The Beatles - Till There Was You

Meredith Willson wrote this song for the 1957 musical The Music Man. Paul heard Peggy Lee’s 1958 version of this song.

“I could never see the difference between a beautiful melody and a cool rock ‘n’ roll song. I learnt to love all the ballady stuff through my dad and relatives - Till There Was You, My Funny Valentine - I thought these were good tunes. The fact that we weren’t ashamed of those leanings meants that the band could be a bit more varied. And there was a need for that, because we played cabaret a lot. Songs like Till There Was You and Ain’t She Sweet would be the late-night cabaret material. They showed that we weren’t just another rock ‘n’ roll group. The Lennon/McCartney songwriting collaboration was forming during that period. We went on from Love Me Do to writing deeper, much more intense things. So it was just as well someone didn’t come up and tell us how uncool Till There Was You was.” - Paul McCartney