A Star Said The Beatles’ ‘Love Me Do’ Was ‘Clearly Influenced’ by ‘Hound Dog’
TL;DR:
- A star once said The Beatles’ “Love Me Do” was inspired by Big Mama Thornton’s “Hound Dog.”
- She also felt the song was inspired by Barrett Strong’s “Money (That’s What I Want).”
- Paul McCartney and John Lennon discussed how the song came together.
A star once said The Beatles‘ “Love Me Do” was inspired by Big Mama Thornton’s “Hound Dog.” In addition, she felt the song was different from its inspirations. Notably, Paul McCartney and John Lennon both gave fans insight into the composition of “Love Me Do.”
Singer Lulu said she liked The Beatles when she was young because they looked cute without looking threatening
Lulu is a singer known for her hits “To Sir with Love” and “Boom Bang-a-Bang,” as well as the title song from the James Bond movie The Man with the Golden Gun. During a 2022 interview with The Guardian, she discussed hearing “Love Me Do” when it was new.
“When I was 13, we were obsessed with the radio in the way kids now are obsessed with TikTok,” she recalled. “When ‘Love Me Do’ came on it blew my mind. My teenage hormones were raging, and The Beatles looked so cute, not at all threatening.”
Lulu said The Beatles’ ‘Love Me Do’ was inspired by Big Mama Thornton’s ‘Hound Dog’ but it was different
Lulu discussed The Beatles’ connection to American music. “Before them, most British music had seemed like a lightweight copy of American records, but ‘Love Me Do’ felt like a spiritual awakening,” she said. “I’d heard Big Mama Thornton singing ‘Hound Dog’ and Barrett Strong doing ‘Money (That’s What I Want).’ ‘Love Me Do’ was clearly influenced, but different.
“The three-part harmonies reminded me of the sort of thing you’d hear in church, deep soul,” Lulu added. “They also wrote the songs themselves, which revolutionized the music industry worldwide. They sang as teenage boys spoke — the language of love, the torments, the heartbreak, and the hope. With ‘Love Me Do,’ they took the beat from Black American R&B music and encompassed it in something original.”
Did Paul McCartney and John Lennon cite Big Mama Thornton’s ‘Hound Dog’ as an inspiration for ‘Love Me Do?’
The Beatles were clearly influenced by African-American artists. This raises an interesting question: Did “Hound Dog” consciously inspire “Love Me Do?”
In the 1997 book Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now, Paul said “Love Me Do” was originally his idea. Afterward, John Lennon contributed elements to the track. Paul didn’t connect the song to “Hound Dog” in any way. In fact, he didn’t cite any song as a source of inspiration for “Love Me Do.”
The book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono features an interview from 1980. In it, John was asked about “Love Me Do.” He said it was Paul’s song and he didn’t connect it to Thornton.
Even if Thornton’s “Hound Dog” indirectly influenced “Love Me Do,” the song wasn’t on Paul and John’s minds when they wrote it.
