Our next randomly selected #2 comes from what, for my money, must have been the most exciting time to be a pop music fan. Come with me back to the summer of 1963, and the Merseybeat explosion…
‘Do You Want to Know a Secret?’, by Billy J. Kramer & The Dakotas
#2 for 2 weeks, from 30th May to 12th June 1963, behind ‘From Me to You’
And its one Liverpudlian act, Billy J. Kramer, covering another, The Beatles. Many of the early beat bands ended up relying on Lennon & McCartney hand-me-downs, and The Dakotas were no different. A few months after this, their debut hit, they would score a first number one with another Beatles cast-off, ‘Bad to Me’.
‘Do You Want to Know a Secret?’ had featured on the Fab Four’s first album, ‘Please Please Me’, released in March that year. (I only just realised that it was sung by George Harrison, who sounds remarkably like Paul McCartney on the recording.) It’s a sweet, simple song, but not one which really indicates that the band were going to be the biggest pop phenomenon the world had ever seen. And The Dakotas’ version is even more diluted, a little more ramshackle, a little old-fashioned in a rockabilly kind of way. Again nice, but they’d pick up the pace on ‘Bad to Me’.
It made #2 during the seven-week run of The Beatles’ first chart-topper, ‘From Me to You’ (not the last time Lennon & McCartney would occupy a Top 2…) It may even have been the best-selling single in the country at some point during its run, but not on the Record Retailer chart, which is what the Official Charts now recognise. It’s the reverse of the situation a few months earlier, when The Beatles’ ‘Please Please Me’ had stalled at #2 in Record Retailer, and therefore the history books, behind yodeller supreme Frank Ifield.
Billy J. Kramer would remain popular for a year or two, scoring a second chart-topper with the ever so slightly creepy ‘Little Children’. Like so many of the earliest Merseybeat stars, though, his star had waned by 1965. The original ‘Do You Want to Know a Secret?’, meanwhile, would go on to be released as a single in the US, where it also made #2.
The UK Number Ones Blog 
I was just thinking – entering a bit of good old-fashioned romance still remains one of the staple diets of song if we look back at the last No. 1 you reviewed.. ‘Do you want to know a secret – can’t help falling in love with you’ – both with that coy undercurrent. OK, I know UB40 were bringing us a retread of a song that was over 30 years old by the time they recorded it, but even so it’s an interesting thought.
Interesting point! Modern love songs tend to be more focused on being done wrong, on a break-up, on something more cynical, I suppose… What was the most recent, modern ‘traditional’ love song…? Ed Sheeran’s ‘Perfect’ comes to mind (God help us…)
Did you see the label? It’s listed as McCartney – Lennon. Originally John and Paul wanted songs listed as in who wrote most of it. Penny Lane would have been McCartney – Lennon but Strawberry Fields would have been Lennon – McCartney.
The publishing people messed it up so they went with Lennon – McCartney on everything. Thats wild that they had it McCartney – Lennon…since Lennon wrote most of this and they never changed it.
Anyway….a nice little song and melody…John gave it to George to sing.
I did not notice that… Interesting. I knew that they listed everything as Lennon-McCartney, even when one of them wasn’t even involved in the writing of a song, but I didn’t know it stemmed from a publishing error. I don’t know, McCartney-Lennon just doesn’t have the same ring to it…
The big surprise to me was that it’s George singing. I’d always just assumed that it was Paul. By the late sixties, when he was singing on ‘Something’ and the like, his voice had really developed, and changed.
They agreed to share everything 50 and they also cut George and Ringo in also to a small percentage which was cool. Hell one percent of that catalog would be a fortune. I guess they thought…why bother after a while….it was going to be both of them on there anyway.
McCartney tried to get it put back to that but Yoko stopped it…which I agree.
Yea John said the song wasn’t in his range…I find that hard to believe…I just don’t think he really liked it a lot.
I read that he claimed much later that he’d given it to George because it was easy to sing, and he wasn’t the best vocalist… 😁
Rating: 3.5/5
I love the Beatles original. This is perfectly fine. Even though The Beatles version was done in like one take, it feels more polished than this version, which sounds slightly scrappy (not in a bad way though). The production is worse than The Beatles version, though maybe that’s because this probably hasn’t been remastered. I’m surprised you mistook George for Paul. For me, they sound completely different. George and John have more similar sounding voices – I thought “Not a Second Time” was sung by George when it was actually sung by John.
I don’t know why I mistook them… He sounds like a slightly more husky Paul. Maybe Paul with a sore throat. Not got John’s nasal twang. By the late sixties I think George’s voice had developed a lot.