The Earliest Beatles LPs, Part 1

In "Pre- and Post-Rubber Soul Beatles Albums" I mentioned that I myself didn't buy any Beatles records until the Rubber Soul album, even though I was a big Beatles fan. I could listen to their earlier albums at the house of my friends Gretchen and Ricky Murphy, for one thing.

My experience in doing so, and in listening to Beatles LPs at other friends' abodes, was of course limited to the records released here in the U.S. I didn't know it at the time, but U.K. releases were, to some degree, not the same.

You can see a discography of all the U.S. releases at "Beatles discography: United States of America (USA)." Compare it to "Beatles discography: United Kingdom (UK)" and you will see what I mean.

Oh, most of the songs on, say, the very first U.S. album release, Introducing The Beatles, were the same as on the U.K.'s earliest, Please Please Me. But two songs, "Ask Me Why" and "Please Please Me," were missing on the U.S. release. (The U.S. record appeared on the Vee-Jay label, by the way, although all subsequent early Beatles albums in the U.S. came out on Capitol.)

Introducing the Beatles (U.S.)

Please Please ME (U.K.)

Why did the U.S. album lack two key songs? Who knows? But that practice of omittimg songs continued with the Capitol LPs — prior, that is, to Sgt. Pepper.