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Released in 1995

That'll Be The Day

Written by Buddy HollyJerry Allison

Last updated on November 7, 2021


Album This song officially appears on the In Spite Of All The Danger / That'll Be The Day Single.

Timeline This song was officially released in 1995

Related sessions

This song was recorded during the following studio sessions:

Related songs

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From Wikipedia:

That’ll Be the Day” is a classic early rock and roll song written by Buddy Holly and Jerry Allison and recorded by The Crickets and various artists including Linda Ronstadt. It was also the first song to be recorded — albeit only as a demonstration disc — by The Quarrymen, the skiffle group that subsequently became The Beatles. Although Norman Petty was given a co-writing credit on it, he was not actually involved in the composition, but only in the production of this well-known recording.

The 1957 Buddy Holly recording was certified gold – for over a million US sales in 1969 by the RIAA. The 1957 Brunswick Records single was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998.

In 2005, the 1957 recording was placed in the National Recording Registry, a list of sound recordings that “are culturally, historically, or aesthetically important, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States.” […]

That’ll Be the Day” was the first song ever recorded by the Quarrymen. Their rendition, recorded in 1958 as a demonstration disc, was issued on the Beatles compilation album Anthology 1 in 1995. The 1958 pressing is thought to be one of the world’s most valuable records, worth an estimated £100,000.

From the Anthology 1 liner notes:

Running an electrical goods shop in Liverpool wasn’t enough for Percy Phillips, and being 60 certainly wasn’t going to stop him. So in 1955, spurred by the local interest in country and western music, Phillips spent £400 on a portable tape recorder and portable disc cutting machine, microphones and a four-way mixer, which were installed in the middle living-room of his Victorian terraced house at number 38 Kensington, a major thoroughfare located a mile beyond Liverpool city center.

Sparse it may have been but Phillips’ recording facility was efficient. Having arrived for their appointment customers would sit in a waiting area and, when prompted, move into the living-room, face up to the microphones and perform, live. While trams rattled along Kensington – their noise was deadened by a heavy curtain over the studio door – Percy Philllips would first commit the performance to tape and then, provided that the Artiste was not distressed with the result, immediately transfer this to a shellac disc, wiping over the tape next time someone used the studio.

Word of Pillips’ facility soon spread, and as skiffle and then beat music took hold so it began to attract a number of Liverpool’s younger musicians, eager to commit their sound to disc and be able to announce that they had made a record. Having travelled with their instruments from the south end if the city, a quintet called the Quarrymen – John Lennon, Paul McCarntey and George Harrison, who all played guitars, John Lowe who played the piano, and Colin Hanton the drummer – turned up at Phillips Sound Recording Service one day in the spring or summer of 1958. A short while later, having parted company with 17s 6d [88p], the five Quarrymen left 38 Kensington passing among them the cherished fruit of their debut recording session: a very-breakable 78rpm record, ten-inches in diameter. The disc’s labels clearly instructed Play with a light-weight pick-up … but bore no mention of the words Quarrymen, and certainly not Beatles, a name they wouldn’t adopt for another two years.

On one side of the disc was That’ll Be The Day, homage to Buddy Holly and the Crickets, featuring John Lennon’s lead vocal with Paul McCartney providing the high harmonies. On the other side was In Spite Of All The Danger, co-written by Paul McCartney and George Harrison, but, again, with John Lennon singing lead.

Colin Hanton (whose membership of the Quarrymen pre-dated both Paul’s and George’s) and John Lowe (who was recruited principally because he could play Jerry Lee Lewis’s exacting arpeggio part in Mean Woman Blues) left soon after the band’s one and only recording session, leaving the nucleus, Lennon, McCartney and Harrison, to aim for fame.

I was amazed that Paul had That’ll Be The Day, the first track that they’d ever done [as The Quarry Men, in 1958]. Duff Lowe, their pianist, had kept it. I think everybody got to keep it for a week. There was only one copy, so maybe John had it first, then Paul, then George, then Colin Hanton the drummer, and maybe Duff Lowe was the last one to get it for a week. But he had nobody to pass it on to, so he just kept it. Twenty years later he still had it, he was going to put it in an auction, he phoned Paul and he said, “Hey, I’ve still got this thing, d’you want it?” So Paul bought it off him.

Neil Aspinall – From Neil Aspinall Interview – Paul Du Noyer

Lyrics

Well that'll be the day

When you say goodbye

Yeah that'll be the day

When you make me cry

You say you're gonna leave

You know it's a lie

'Cause that'll be the day

When I die


Well you give me all your loving

And all your turtle doving

All your hugs and kisses

And your money too

You say you love me baby

Still you tell me maybe

That someday, well

I'll be through


'Cause that'll be the day

When you make me cry

That'll be the day

When you say goodbye

You say you're gonna leave

You know it's a lie

'Cause that'll be the day

When I die


Yes that'll be the day

When you say goodbye

Yeah that'll be the day

When you make me cry

You say you're gonna leave

You know it's a lie

'Cause that'll be the day

When I die


Well when Cupid shot his dart

He shot it at your heart

So if we ever part

And I'll leave you

You say and hold me

And you tell me boldly

That some day, well

I'll be through


Well that'll be the day

When you say goodbye

Yes that'll be the day

When you make me cry

You say you're gonna leave

You know it's a lie

'Cause that'll be the day

When I die


Yeah that'll be the day, ooh-ooh

That'll be the day, ooh-ooh

That'll be the day, ooh-ooh

That'll be the day

Officially appears on

Bootlegs

See all bootlegs containing “That'll Be The Day

Live performances

That'll Be The Day” has been played in 2 concerts.

Latest concerts where “That'll Be The Day” has been played

  • The Ronnie Wood Show

    Jun 25, 2012 • United Kingdom • London • Somethinelse studio • TV show

  • Aspel & Company

    Jun 09, 1984 • United Kingdom • London • ITV Studios • TV show

Paul McCartney writing

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