The Beatles: Love Me Do?

[dolphinboy]

One of the Beatles first published songs, but an awkward phrasing. Was “Love Me Do” a common English phrase back in the day? The opposite term, “Love Me Don’t” also doesn’t make much sense. Just poetic license?

[kenobi_65]

This article on beatlesebooks.com has a couple of speculations:

The lyrics they chose have a direct link with their love for the literary works of Lewis Carroll. The phrase, “Love, love me do” is straight from the Lewis Carroll era, such as “Alice, Stop daydreaming, do!” Lennon’s obsession with Carroll continues to materialize throughout his Beatles songwriting career, such as in later works like “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” and “I Am The Walrus.” In Mark Lewisohn’s book “Tune In,” the author suggests that the title “Love Me Do” may have “been inspired by the Elvis film ‘Love Me Tender’ (in Liverpool in 1957) or from music press ads for a record actually called ‘Love Me Do’ released in Britain in February 1957.” Lewisohn admits that these influences are probably “subliminal at best,” but it still makes for interesting speculation.

[dolphinboy]

Thanks for the link Kenobi. Ignorance fought.

[Treppenwitz]

Pure speculation: there was also, at around that time, a petal plucking refrain (ie, pull a petal from a flower, say a line, pull another petal, say a line) which ran:

(S)he loves me
(S)he loves me not…

Like this.

j