Song Lyric Sunday — Mersey Beat

Fandango

This week’s theme for Jim Adams’ Song Lyric Sunday is songs with a Mersey Beat, or Mersey Sound. Mersey Beat was a British popular music genre that developed, particularly in and around Liverpool, in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The genre melded influences from American rock and roll, rhythm and blues, traditional pop, and music hall. It features a basic lineup of lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass guitar, and drums.

It took some time for me to decide which Mersey Beat song I wanted to go with. First I decided on the group, Gerry and the Pacemakers. The song I chose was not the obvious “Ferry Cross the Mersey.” Instead, I chose, “How Do You Do It?”

“How Do You Do It?” was the debut single by Liverpool band Gerry and the Pacemakers. It was written by British songwriter Mitch Murray. The song was initially issued in the US and Canada in the spring of 1963, but it wasn’t until after the group had several charting singles in North America that the track was reissued in the summer of 1964. It eventually reached number nine in the U.S. and in the UK, the single reached number one on the charts, staying there for three weeks in total.

The song is about a guy who is smitten by a girl who doesn’t feel the same way about him. He asks her what the secret of her charms are, as he wants to use that to make her fall for him.

Gerry Marsden, the lead singer of the group, co-founded Gerry and the Pacemakers with his brother, the band’s drummer, Freddie. Gerry died in January 2021.

Here are the lyrics to “How Do You Do It?”

How do you do what you do to me
I wish I knew
If I knew how you do it to me, I'd do it to you
How do you do what you do to me
I'm feelin' blue
Wish I knew how you do it to me but I haven't a clue

You give me a feeling in my heart
Like an arrow passing through it
Spose that you think you're very smart
But won't you tell me how do you do it

How do you do what you do to me
If I only knew
Then perhaps you'd fall for me like I fell for you

You give me a feeling in my heart
Like an arrow passing through it
Spose that you think you're very smart
But won't you tell me how do you do it

How do you do what you do to me
If I only knew,
Then perhaps you'd fall for me like I fell for you
When I do it to you

23 thoughts on “Song Lyric Sunday — Mersey Beat”

    • Fandango December 18, 2022 / 1:03 pm

      Yes, I saw that! Makes perfect sense!

      Like

  3. photobyjohnbo December 18, 2022 / 5:43 am

    I won’t fault you for picking my second favorite. I’d have chosen the other one, probably my favorite from this band. Thanks for the memories.

    Liked by 1 person

  4. newepicauthor December 18, 2022 / 6:56 am

    The first clinically successful cardiac pacemaker was invented in 1960 and I am sure that influenced the band’s name. The is a very upbeat song that is always nice to listen to, thanks for sharing it, Fandango.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Marleen December 18, 2022 / 11:03 am

      Clever

      Liked by 2 people

  5. ghostmmnc December 18, 2022 / 7:00 am

    Oh cool! Always a favorite, and of course I had to sing along. 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    • Fandango December 18, 2022 / 1:11 pm

      I noticed that the audience in the video seemed rather quiet.

      Liked by 1 person

  7. Marleen December 18, 2022 / 11:03 am

    Nice one

    Liked by 1 person

  8. Nope, Not Pam December 18, 2022 / 11:09 am

    This was a hard one, but a great choice

    Liked by 1 person

  10. Marleen December 18, 2022 / 12:09 pm

    I’m going with a play on words…
    haven’t decided, yet, if the beat is the same. Is similar.

    The official Mercy Street video.

    Inspired by the work of poet Anne Sexton, Mercy Street features on the first of Peter’s studio albums to have a proper title: So was a watershed release in his career. Its marriage of the artistic and the commercial made for an indisputable success, with the album quickly sitting atop the album charts on both sides of the Atlantic. Aside from some intriguing collaborations – with Laurie Anderson on This Is The Picture, Kate Bush on Don’t Give Up and Youssou N’Dour on In Your Eyes – it was the unity of singer, band and producer that made So such a crucial record in the Gabriel canon.

    Apparently the first playback, after recording in the studio, accidentally ran 10% slower than intended. They liked the slower version and decided to switch to that. When recording a harmonizing lower octive, Gabriel could only achieve the lower tone right after getting up in the morning.

    Liked by 1 person

      • Marleen December 19, 2022 / 12:48 pm

        https://www.northcoastjournal.com/humboldt/king-of-power-pop/Content?oid=2131361

        Rooted in a mixture of 1960s bubblegum, garage and UK Mersey Beat, power pop’s influence casts an eccentric wide net, from The Ramones (Johnny Ramone used to describe his band’s music as “sick bubblegum”) to Wilco. However, by and large, the musical genre doesn’t sustain longevity for a band’s identity. Even The Beatles, who refined the power pop boilerplate, eventually moved away …

        Liked by 1 person

        • Marleen December 19, 2022 / 3:19 pm

          https://www.ilikeyouroldstuff.com/news/go-all-the-way-a-thing-called-power-pop

          … avoid the pitfalls of the power pop bandwagon jumpers by avoiding the term and …. making great and successful records, some of which were the perfect embodiment of the power pop style. … American roots rockers NRBQ would similarly come up with their own instant power pop classic, “I Want You Bad”.

