Notes and Quotes: "World without Love"

Asher, Waller, Love, and probably McCartney worked together to create a classic of the 1963-64 beat boom.

One important characteristic of the so-called "Mersey Beat" style — the coupling of the bass guitar line and the bass drum pattern — begins "A World without Love." Also characteristic of the beat boom is the arrangement of the vocal lines in which the singers alternately sing in unison and in harmony. One other distinguishing characteristic here that predates the Beatles is the use of the electric 12-string guitar (played here by Vic Flick). George Harrison would only weeks later obtain a Rickenbacker electric 12-string during his visit to the United States.

John Lennon: I think [Paul] had the whole song before the Beatles and gave it to Peter and Gordon.... Paul never sang it. Not on a record, anyway. That has the line, "Please lock me away" — which we always used to crack up at. (Everett 2001: 219)

Vic Flick: I remember the organ player, Harold Smart. He came in and he had to get some city workers in [who] were digging the road up outside, to bring his organ in because at that time they didn’t have a split B3s or anything. He had this great big, Wurlitzer type of organ, with two poles carried through like an emperor's litter…This was a big console organ. I mean, it had foot pedals and everything. It all came in on one unit and these guys had to stagger in. I will always remember their big, sort of red Irish road-mender’s faces. And they were looking in awe at this studio, and all the microphones. (Interview, 15 February 2001)

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20 February, 2012