The song was a Lennon and McCartney collaboration based on McCartney's initial idea.Originally titled "Seventeen", the song was apparently conceived by McCartney whilst driving home from a Beatles concert in Southport, Merseysideand later completed at his Forthlin Road home with Lennon. McCartney later described in Beat Instrumental how he went about the song's composition: “Here’s one example of a bit I pinched from someone: I used the bass riff from “Talkin’ About You” by Chuck Berry in “I Saw Her Standing There”. I played exactly the same notes as he did and it fitted our number perfectly. Even now, when I tell people, I find few of them believe me; therefore, I maintain that a bass riff hasn’t got to be original”. The lyrics were written on a Liverpool Institute exercise book. Remember, a book by McCartney's brother Mike McCartney, includes a photograph of Lennon and McCartney writing the song while strumming guitars and reading the exercise book. It was typical of how Lennon and McCartney would work in partnership, as McCartney later commented: "I had 'She was just seventeen,' and then 'Beauty queen'. When I showed it to John, he screamed with laughter, and said 'You're joking about that line, aren't you?'" "It was one of the first times he ever went 'What? Must change that...'" The songwriting credit on the Please Please Me liner notes is "McCartney/Lennon" which differs from the more familiar "Lennon/McCartney" that appears on subsequent releases.

The song was recorded at Abbey Road Studios on 11 February 1963, as part of the marathon recording session that produced 10 of the 14 songs on Please Please Me. The Beatles were not present for the mixing session on 25 February 1963,which was not unusual at that time.

On the album, the song starts with a rousing "one, two, three, FOUR!" count-in by McCartney (pronounced "one, two, three, FAH!"). Usually, these count-ins are edited off the final audio mix. However, this was left on by record producer George Martin, as it was considered especially spirited, and began the album in an upbeat vein. Music journalist, Richard Williams, suggested that this dramatic introduction to their debut album was just as stirring as Elvis Presley's "Well, it's one for the money, two for the show…" on his opening track, Blue Suede Shoes, for his debut album seven years earlier. In addition it also made the point that The Beatles were a performing band as, at that time, they opened their live set with this song (however, by listening to outtakes of the song one can hear that the count-in is actually from take 9, while the master take is take 1; the former was not preceded by a loud count-in).