I'll Get You

CHART ACTION
UNITED KINGDOM: Released as a single August 23, 1963, the B side to "She Loves You." The Long and Winding Road: An Intimate Guide to the Beatles

UNITED STATES: Released as a single September 16, 1963, on the Swan label. It was not a hit. It was re-released May 21, 1964, and again was not a hit. The Long and Winding Road: An Intimate Guide to the Beatles

AUTHORSHIP Lennon (.5) and McCartney (.5)
Because Aunt Mimi disapproved of John's music, John and Paul rarely wrote together at Menlove Avenue. One exception was 'I'll Get You'. This has always been one of Paul's favourite Beatles tracks; it is light-hearted, confident and shows how well he and John had already mastered the tricks of their trade. John later used a variation on the opening line in his song 'Imagine'. 'I'll Get You' was a 50-50 collaboration; what Paul calls 'very co-written'.
McCARTNEY: "To me and John, though I can't really speak for him, words like 'imagine' and 'picture' were from Lewis Carroll. This idea of asking your listener to imagine, 'Come with me if you will. . .', 'Enter please into my. . .', 'Picture yourself in a boat. . .' It drew you in. It was a good little trick that. Both of us loved Lewis Carroll and the Alice books and were fascinated by his surreal world so this was a nice song to write.
"It's got an interesting chord in it: 'It's not easy to pre-tend. . .' That was nicked from a song called 'All My Trials' which is on an album I had by Joan Baez: 'There's only one thing that money can't buy'. It's like D, which goes to an A minor, which is unusual, you'd normally go from a D to an A major. It's a change that had always fascinated me, so I put it in. I liked that slightly faggy way we sang. 'Oh yeah, oh yeah,' which was very distinctive, very Beatley." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

RECORDED
July 1, 1963, at Abbey Road

INSTRUMENTATION
McCARTNEY: bass, lead vocal
LENNON: rhythm guitar, harmonica, lead vocal
HARRISON: lead guitar
STARR: drums

I've Got A Feeling

AUTHORSHIP Lennon (.5) and McCartney (.5)
Just as Paul had an inclusion in the middle of "A Day In The Life", so John had one in the middle of Paul's "I've Got A Feeling". John's part - the "Everybody had a . . ." section - was a quite separately written song fragment, but it had the same tempo and was so well matched that they were able to link them together. John brought his section round to Cavendish Avenue and they finished the song together as an equal 50-50 collaboration. There is a myth that by point in their career, Paul and John were no longer working together; it is true that they no longer got together as they used to for songwriting sessions, but they were certainly very supportive of each other's songs and still checked them with each other. "I've Got A Feeling is a good example of their continuing partnership. Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

RECORDED
January 30, 1969, on the Apple Studios rooftop, after rehearsals held on January 22, 24, 27, and 28

INSTRUMENTATION
McCARTNEY: bass, lead vocal
LENNON: lead guitar, lead vocal
HARRISON: rhythm guitar
STARR: drums
BILLY PRESTON: organ

It's For You

AUTHORSHIP McCartney (1.00)
McCARTNEY: "I wrote it for Cilla. That's not a bad little song. I remember when we first went over to America, plugging it to all these DJs, we used to talk endlessly, 'Look, there's this girl singer in our stable and you should listen out for this song.' It didn't do very well." Many Years

I'll Follow The Sun

AUTHORSHIP McCartney (1.00)
LENNON: "That's Paul again. Can't you tell? I mean - 'Tomorrow may rain so I'll follow the sun.' That's another early McCartney, you know, written almost before the Beatles, I think. He had a lot of stuff. . ." September 1980, All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono

McCARTNEY: "I remember writing that in our front living room at Forthlin Road on my own so that's pretty much all mine. On the record we got Ringo to tape his knees. We were thinking in terms of singles and the next one had to always be different. We didn't want to fall into the Supremes trap where they all sounded rather similar, so to that end, we were always keen on having varied instrumentation. Ringo couldn't keep changing his drum kit, but he could change his snare, tap a cardboard box or slap his knees. There were certain songs I had from way back that I didn't really finish up, but they were in the back of my mind. . . . 'I'll Follow The Sun' was one of those." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

McCARTNEY: "John and I wrote this one some while ago, but we changed the middle eight bars before we actually recorded it." The Beatles Off the Record: Outrageous Opinions & Unrehearsed Interviews

RECORDED
October 18, 1964, at Abbey Road

INSTRUMENTATION
McCARTNEY: acoustic guitar, lead vocal (occassionally double-tracked)
LENNON: acoustic guitar, harmony vocal
HARRISON: lead guitar
STARR: packing case

McCARTNEY: "John and I sang it, and Ringo played the top of a packing case instead of his drums this time. Just for a change, you know." The Beatles Off the Record: Outrageous Opinions & Unrehearsed Interviews

COMMENTS BY BEATLES
LENNON: "A nice one." Hit Parader (April 1972)

I Feel Fine

CHART ACTION
UNITED KINGDOM: Released as a single November 27, 1964. It entered the chart at No. 1 and stayed there for six weeks, selling a million copies by December 11 and making it one of the fastest-selling singles ever in the United Kingdom. The Long and Winding Road: An Intimate Guide to the Beatles

UNITED STATES: Released as a single November 23, 1964. It entered the Top 40 December 5 at No. 22. By December 26 it was No. 1 where it stayed for three weeks. It was in the Top 40 for eleven weeks. The Long and Winding Road: An Intimate Guide to the Beatles and Billboard

LENNON: "With 'I Feel Fine', we were ready to get to No. 5 at first go, and I suppose if we'd have done that, we'd have been written off. Nobody would have remembered that The Beatles had had six No. 1's on the trot before 'I Feel Fine' . . . Coming in at No. 1 was great, because, well, we weren't sure we'd do it." The Beatles Off the Record: Outrageous Opinions & Unrehearsed Interviews