          Even Bruce Springsteen, self-confessed Raspberries fan, was trying to write concise and punchy ‘60s-style pop rockers. He gave his best, “Rendezvous”, to San Francisco’s Greg Kihn Band, and another, tougher number “Don’t Look Back” to LA up & comers the Knack.

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          Liked by 1 person

      • Marleen December 19, 2022 / 1:31 pm

        https://nostalgiacentral.com/music/music-genres/merseybeat/

        ~

        … Liverpool could also claim to have pioneered music festivals when on one occasion 14 hours of music from 25 groups was presented at Stanley Stadium – tickets cost £1!

        Before The Beatles and Gerry & The Pacemakers had their hits no musicians on Merseyside made much money. £5 a night was about average, and at one period The Beatles got just five shillings each for playing at The Jacaranda. Nearly every group was semi-professional, and most obtained their equipment through credit contracts guaranteed by their parents.

        A lot of the groups grew out of street gangs in working-class areas like the Dingle – kids who’d been enthralled by Rock Around The Clock (1956) and wanted to do more than just dance or slash seats to Rock & Roll music.

        For the top Liverpool groups, though, Hamburg in Germany soon became the place to play and earn a little more money.

        The German connection came about almost accidentally when a Hamburg club owner came to Liverpool and poached a steel band who were booked at The Jacaranda.

        In the negotiations which followed, Alan Williams persuaded the Germans that what they needed was an English beat group.

        A summer season in Blackpool for Howie Casey and the Seniors had just fallen through, so Williams shipped them off to the Kaiser Keller club. They were a howling success so soon afterwards The Beatles also appeared in Hamburg, at The Indra.

        The Hamburg experience was the making of The Beatles and nearly every Mersey group who played there. Having to play long sets, in an environment where they knew only each other, welded the groups into tight units.

        They also had to modify their style to the raucous drinking and dancing clubs of the Reeperbahn. The groups had to concentrate on loud, rocking numbers, and the Germans also wanted groups who were visually exciting.

        On 6 July 1961, the first issue of a new music newspaper was published in Liverpool.

        The newspaper was called Mersey Beat – edited by Bill Harry who had studied magazine design at the Art College where both John Lennon and Stu Sutcliffe had been – and contained an article by Lennon, entitled “Being a short diversion on the dubious origin of Beatles”.

        His group, who were fast becoming Liverpool’s favourite act, began a residency at The Cavern on 2 August. In November of that year, after being asked for a disc by The Beatles, record shop owner Brian Epstein went to The Cavern to see the group and was so immediately impressed by their potential that he wasted no time securing their signatures on a management contract on 13 December.

        In May 1962, Liverpool’s Mersey Beat newspaper carried a front-page story revealing “Impresario Brian Epstein has secured a recording contract with the powerful EMI organisation for The Beatles to record for the Parlophone label”.

        Two other Brian Epstein-managed groups, Gerry & The Pacemakers and Billy J Kramer & The Dakotas, were immediately successful.

        Gerry & The Pacemakers’ first single, How Do You Do It?, became the first Merseybeat #1.

        Ironically, the song (written by established pop tunesmith Mitch Murray) had been rejected by The Beatles before being passed on to Gerry Marsden and his group.

        The Pacemakers scored their second consecutive #1 hit with I Like It, and in October 1963 they became the first act ever to notch up three #1’s with their first three releases with the powerful ballad You’ll Never Walk Alone from the musical Carousel.

        By now, public and media interest in the new Mersey sound was overwhelming, but national British newspapers still overlooked a small news item in the Liverpool Echo on 21 June 1962.

        The paper reported that, at a party in Liverpool to celebrate Beatle Paul McCartney‘s birthday, his songwriting partner John Lennon punched DJ Bob Wooler in the face after Wooler loudly proclaimed that Lennon and Brian Epstein were lovers.

        The close-harmonies and distinctive jangling guitars of long-established Liverpool quartet The Searchers took a cover of the old Drifters‘ hit Sweets For My Sweet to #1 on 27 June 1963, and by August the first edition of a new magazine, Beatles Monthly, went on sale.

        In November 1963, The Beatles performed at the Royal Variety Command Performance in front of the Queen Mother, Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon. John Lennon found it impossible not to make fun of the audience, and halfway through their set he quipped “on the next number would those in the cheap seats clap their hands? The rest of you, rattle your jewellery”.

        This vein of cheeky Scouse humour was a distinguishing characteristic of the Mersey groups…

        ~

        Liked by 1 person

  11. bushboy December 18, 2022 / 12:45 pm

    A classic. It would be hard to pick one Mersey Beat song 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

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