Every Little Thing

The album Beatles for Sale was not the rush job that many would have us believe.  A few songs were recorded in August of 1964 and, when the group returned to the studio on September 29th, there was no sense of urgency yet.  They spent a good portion of that day working on two songs, Every Little Thing being one of them, that would be leisurely (by 1964 standards) reworked and completed in later sessions.

The band laid down four takes of the basic track on the afternoon of the 29th.  While Paul and Ringo played their usual instruments, John and George switched roles, with George on acoustic rhythm guitar and John on electric lead guitar.  And, though the composition is primarily Paul's, John and Paul share the lead vocal with John's voice actually more prominent in the mix.  At this stage, John reportedly played many more guitar phrases throughout the song than on the final version, and Paul attempted some different vocal harmonies, as well.

They returned to the song for the entire afternoon session on the 30th, recording five more takes before they were satisfied.  John refrained from playing his guitar on these takes as he had done the day before, instead overdubbing it onto take nine.  Overdubbing also included Paul adding a secondary bass part, as well as some occasional low notes on piano and, most intriguingly, Ringo pounding out a few dramatic accents on timpani during each chorus.

I consider this tune to be one of the group's hidden gems.  While it is buried on the middle of side two on Beatles for Sale, it stands out a bit more as the final track on the American compilation album Beatles VI.  Though the lyrics are simplistic for this stage of McCartney's development as a songwriter, the melody is catchy, the performance by the band is crisp and the fadeout alone is sheer delight.

They never played the song live, but George referenced it during the Get Back sessions in January of 1969 when talking about oldies ("but goldies," someone mutters) that the group should consider for the grand upcoming concert that was to conclude that project.  "I'll tell you which is a good one," he said.  He then played John's opening guitar passage before he and Paul sang a snippet of the song.  This brief exchange can be heard on the bonus Fly on the Wall disc from the 2003 release Let It Be...Naked.