It Won’t Be Long: Introduction
“It Won’t Be Long” is a Fab Four song on the 1963 album “With The Beatles.” In fact, it is the first track on the album.
In Detail
- Publisher: Northern Songs
- Release Date: November 22, 1963 (UK), January 20, 1964 (US)
- Recorded: July 30, 1963
- Genre: Rock
- Track Duration: 2:13
- Record Label: Parlophone
- Songwriter: Lennon-McCartney
- Producer: George Martin
- Engineer: Norman Smith
Performers And Instruments
- John Lennon: double-tracked vocal and rhythm guitar
- Paul McCartney: backing vocal, also the bass guitar
- George Harrison: backing vocals, as well as lead guitar
- Ringo Starr: drums
Where To Find “It Won’t Be Long”
You can still buy this track on the following album:
It Won’t Be Long: Background
Although credited to Lennon-McCartney, which was the norm, it was primarily a John Lennon composition. But Paul McCartney had a hand in the song by assisting with the lyrics.
The Fab Four’s first album, “Please Please Me,” was a massive success, of course. Their new album, “With The Beatles,” needed to be good in order for the band to progress. What better way than to have this track as the leading song on the disc?
The song itself features the familiar “yeah-yeahs” chant, as we experienced on “She Loves You.” However, they use it in a “call-and-response” style in this song. In other words, lead vocalist John Lennon calls “yeah,” then the harmonious Paul McCartney and George Harrison respond with “yeah.”
They never sang the song at any of their gigs or even for BBC Radio shows. However, they did lip-synch to it on the ITV show “Ready Steady Go!” in March 1964.
Clever Beatles Lyrics?
John Lennon wanted the song to be the next Beatles’ single, but it wasn’t to be.
“It Won’t Be Long is mine. It was my attempt at writing another single, [but] it never quite made it. That was the one where the guy in the London Times wrote about the “Aeolian cadences of the chords”—which started the whole intellectual bit about The Beatles.”
John Lennon
All We Are Saying, David Sheff
It appears that John Lennon got slightly confused over a newspaper article in The Times. Their music critic, William Mann, spoke about Aeolian cadences in the song “Not A Second Time” and not “It Won’t Be Long.” Be that as it may, Lennon really thought the article was referring to this song:
“The Beatles were more intellectual, so they appealed on that level, too. But the basic appeal of the Beatles was not their intelligence. It was their music. It was only after some guy in the London Times said there were aeolian cadences in It Won’t Be Long that the middle classes started listening to it—because somebody put a tag on it.”
John Lennon
All We Are Saying, David Sheff
Paul McCartney’s Word Play
Being a songwriter is not easy, but the songwriting partnership of Lennon-McCartney sure knew how to play with words.
“I was doing literature at school, so I was interested in plays on words and onomatopoeia. John didn’t do literature, but he was quite well read, so he was interested in that kind of thing. Like the double meaning of ‘please’ in a line like ‘Please, lend a little ear to my pleas’ that we used in Please Please Me.
We’d spot the double meaning. I think everyone did, by the way, it was not just the genius of us! In ‘It won’t be long till I belong to you’ it was that same trip. We both liked to try and get a bit of double meaning in, so that was the high spot of writing that particular song. John mainly sang it, so I expect that it was his original idea, but we both sat down and wrote it together.”
Paul McCartney
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
Recording Studio
The Beatles began recording the track on July 30, 1963, in Studio Two of the EMI Studios, London, during the 10:00 a.m.–12:30 p.m. session. They recorded 10 takes in that session but took a further 7 takes in the 5.00pm–11.00pm sessions. Then they recorded some edit pieces, in takes 18 to 23. Mixing was a combination of take 17 plus take 21, but this didn’t happen until August 21 in the control room.
Take A Listen To “It Won’t Be Long”
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