Although the songs were recorded ahead of broadcast, allowing for retakes and occasional overdubbing, they are essentially "live in studio" performances.

47 of their BBC appearances occurred in 1963 and 1964, including 10 on Saturday Club and 15 on their own weekly series Pop Go the Beatles, which began in June 1963.

[2] As the Beatles had not accumulated many original songs by this time, the majority of their BBC performances consisted of cover versions, drawing on the repertoire that they had developed for their early stage act.

[2] The BBC's studio facilities were not as advanced as those at Abbey Road, offering only monaural recording (no multitracking) and basic overdubbing; few retakes of songs could be attempted owing to time limitations.

[4] The first collection of Beatles BBC performances was the bootleg album Yellow Matter Custard, issued in 1971, consisting of 14 songs that were probably off-air home recordings made during the original radio broadcasts.

[10] To supplement the archive he had partially rebuilt for The Beeb's Lost Beatles Tapes, BBC Radio producer Kevin Howlett sought out additional sources, such as tapes kept by people involved in the original sessions; others had contacted him after the series aired to inform him of their own home recordings of additional broadcasts.

Two others, from early 1963, also were omitted for substandard sound: the Gerry Goffin–Jack Keller adaptation of Stephen Foster's "Beautiful Dreamer" and Chuck Berry's "I'm Talking About You".

The song was given to Billy J. Kramer, another artist managed by Brian Epstein recording for Parlophone, who released it in the United Kingdom as the B-side of a cover version of "Do You Want to Know a Secret".

Abbey Road engineer Peter Mew used audio manipulation software to reduce noise, repair minor drop-outs and equalise to a more consistent sound from one track to the next.

[4] The resulting sound quality was considered generally better than the best equivalent bootlegged versions available at the time, although a small number of tracks were noted as exceptions.

When "Baby It's You" was released as a single in March 1995, it contained three other BBC songs that were not included in the album, two of which would eventually be found on volume two.

[21] Anthony DeCurtis, writing for Rolling Stone, was more enthusiastic, calling the album "an exhilarating portrait of a band in the process of shaping its own voice and vision" while noting the "irresistible" spirit and energy of the performances.