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TL;DR:

  • Paul McCartney said The Beatles’ “From Me to You” “heralded a new batch” of songs.
  • He discussed how it was written.
  • John Lennon said The Isley Brothers inspired “From Me to You.”

Paul McCartney felt The Beatles’ “From Me to You” was a typical early Fab Four song in one way. On the other hand, he said it was a turning point for the band. John Lennon revealed why he was happy to sing lead vocals on the track.

Paul McCartney said The Beatles’ ‘From Me to You’ ‘went to a surprising place’

In the 1997 book Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now, Paul discussed the importance of “From Me to You.” “There was a little trick we developed early on and got bored with later, which was to put ‘I,’ ‘me,’ or ‘you’ in it, so it was very direct and personal: ‘Love Me Do,’ ‘Please Please Me,’ ‘From Me to You’ we got two of them in there; ‘She Loves You.’

“The thing I liked about ‘From Me to [You]’ was it had a very complete middle,” he added. “It went to a surprising place. The opening chord of the middle section of that song heralded a new batch for me. That was a pivotal song. Our songwriting lifted a little with that song. It was very much co-written.”

John Lennon said The Beatles took inspiration from The Isley Brothers to write the song

The book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono includes an interview from 1980. In the book, John discussed the origin of “From Me to You.” “We were writing it in a car, I think, and I think the first line was mine,” he said. “I mean, I know it was mine.

“And then after that we took it from there,” he added. “It was far bluesier than that when we wrote it. The notes — today you could rearrange it pretty funky.” John said the song was intended as the follow-up to “She Loves You.” In fact, the tune was released after “She Loves You.”

John said “From Me to You” was influenced by The Isley Brothers’ “Twist and Shout.” Specifically, The Beatles sang “woo-woo” in “From Me to You” and “She Loves You” because The Isley Brothers sang that phrase in their version of “Twist and Shout.” Notably, The Beatles covered “Twist and Shout” and their cover is likely the most famous version of the song.

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Why John Lennon liked singing the lead vocal on ‘From Me to You’

John said he got competitive with Paul. For that reason, he liked singing the lead on early Beatles tunes like “From Me to You,” “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” “She Loves You,” and “Please Please Me.”

John felt he dominated the group during that period of their career. Despite this, John said female Beatles fans were more interested in Paul. He revealed his following was primarily male.

“From Me to You” is a great song and it wouldn’t be the same without the combined talents of John and Paul.

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