"A Taste of Honey" is a song recorded by The Beatles, released as an album track on both Please Please Me and The Early Beatles. The song has a long history, and was an atypical recording choice for the Beatles.
The song was originally written as a musical theme for the stage play "A Taste of Honey", which was popular in the late 1950s. The vocal version was first recorded by Billy Dee Williams (yes, that Billy Dee Williams) in 1960, and by Lenny Welch two years later. It is these two versions that inspired the Beatles' version. "Please Please Me" is an album full of raw talent and youthful energy, (exemplified by Lennon's raw vocals on "Twist and Shout") and the staid, slow Broadway style ballad of "A Taste of Honey" doesn't fit with how we think of the early Beatles. The Beatles would return to "Broadway" style songs in later years, with songs such as "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite" and "Honey Pie", but those songs were done with some element of parody. Here, it seems the Beatles were trying to do a straight-ahead cover of a pop standard at the time.
Often the Beatles seem obvious in retrospect: group of kids playing high-energy love songs take a more artistic direction and change what pop music could be. But listening to "A Taste of Honey", it is possible to imagine a course where after their youthful energy had burnt out, they could have ended up playing middlebrow pop standards instead. Luckily, we were saved from that timeline, and only a few songs like this (as well as, uncharitably, some of Paul McCartney's solo career) are reminders of that element of The Beatles.