In May of 1962, John, Paul, George and Pete were in the midst of their third stint in Hamburg, West Germany, when they received a telegram from manager Brian Epstein telling them that he had secured a recording contract for them from EMI, and that they should begin rehearsing new material. This is what prompted McCartney to compose this number, starting with the lyrics in the form of a letter to a faraway love.
The boys did, indeed, rehearse this new composition, and they had it ready when they reported to Abbey Road Studios for the very first time on June 6th. It was among the four songs that they recorded on this date, yet it has apparently never surfaced, even on bootlegs. Too bad. Like the recordings of Besame Mucho and Love Me Do from this session that are available on Anthology 1, it would be fascinating to hear this earliest version with Pete Best on drums.
They did not return to Abbey Road Studios until September 4th, with new drummer Ringo Starr now in the group. Producer Ron Richards worked with them on several songs - one of them being P.S. I Love You - before the recording session was scheduled to begin. Again, we do not know what the arrangement sounded like with Ringo on drums, because the song was not chosen for further work on that day.
One week later, on September 11th, they were summoned back down to London for yet another attempt at finishing off their first single. They were all taken aback when they saw that drummer Andy White had been brought in for the session. Ron Richards produced the recordings on this day, and he allowed Ringo to play maracas alongside White, which smoothed over the situation somewhat. Ten takes were recorded before the song was perfected, and everyone was so happy with the result that talk turned to making it the A-side. However, Richards knew that another song of the same name had been released in recent years, plus principal producer George Martin was now favoring Love Me Do, so P.S. I Love You would have to be the B-side.
When the song was added to the album Please Please Me, a mock stereo mix was prepared, with treble in one channel and bass frequencies on the other. In America, the song first appeared on early copies of the VeeJay album Introducing...the Beatles, but it was soon removed due to legal complications. Once a settlement was reached between VeeJay and Capitol Records, VeeJay released it as the B-side to Love Me Do on the small Tollie label in April of 1964. The American appetite for anything by the Beatles was so strong at this time that P.S. I Love You actually reached number ten on the Billboard chart.
In the UK, the song appeared on the EP All My Loving. Capitol finally released it in the US in March of 1965 on the album The Early Beatles. And P.S. I Love You closes out the 1977 compilation album Love Songs.
Though the Beatles heavily promoted both sides of many of their later singles, such was not the case with their first, nor was this B-side featured much in their live act. They did play the song on BBC Radio on three occasions. The third, from June of 1963 for their program Pop Go the Beatles, can be heard on On Air - Live at the BBC Volume 2. Ringo does a nice job of recreating Andy White's drumming style. And, unlike on the record, George finishes the performance with a strummed guitar chord. This may have been the final time they ever played the tune.
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