AUTHORSHIP Lennon (.7) and McCartney (.3)
LENNON: "I wrote this at a recording session. It was tied together around the guitar riff that opens it." Beatles in Their Own Words

LENNON: "I actually wrote it around that riff that is going on in the background. I tried to get that effect in practically every song on our new album, but the others wouldn't have it. I told them I'd write a song especially for the riff, so they said, 'Yes, go away and do that,' knowing that we'd almost finished the album. Anyway, going into the studio one morning, I said to Ringo, 'I've written this song, but it's lousy.' But we tried it, complete with riff, and it sounded like an A-side, so we decided to release it just like that." The Beatles Off the Record: Outrageous Opinions & Unrehearsed Interviews

McCARTNEY: "The song itself was more John's than mine. We sat down and co-wrote it with John's original idea. John sang it, I'm on harmonies and the drumming is basically what we used to think of as 'What'd I Say' drumming. There was a style of drumming on 'What'd I Say' which is a sort of Latin R & B that Ray Charles' drummer Milt Turner played on the original record and we used to love it. One of the big clinching factors about Ringo as the drummer in the band was that he could really play that so well." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

RECORDED
October 18, 1964, at Abbey Road

LENNON: "This was the first time feedback was used on a record. It's right at the beginning." Hit Parader (April 1972)

McCARTNEY: "Don't be put off from the opening noise. It was a laugh. John was playing his Jumbo guitar and we did the final run through before recording, and when the red light came on for the actual session, he played it, unintentionally. The result was a sound of feedback and, after a bit of thought, we decided to leave it in. It's the biggest gimmick thing we've ever used!" The Beatles Off the Record: Outrageous Opinions & Unrehearsed Interviews

LENNON: "The first bit you hear on 'I Feel Fine' is feedback. It was all a mistake. I was standing between Paul's amplifier and mine, and that was the result. But when we heard it, we liked it, so we left it in. Sounds a bit like an electric razor, doesn't it?" The Beatles Off the Record: Outrageous Opinions & Unrehearsed Interviews

HARRISON: "John had an acoustic Gibson, well, an acoustic electric, 'cos it was amplified at the time, and he was standing in front of Paul's bass amplifier, and Paul just played the note A, which automatically set off the feedback on John's guitar. It was, sort of, magic at the time, that it happened, so we just kept it in because it sounded nice." The Beatles Off the Record: Outrageous Opinions & Unrehearsed Interviews

McCARTNEY: "John had a semi-acoustic Gibson guitar. It had a pick-up on it so it could be amplified. John and George both had them; we used to call them Everly Brothers because they were very similar to the ones the Everly Brothers had used and we liked the Everlys a lot. It was mainly an acoustic guitar. They only used a tiny bit of electric, just for colour. If you turned it up too much you don't get any string noise, so the engineers and George Martin used to strike a balance between the colour of the electric thing and the natural acoustic. It's a coloured acoustic.
"We were just about to walk away to listen to a take when John leaned his guitar against the amp. I can still see him doing it. He really should have turned the electric off. It was only on a tiny bit, and John just leaned it against the amp when it went, 'Nnnnnnwahhhhh!' And we went, 'What's that? Voodoo!' 'No, it's feedback.' 'Wow, it's a great sound!' George Martin was there so we said, 'Can we have that on the record?' 'Well, I suppose we could, we could edit it on the front.' It was a found object, an accident caused by leaning the guitar against the amp." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

LENNON: ". . . the record with the first feedback anywhere. I defy anyone to find a record - unless it's some old blues record in 1922 - which uses feedback that way. I mean, everybody played with feedback on stage, and the Jimi Hendrix stuff was going on long before. In fact, the punk stuff now is only what people were doing in the clubs. So, I claim it for The Beatles. Before Hendrix, The Who, before anybody. The first feedback on any record." September 1980, All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono

INSTRUMENTATION
McCARTNEY: bass, backing vocal
LENNON: rhythm guitar, lead guitar, lead vocal
HARRISON: lead guitar, backing vocal
STARR: drums

MISCELLANEOUS
This song was part of the Beatles' repertoire for concerts from 1964 to 1966. The Complete Beatles Chronicle

COMMENTS BY BEATLES
LENNON: "The selling part of the song, commercially, is the phrase 'I Feel Fine' and the guitar run that follows it. George and I play the same bit on guitar together on the record. I suppose it has a bit of a Country & Western feel about it, but then, so have a lot of our songs. The middle-eight is the most tuneful part to me, because it's a typical Beatles bit." The Beatles Off the Record: Outrageous Opinions & Unrehearsed Interviews

I Don't Want To See You Again

CHART ACTION
Released in September, 1964.

AUTHORSHIP McCartney (1.00)
Written entirely by Paul, specifically for Peter and Gordon. Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

I Don't Want To Spoil The Party

AUTHORSHIP Lennon (.8) and McCartney (.2)
LENNON: "That was a very personal one of mine. In the early days I wrote less material than Paul because he was more competent on guitar than I. He taught me quite a lot of guitar really." Beatles in Their Own Words

McCARTNEY: " 'I Don't Want To Spoil The Party' is quite a nice little song, co-written by John and I. It sounds more like John than me so 80-20 to him, sitting down doing a job. Certain songs were inspirational and certain songs were work, it didn't mean they were any less fun to write, it was just a craft . . ." Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

RECORDED
September 29, 1964, at Abbey Road

INSTRUMENTATION
McCARTNEY: bass, harmony vocal
LENNON: acoustic guitar, lead vocal
HARRISON: lead guitar (Gretsch Tennessean [model PX6119])
STARR: drums, tambourine