Here is a sample page of the "Introducing...THE BEATLES" eBook.  (Page 65.)

Side Two - Track Three:

"DO YOU WANT TO KNOW A SECRET?"

(Paul McCartney - John Lennon)

      Inspiration for a hit song can truly come from anywhere.  In the case of the Beatles, an infinite variety of sources have been cited by its' composers regarding their songs throughout their career.  Among them was an affair ("Norwegian Wood"), reading the newspaper ("A Day In The Life"), being sick in bed ("Don't Bother Me"), an advertisement in a gun magazine ("Happiness Is A Warm Gun"), a marine-life story from a ship captain ("Octopus's Garden") and a carnival poster ("Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite").

      Sometimes the inspiration for a song can come from a deeply rooted childhood memory.  In the case of "Do You Want To Know A Secret?", it came from John's mother singing a song to him when he was a small boy between the ages of one and three years old.

Songwriting History

      John's mother Julia had sung a variation of the introduction to the song "I'm Wishing" from the 1937 Walt Disney film "Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs" to her son on many occasions during his young childhood.  In an opening scene of the movie, Snow White was working as a kitchen maid and, as she stands at the castle well, she sings to the doves, "Wanna know a secret?  Promise not to tell?  We are standing by a wishing well."  Since John was born on October 9^th, 1940, the movie was only four years old when John first remembers his mother singing this to him at the age of one.

      "I had this sort of thing in my head," said Lennon, who cherished this memory of his early relationship with his mother.  This became the initial inspiration for "Do You Want To Know A Secret?"  Together with McCartney, they worked out a complete arrangement, which was regarded by Paul as just "a hack song," written to order as another vehicle for their first album.  Paul asserts that is was a "50/50" collaboration.  Following the rule that McCartney mentioned about how "John never had his middle eights," the bridge, as well as the introduction, was probably written by Paul to complete the original idea as brought forward by Lennon.

      The song was written while the recently married John and Cynthia Lennon were living at Brian Epstein's ‘secret' apartment on Faulkner Street that Brian usually kept for his sexual liaisons.  Since they stayed there for an approximate four months after they were married, the song was written somewhere between August 23^rd (the date that John and Cynthia wed) and December 18th, 1962 (when the final Hamburg trip occurred and Cynthia moved into John's Aunt Mimi's home on Menlove Avenue). 

      There is an uncertainty as to whether the song was written for the sole purpose of providing a track for George Harrison to sing on the first album.  "I can't say that I wrote it ‘for' George," says Lennon, but McCartney insists that it was the sole intention of the song being written. 

      What is certain is that Harrison was regarded as a singer of lesser talent than John or Paul, so the song suited him perfectly, being that "it had only three notes," according to Lennon.  Harrison even confirms this sentiment, saying that he didn't like his vocal work on the song because he "didn't know how to sing" yet.  Comfortingly, John stated in 1980 that "he has improved a lot since then."

      The rumor that the song was intended for fellow Liverpudlian recording artist Billy J. Kramer (the ‘J' being added to his name at the insistence of Lennon, which stands for his son Julian) has been proved to be unfounded.  This fellow Brian Epstein recruit recorded the song well over a month later, on March 21^st, 1963, with his recently acquired backup band The Dakotas and George Martin at the producers' helm.  When released in Britain on April 26th, though, the songs' success rode on the Beatles coat tails and landed a number two spot on the British charts, not being able to surpass the seven week residency of the Beatles' "From Me To You" at the number one spot.