Hold Me Tight

This is easily one of my least favorite tracks by the Beatles, and I am not alone in that assessment.  The song has rarely fared well with critics, either, though Dave Rybaczewski makes a strong case for it in his in-depth look at the composition, claiming it as a great step forward for McCartney as a songwriter.  The members of the band seem to have had mixed feelings about it, since they were keen to record it on two different occasions, yet it never figured prominently in their repertoire, though they did reportedly play it live for a few years. 

The group first attempted to record Hold Me Tight during the marathon session of February 11th, 1963, which yielded most of the tracks for the first album Please Please Me.  After thirteen takes, a decision was made to splice parts of takes nine and thirteen together for the master.  Ultimately, this track was considered unnecessary and left off of the album.

Later in the year, on September 12th, the boys revived the song in the studio while working on their second album.  They began with take twenty on this occasion and, including overdubs of backing vocals and handclaps, had a new master by take twenty-nine.  This version was released on With the Beatles in the UK and on the first Capitol album Meet the Beatles! in the US.

For me, the simple, repetitive guitar phrase quickly wears out its welcome, not unlike the one on the unreleased song If You've Got Trouble.  And, while this composition may pre-date Lennon's It Won't Be Long, which opens the album With the Beatles, I find Lennon's use of call-and-response much fresher and more exciting than that employed by McCartney in this number.  Finally, the choice to have the song grind to a halt merely serves to emphasize the amount of effort it took to churn out such a lackluster piece.

In an interview which appears at the beginning of Mark Lewisohn's book The Beatles: Recording Sessions, Lewisohn asks Paul about a number of songs.  When he mentions this one, Paul has little memory of it (and the interview was published in 1988), calling it a "work song."  He does say that it is "a bit Shirelles," which I find intriguing.  A girl group singing the same tune with a more interesting arrangement than a chugging guitar riff might be enjoyable.

After its release, the song has not surfaced again.  Not only did the group never choose to record it for any of their numerous BBC sessions, it has also never made the cut for any official post-career compilation.