It's Only Love

In the first couple of years following the break-up of the Beatles, an angry John Lennon was dismissive of much of the group's work.  Even taking that into account, he held few of his own compositions in such low esteem as It's Only Love.  Still, his main complaint was with his lyrics, which he felt were particularly lazy and sub-par.  There is little doubt that the melody is lovely, so much so that producer George Martin chose to record an instrumental arrangement of it under its original working title That's a Nice Hat (Cap), as listed on the album cover pictured above.

Another reason that Lennon may have felt insecure about his somewhat lightweight composition is the fact that the group recorded it only one day after McCartney's most impressive day yet, recording three distinctly different songs - the fast-paced acoustic number I've Just Seen a Face, the screaming rocker I'm Down and the world-class ballad Yesterday.  It is entirely possible that Lennon sensed a shift in the group dynamic at that time, though he himself would hit a personal high-mark a few months later with his outstanding collection of songs for the album Rubber Soul.

June 15th, 1965 was the date of this recording.  Six takes were made using two acoustic guitars, bass and drums.  Anthology 2 gives us a brief false start noted as being take three, then jumps back to the complete take two.  Take six was deemed the best, so George added a distinctive electric guitar part which some sources claim to be achieved using the tone pedal while others say it was done by putting the sound through a rotating Leslie speaker.  Ringo also added tambourine, and John played electric rhythm guitar and double-tracked his lead vocal in places.

It's Only Love was the second track on the non-soundtrack side of the Help! album in the UK.  It also appeared on the UK EP Yesterday.  Capitol held on to this song for a few months and used it to open side two of the US version of Rubber Soul at the end of 1965.  It actually works quite well in this prominent position, leading straight into another Lennon composition, Girl.

Aside from the Anthology 2 outtake mentioned above, the other notable post-career appearance of the song was on the compilation album Love Songs.