An early song written by Paul, the lyrics of Love Me Do were as basic as could be, with most words consisting of only one syllable and "love" being repeated 21 times. "I'll love you forever so please love me". That was the entire message.

What set it apart from the teen love songs of the time was a gospel/blues tinge to the singing — a feeling which was heightened by John's harmonica and the slightly mournful close harmonizing. (John's fondness for gospel was confirmed when he listed R&B and gospel as his "tastes in music" in the New Musical Express of February 15, 1963).

During 1962, the American star Bruce Channel had enjoyed a British hit with Hey Baby which featured a harmonica solo by the Nashville session musician Delbert McClinton. John was impressed by this and when he met McClinton in June 1962 at the Tower Ballroom, New Brighton, where the Beatles were playing support for Channel, he asked him how he played it.

"John was very interested in harmonica and, when we went on to play another couple of dates with the Beatles, he and I hung out a lot together. He wanted me to show him whatever I could. He wanted to know how to play. Before our time together was over he had his own harmonica ready in his pocket." It was only three months later that the Beatles recorded Love Me Do, in which John was able to include a distinctive harmonica break.

John went on to play harmonica on the next two singles, Please Please Me and With Love From Me to You, as well as on six other tracks including Little Child (With The Beatles) and I Should Have Known Better (A Hard Day's Night). The last time he used it on record was on I'm a Loser (Beatles For Sale) recorded in August 1964. By that time he reckoned it had turned into a Beatles' gimmick.

Love Me Do was included on the group's first four track extended play record, which had sleeve notes written by Tony Barrow, a Lancashire journalist who was then working as the Beatles' press officer. Barrow's comments on the four tracks (From Me To You, Thank You Girl, Please Please Me and Love Me Do) were remarkably prescient. "The four numbers on this EP have been selected from The Lennon and McCartney Songbook," he wrote. If that description sounds a trifle pompous perhaps I may suggest you preserve this sleeve for ten years, exhume it from your collection somewhere around the middle of 1973 and write me a very nasty letter if the pop people of the Seventies aren't talking about at least two of these titles as 'early examples of modern beat standards taken from The Lennon and McCartney Songbook".

In 1967, when every Beatle song was believed to be drenched in meaning and they had been elevated into "spokesmen for a generation", Paul commented to Alan Aldridge in an interview for The Observer: "Love Me Do was our greatest philosophical song ... for it to be simple, and true, means that it's incredibly simple".