teenage boys knew it. Sure, they were obsessed with Elvis like other Liverpudlian lads. But they were true musical connoisseurs, they knew songs like this, too! So I've been thinking lately, were the Beatles influenced by doo wop music? My best answer to that question is, they certainly were. It was not their biggest influence, but it certainly had a profound impact on them. So how exactly did doo wop, a genre I love so much, influence The Beatles, the greatest band in the history of music? Well, that's what I plan to discuss in this post.
To understand the influence that doo wop had on The Beatles, we must understand the band during their formative years. The Beatles were around as the Quarrymen in the late 50s, but only truly started developing their greatness in the early 60s. Their style of music could best be described as beat music, or Merseybeat (the latter name comes from the River Mersey in Liverpool). The rollicking beat of this music was certainly influenced by the rock 'n roll of the 1950s. But looking up the other stylistic origins of beat music, one certainly stood out to me.
We know what The Beatles' "Three Cool Cats" sounds like because it was part of The Beatles' failed Decca audition on New Years' Day of 1962. When I first read about The Beatles failing a record label audition, I thought to myself, "How could a label possibly turn them down?". Well, some of their songs were rather shaky. Pete's drumming was out of sync, and Paul was audibly nervous as hell on "Till There Was You". However, "Three Cool Cats" was not at all shaky. The Beatles harmonies were great, and their humor shines through. George sings how he wants "that little chick", while Paul screams out "I want that middle chick!". This leaves John in desperation, singing "Hey man, save one chick for me!". But The Beatles were by no means stealing The Coasters' humor, they were putting their own unique spin on it. And the charisma and harmonies that shine on this song would later feature on plenty of their more well-known songs.
One of the Beatles' first big hits, 1963's "Please Please Me", certainly had some aspects of doo wop. The call and response of "Come on" leading up to the verses was influenced by many of the black musicians that the Beatles enjoyed. The "ah" harmonies were also very doo wop-esque. John sang lead on the song, but Paul and George played a vital role in backing him up. In 1964, doo wop would strike the inspiration for the message of a Beatles song, as opposed to the music itself. "No Reply" was the excellent song that kicked off their album "Beatles for Sale". According to John, the song's lyrics were inspired by the 1957 doo wop song "Silhouettes" by the Rays. John recalled this in a 1980 interview, saying "I had that image of walking down the street and seeing her silhouetted in the window and not answering the phone". This inspiration is not insignificant, as "No Reply" shows a clear growth in John's songwriting. The lyrics were the first of his songs to tell "a complete story", according to the Beatles' music publisher Dick James.
We've already gone over quite a few examples of how doo wop has influenced The Beatles, but the clearest example is on "This Boy". That song is the closest the Beatles come to pure doo wop. The chords of that song are in the 1950s doo wop style, before moving into a more harmonically complex middle eight. The harmonies on the song are sublime. While John sings lead vocals, Paul adds a beautiful higher harmony. All the while, George adds a more subtle harmony that completes the sound, the way a baritone does in a doo wop group. And let's talk about that middle eight. Much like on the song I just talked about, "No Reply", this song's middle eight has a moment of incredible tension where John pours his soul into the vocals. But while John is doing this, Paul and George are harmonizing on "ah" in the background". It sounds and feels like a doo wop song, sung by three very talented singers.
What made The Beatles unique was that they were both a singing group and a band. This separated them from even the other British invasion groups. Paul backed this up in a conversation he had with Keith Richards, as Keith told him, "Man, you were lucky, you guys had four lead singers". That's awfully generous calling Ringo a lead singer, but honestly, he's not much of a downgrade from Mick Jagger. Speaking of which, Keith was not the only Rolling Stone that envied The Beatles, as Mick called them "the four-headed monster" for their sense of unity. My point is, The Beatles diverse array of singing talents made them not just a rock 'n roll band, but also a singing group in my opinion. And their incredible harmonies would carry on after the years of Beatlemania. Doo wop-flavored songs weren't very common after those years, but one song in particular stands out for its 50s-style chord progression. Besides being a fantastic song with a passionate vocal from Paul, 1969's "Oh! Darling" was inspired partly by doo wop.
The doo wop generation of the late 50s and early 60s may still have some animosity towards The Beatles for taking their music off the charts. After all, I'm pretty sure that plays a small part in what the song "American Pie" is about. But to deny the influence that doo wop had on The Beatles would be wrong. Yes, the Beatles had many different influences in their music, but that's part of what made them so special. They took the best parts of American rock 'n roll, R&B, country, and yes, doo wop... and they incorporated it into their songs. So this all leads me to a thread on a Reddit post that partly inspired this post. It compared The Beatles and doo wop. This is what one commenter had to say:
