Please Listen To Me If You Wanna Stay Mine

The second last song on the "A Hard Day's Night" Parlophone UK LP is also the B side to the "Can't Buy Me Love" single. The name of the song is "You Can't Do That" which is another Lennon/McCartney composition written mainly by John.

The song was recorded on George Harrison's 21st birthday on Tuesday February 25 1964 and it was the first new song attempted after a bit of work for "Can't Buy Me Love". The song featured the "sound of the 60s" which included George Harrison's new 12 string electric guitar. "You Can't Do That" was completed in nine takes and overdubs include Paul on cowbell and Ringo on Bongos. The lead guitar solo is played by John. Take 06 from this session is available on Apple's 3-LP, 2-CD "Anthology 1".

"You Can't Do That" was mixed for mono the next day at EMI studio two with four different mixes attempted. It's been stated that a version of the mono mix was used for the UK and European market while another version of the mono mix was used for the US version. To be honest, I can't really hear a difference. The song was first mixed for stereo on March 10 1964 and this mix was never used. Oddly, George Martin decided to experiment and added a piano part to the song on May 22 1964 (after the mono single was released) and I don't seem to know why this was done. This piano overdub never appeared anywhere and was probably never released. Finally, "You Can't Do That" was mixed for stereo along with the rest of the LP tunes on June 22 1964 in studio one's control room. This stereo mix was released in the UK but the US used their mono mix and just created fake stereo for their LP.

"You Can't Do That" is available on the Parlophone UK LP/CD "A Hard Day's Night" as well as the North American Capitol LP/CD "The Beatles'Second Album"( in mono on the "T" LP and fake stereo on the "ST" LP). The song is also available on the EMI/Capitol 2-LP set "Rock and Roll Music".

"You Can't Do That" was performed four times for the BBC: twice on "From Us To You", once on "Top Gear" and once on "Saturday Club". The song was also performed live during the 1964 summer tour in the Australia, New Zealand areas.