Written in early 1962, "Ask Me Why" is principally a
John Lennon composition, but was credited to Lennon and
Paul McCartney, as were all other
Lennon–McCartney originals on the first pressings of
Please Please Me album. McCartney said, "It was John's original idea and we both sat down and wrote it together, just did a job on it. It was mostly John's." It was part of their live act prior to their recording contract, and was one of the songs performed at their first
Parlophone recording session in EMI's
Abbey Road studio two on 6 June 1962. The song emulates the style of
Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, by whom Lennon was influenced, and draws its opening
guitar phrase from the Miracles' "What's So Good About Goodbye" (1961).
Structure The song is in the key of E major, with some leaning to its
relative minor of C minor, and is in
time. Structurally, the song is complex and, as Alan Pollack states, contains three different variants of the verse. The song also contains "jazzy parallel sevenths" in most of the chords, and has a live ending. ==Recording==