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It's Only Love

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By: 
The Beatles
Lead vocals: 
John Lennon
Songwriter(s): 
Lennon/McCartney
First released on: 
Help!
U.S. release date: 
December 3, 1965
U.K. release date: 
August 6, 1965
Length (≈): 
1:53
Label: 
Parlophone
Produced by: 
George Martin
Recording date(s): 
June 15, 1965
Recorded at: 
Abbey Road Studios (EMI)
Musicians : 
  • John Lennon – lead vocals, acoustic guitar
  • Paul McCartney – bass guitar
  • George Harrison – lead guitar
  • Ringo Starr – drums, tambourine

It's Only Love is a John Lennon song that appeared on Help! in the UK and on Rubber Soul in the US. Lennon said later that he hated the song, thinking it was just a filler for the album, and not worthy of serious work and polishing. This relatively short song (under two minutes) has an intro and outro, with two semetrical verse-refrain segments in between. That's it. Very simple. A mix of acoustic and electric instrumentation with a light percussion track shows that It's Only Love is a transitional piece between the Beatles' early period (up-tempo rock)and the middle period (folk-rock). It was "cranked" to fill out Help! in the UK, but did not make Capitol's cut in the US, being relegated to the US release of Rubber Soul. Neither the lyrics nor the music show an extraordinary amount of work or attention from Lennon or the rest of the group. In fact, the song is notable only because it has the first guitar solo generated through the rotating Leslie speaker of the Hammond organ (by George), and it features an innovation in the form of the tone pedal, all of which makes the instrumental work stand out over the vocals.

I get high when I see you go by

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Recording

June 15, 1965 in six takes with Lennon overdubbing vocals and Harrison adding guitar via rotating Leslie speaker.

Variations

"It's Only Love" take two appears on Anthology 2 in 1996 as well as an incomplete take of the song.

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