Ain't She Sweet

From Wikipedia:

“Ain’t She Sweet” is a song composed by Milton Ager, with lyrics by Jack Yellen. It was published in 1927 by Ager, Yellen & Bornstein, Inc. It became popular in the first half of the 20th century and typified the Roaring Twenties. Like “Happy Days Are Here Again” (1929), it became a Tin Pan Alley standard. Both Ager and Yellen were elected to the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Milton Ager wrote “Ain’t She Sweet” for his daughter Shana Ager, who in her adult life was known as the political commentator Shana Alexander. […]

Versions by the Beatles

The Beatles regularly performed the song live from 1957 to 1962. According to Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn, “John [Lennon] may have known the song through his mother; he certainly knew it from Gene Vincent’s 1956 recording on the LP Bluejean Bop!” In The Beatles as Musicians, Walter Everett offers a similar assessment, writing simply that it was “based on Gene Vincent’s record.” Musicologist and writer Ian MacDonald also agrees with this view. Lewisohn further notes that, “John Lennon’s vocal rendition was different from Vincent’s, it would seem that he arranged his own unique version… He may have also been influenced by Duffy Power’s 1959 version”. In the Beatles’ Anthology book, McCartney recalls that “Songs like ‘Till There Was You‘ and ‘Ain’t She Sweet’ would be the late-night cabaret material. They showed that we weren’t just another rock’n’roll group.”

Recording by the Beatles

On June 22 or 24, 1961, during their first professional recording session, the Beatles recorded a cover of “Ain’t She Sweet”. Recorded at the Friedrich-Ebert-Halle in Hamburg, Germany, produced by Bert Kaempfert and engineered by Karl Hinze, the session saw the Beatles backing Tony Sheridan. George Harrison later recalled that the group misunderstood the purpose of the recording session and only learned upon arrival that they would be backing Sheridan. Harrison further added, “It was a bit disappointing because we’d been hoping to get a record deal as ourselves.” “Ain’t She Sweet” was one of two songs recorded without Sheridan with Lennon instead on lead vocal. In 1968, Lennon reflected, “We thought it would be easy: the Germans had such shitty records, ours was bound to be better.” MacDonald surmised that the Beatles decided to record a cover to save their stronger originals, such as McCartney’s “Like Dreamers Do” and Lennon’s “Hello Little Girl“.

In a 1975 radio interview, Lennon explained that Gene Vincent’s cover was “very mellow and very high pitched, and I used to do it like that, but they said harder, harder—you know, Germans all want it a bit more like a march—so we ended up doing a harder version of it.” Lewisohn remarks that Lennon “gives it a good and powerful go, but there’s a strange timbre to his voice, as if he was suffering from ‘Hamburg throat’ while also straining to deliver Kaempfert’s brittle sound on a song that didn’t suit it.” Everett describes Lennon’s singing style as “very detached, slightly hiccuping” and notes his use of a mordent for emphasis. Lewisohn further evaluated that Pete Best’s drumming “lacks imagination” and McCartney’s “bass is accomplished.” Harrison’s guitar solo “judged even in its place and time… wasn’t good.” Everett comments that, “as a whole, these recordings are hardly representative of the future Beatles.” MacDonald judges it similarly, writing, “…it [“Ain’t She Sweet”] made little sense as a choice for the Beatles’ first professional recording and fails to reward attention in hindsight.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Beatles, Howard Kramer writes that the session was “musically unspectacular” and “the Beatles’ instrumental backing shows competence, but little more.”

Release by the Beatles

After the session, the Beatles expected that a single of “Ain’t She Sweet” b/w “Beatle Bop” would be released in America, Germany and Britain in the weeks that followed. It was not until October 23, 1961 that a single was released in West Germany exclusively, except it was instead “My Bonnie” b/w “The Saints”, credited as “Tony Sheridan & The Beat Brothers”. The Liverpool music newspaper Mersey Beat reported that the Beatles were dissatisfied with “Ain’t She Sweet” and “Cry For A Shadow” and so sold their rights back to Kaempfert’s company, Bert Kaempfert Produktion (BKP). Polydor’s first worldwide release of “Ain’t She Sweet” was on the February 1964 French EP, Les Beatles [fr]. Polydor released it in the U.K. as a single on May 29, 1964 b/w “If You Love Me, Baby”, a mistitling of the Jimmy Reed song “Take Out Some Insurance”. On July 6, 1964 ATCO Records released the track as a single in America b/w the Hank Snow song “Nobody’s Child“. In August 1964, the song peaked at number 19 on the US Billboard Hot 100. In Sweden, it reached number 4 on Sweden’s Kvällstoppen Chart and also reached the top spot on the Tio i Topp chart. It was the highest-charting Beatles single with original drummer Pete Best.[citation needed] The Beatles were neither paid nor owed royalty payments for the release. The track has been included on several releases, including Ain’t She Sweet (1964), The Beatles’ First (1964) and In the Beginning (Circa 1960) (1970). The Beatles included the recording on the 1995 compilation album Anthology 1.

On 24 July 1969 during a recording session for “Sun King“/”Mean Mr. Mustard“, Lennon began an impromptu jam of “Ain’t She Sweet” along with the other Gene Vincent songs, “Who Slapped John?” and “Be-Bop-a-Lula”. Lewisohn remarked that this version was more in the style of Gene Vincent than the Beatles’ original 1961 version. The Beatles included this version of “Ain’t She Sweet” on the 1996 compilation album Anthology 3.

A lot of our tracks may not have been ‘cool’. I think if we’d just been cool, we wouldn’t have made it how we did… The fact that we weren’t ashamed of those [cabaret] leanings meant that the band could be a bit more varied. And there was a need for that, because we played cabaret a lot. Songs like “Till There Was You” and “Ain’t She Sweet” would be the late-night cabaret material. They showed that we weren’t just another rock ‘n’ roll group.

Paul McCartney – From “The Beatles Anthology” book, 2000

[…] Later in the day [July 24, 1969], during the recording of the Abbey Road song Sun King, the Beatles ambled into a lighthearted jam that encompassed three Gene Vincent songs – Be-Pop-A-Lula, Who Slapped John? and, most enticingly, Ain’t She Sweet, the standard from 1927 that Vincent had covered in 1956 and the Beatles themselves recorded in 1961 (issued on Anthology 1). Then they had performed an arrangement that vocalist John Lennon described as “a march”, but in this 1969 jam they duplicated the softened style of Vincent’s recording.

From Anthology 3 liner notes

Lyrics

Officially appears on

Bootlegs

Going further

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.