I Call Your Name

John Lennon listed this among the very first songs he ever wrote when he got a guitar and formed a group in 1957.  When he and Paul McCartney became a hot songwriting duo in 1963, their manager Brian Epstein encouraged them to donate some of their songs to other Liverpool groups under his management.  This served a dual purpose - it would bring more money into the Lennon/McCartney music publishing partnership plus it would bolster the careers of the other acts in the Epstein stable.

At some point in time, John added a middle eight to this early number before handing it over to Billy J. Kramer.  Kramer recorded it as a B-side to go along with another Lennon composition Bad to Me in June of 1963.  While Bad to Me went to number one in the UK, I Call Your Name got little recognition.

For some reason, this song came to Lennon's mind when the Beatles were completing the soundtrack recordings for A Hard Day's Night on March 1st, 1964.  After nailing Long Tall Sally in one live take, the group turned their attention to I Call Your Name, requiring seven takes before they had a keeper.  John then double-tracked his lead vocal and Ringo added a cowbell as an overdub.

The song was mixed for mono on March 3rd and given to the producers of the film, so it seems to have been in the running for the soundtrack at this point.  Another mono mix on March 4th saw producer George Martin edit take five of the instrumental break into the middle of take seven.  This became the standard procedure for all subsequent mixes.  The first stereo mix was not made until March 10th.  These two mixes were given to Capitol Records in the US for The Beatles' Second Album released on April 10th.  Due to this early release, the song had now probably been dropped from the soundtrack.

A new mono mix was prepared on June 4th.  This was used on the EP Long Tall Sally released on June 19th in the UK.  Only three days after this release, on June 22nd, I Call Your Name was among the songs newly mixed for stereo for the UK album A Hard Day's Night.  Had it been added, it would have brought the number of songs on that album up to the usual complement of fourteen.  Perhaps since it had already been released, it did not make the lineup.

The boys performed the song exactly one time for the BBC program Saturday Club.  This was recorded on March 31st, ten days before its initial release in the US and months before its appearance on the Long Tall Sally EP in Britain.  Sadly, this performance was not chosen for either of the Live at the BBC collections.  The song's original recording was included on the Rock and Roll Music compilation in 1976.

The Beatles' recording of the song is unusual for the instrumental break, which becomes one of the first known attempts by a white group to play ska.  The form was hardly known outside of Jamaica at the time, but Blue Beat Records were starting to appear in the UK.  Even at this early stage of their recording career, the Beatles were always on the lookout for new sounds and influences.  They did not succeed at capturing the proper off-beat style of playing here, and the change in rhythm was probably puzzling to fans.  In retrospect, it was merely an indicator of just how far they were willing to go.