Paul McCartney: George Martin's contribution was quite a big one,
actually. The first time he really showed that he cound see beyond
what we were offering him was "Please Please Me". It was originally
conceived as a Roy Orbison-type thing, you know. George Martin
said, "Well, we'll put the tempo up." He lifted the tempo and we
all thought that was much better and that was a big hit.
John Lennon (in 1980) - "'Please Please Me' is my song completely. It was my attempt at writing a Roy Orbison song, would you believe it? I wrote it in the bedroom in my house at Menlove Avenue, which was my auntie's place. I heard Roy Orbison doing 'Only The Lonely' or something. That's where that came from. And also I was always intrigued by the words of 'Please Lend Your Ears To My Pleas,' a Bing Crosby song. I was always intrigued by the double use of the word 'please.' So it was a combination of Bing Crosby and Roy Orbison."
Paul McCartney (in 1988) - "It's very Roy Orbison when you slow it down. George Martin up-tempo'd it. He thought it was too much of a dirge, and probably too like Orbison. So he cleverly speeded us up... and we put in the little scaled riff at the beginning, which was very catchy."
