rockyraccoon.co.uk

6 Jun 1962

Time: 7pm – 10pm 1
Studio Name and Room: EMI Recording Studios – Studio 2
Songs Recorded 2: Besame Mucho (take 1), Love Me Do (takes 1-4), P.S. I Love You (takes 1-5), Ask Me Why (take 1)
Studio Personnel: Producers – Ron Richards and George Martin, Balance Engineer – Norman Smith, Tape Operator – Chris Neal
Musicians (instruments played): John Lennon (guitar, harmonica, vocals), Paul McCartney (bass, vocals), George Harrison (guitar, vocals), Pete Best (drums)
Primary Tracking Machines:
Twin-Track – 1/4″ EMI BTR3
Mono – 1/4″ EMI BTR2

During most of the Beatles era at EMI, the centrepiece of each studio control room was an EMI REDD mixing desk.3 The REDD.37 mixing desk in use until 17 January 19643 had a feature known as Delta-Mono which allowed for simultaneous recording to both a twin-track tape machine and a mono machine.4 Many Beatles recordings were made this way for a period of time from 6 June 1962 to 13 March 1963. The engineer could monitor either the twin-track mix on outputs I and II being sent to a BTR3 tape machine or the delta-mono mix on output III being sent to a BTR2 tape machine. The twin-track recordings were initially sort of a safety net in case the straight-to-mono mix wasn’t suitable.5

As of April 2026, only two of the eleven recordings from the 6 June 1962 session tape have been released (both on Anthology 1). Everything else remains unreleased and unbootlegged. Remarkably, after Geoff Emerick’s death in 2018, his estate discovered the session tape in his possession. It was ordered destroyed in the 60s but Emerick had managed to hang on to it all these years.6 There is currently an ongoing legal dispute as to whether the tape is rightfully owned by the Emerick estate or by Universal Music Group. Hopefully something can be worked out and we’ll finally get to hear the material from this session one day. Perhaps on a Please Please Me Special Edition…

Δ 2T

E47052 7

Session

  • Besame Mucho
    • Take 1
  • Love Me Do
    • Takes 1-4 (Take 4 was the best)
  • P.S. I Love You
    • Takes 1-5 (Take 1 was the best)
  • Ask Me Why
    • Take 1

What Still Exists?

Tape Reel
Number

Exists?

Is on
Spotify?

Official
Physical Release?

Bootlegged?

Besame Mucho
(Take 1)

E47052
Session Tape

✅ Yes

✅ Yes

✅ Yes

✅ Yes 8

Love Me Do
(Takes 1-3)

E47052
Session Tape

✅ Yes

Love Me Do
(Take 4)

E47052
Session Tape

✅ Yes

✅ Yes

✅ Yes

P.S. I Love You
(Takes 1-5)

E47052
Session Tape

✅ Yes

Ask Me Why
(Take 1)

E47052
Session Tape

✅ Yes

References:

  1. Lewisohn, Mark, 1992, The Complete Beatles Chronicle (p. 70) ↩︎
  2. The Daily Beatle (Archived) via the-paulmccartney-project.com ↩︎
  3. Ryan, Kevin & Kehew, Brian. (2006). Recording the Beatles (p. 68) ↩︎
  4. Ryan, Kevin & Kehew, Brian. (2006). Recording the Beatles (p. 102) ↩︎
  5. Ryan, Kevin & Kehew, Brian. (2006). Recording the Beatles (p. 368) ↩︎
  6. Hammack, Jerry, 2017, TBRRM: Vol 1 (p. 238) ↩︎
  7. Winn, John C., 2005, Lifting Latches (p. 1) ↩︎
  8. The Anthology 1 version features a looped ending as the tape fades out. The original version which has been bootlegged still fades out but without copying line two. The fidelity of the bootlegged original version isn’t as good as some of the other bootlegs (nor the Anthology 1 version) but bootlegs exist which edit the original ending onto the Anthology 1 version to get the best of both worlds. Winn, John C., 2005, Lifting Latches (p. 281)
    Steve Hoffman Forums, The All-Encompassing All-Inclusive Beatles Anthology Track By Track Thread! (pp. 23-25) ↩︎