Artistic re-rendering of a Parlophone single made of simple polygons.

143: I’ll Get You

I’ll Get You wound up as the B-side to She Loves You, but it had earlier been considered as a potential single in its own right. It was co-written by Lennon and McCartney and features dual vocals throughout. To me there’s a slightly strange sound to the vocals as if Lennon and McCartney are imitating one another, and they adopt a slightly “camp” tone for the “oh yeahs”. There’s something a little inauthentic about it, but it does has a very catchy bridge section and nice harmonies in the verse.

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Written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney as the intended follow-up to ‘From Me To You’, ‘I’ll Get You’ was instead released as the b-side to the international smash hit single ‘She Loves You’.

She Loves You single artwork - NorwayContinue reading on Beatles Bible →
WikipediaWikipedia
"I'll Get You" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney,[2] and released by the Beatles as the B-side of their 1963 single "She Loves You".[3] The song was initially titled "Get You in the End".[4]
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This tone of voice, together with the lyrics make me think that this was another song, in the mould of Thank You Girl (B-side of the previous single), which is deliberately positioning the Beatles as harmless romantic pop idols for their teenage fans. Once Beatlemania took off in earnest (around the time of this single) they needed no further encouragement!

Several different versions of I’ll Get You are available (the original single mix, a BBC session and on the Anthology album from a live performance at the London Palladium). It’s noticeable that the live and BBC versions are in different keys compared to the record. I wonder if this is to accommodate the harmonica which was overdubbed for the single, but could not be played live. If varispeed was used to adjust the pitch it might contribute to the slightly unusual sound of the vocals. In my view the harmonica sound, having served some purpose in making their initial singles distinctive, was starting to become a bit hackneyed by this stage.

I’ll Get You a solid B-side, but doesn’t compare to to the A-side. I think it must have featured on one of the homemade cassettes that was lent to me by my schoolfriend Ewan Lindsay when I was 11 or 12, as I have a very clear memory of it, despite the fact that it wasn’t on any of the albums I knew growing up.


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