All My Loving

Though credited as "Lennon/McCartney," this love song was totally a McCartney. composition. He wrote it in May of 1963 while on tour in the UK with Roy Orbeson. It was a poem first, penned for Jane Asher, his girlfriend at the time, whom he was missing. Later he applied the music to the words. This is an unusual sequence for McCartney, who usually conceived the melody first and then sought the words to fit. Originally conceived as a country-western tune, All My Loving evolved quickly into a standard pop number, capable of becoming a general hit. George Harrison imitates his guitarist-idol, Chet Atkins in a flashy solo, and Lennon contributes an unusually intricate rhythm guitar line. Lennon considered this to be one of Paul's best compositions. In performance, George sang a double harmony with Paul on the third verse, but on the recording, McCartney is over-dubbed. Unlike other Beatles songs, the bridge in All My Loving is a separate melody, written for solo voice, and not a derivative or variation of the main tune. All My Loving was chosen to open the Beatles' historic Ed Sullivan performance on February 9, 1964, the start of what came to be known as "Beatlemania."