You Like Me Too Much

For the soundtrack of 1964's A Hard Day's Night, John Lennon had written the lightweight pop number I'm Happy Just to Dance with You to serve as George's vocal spotlight in the film.  By early '65, it was time for the group to come up with a fresh batch of songs for the soundtrack of their second feature film, and Harrison himself rose to the challenge, coming up with not merely one, but two numbers for director Richard Lester's consideration.  Lester opted to use I Need You in the film, leaving You Like Me Too Much for the non-soundtrack side of the upcoming Help! album.

We need to keep in mind that Harrison had just one released solo composition at this point in time - 1963's Don't Bother Me, which had appeared on the album With the Beatles.  His only other - a pleasant ditty called You Know What to Do from mid-64 - survived as a demo, long forgotten, then discovered during research for the Anthology series in the 1990's.  No doubt it must have been a daunting task trying to become a songwriter while living in the shadow of the great Lennon/McCartney partnership.  But Harrison persevered, even though these two newest efforts were somewhat awkward compared to the steady flow of quality tunes coming from the other two Beatles.  It is a credit to John, Paul and producer George Martin that they gave Harrison his due, grudgingly or otherwise, and allowed him to grow.

Having recorded I Need You on February 15th, 1965, George waited two days before presenting You Like Me Too Much to the group on the 17th.  The basic track featured Ringo on drums, George on acoustic guitar, John shaking a tambourine and Paul splitting his duties, first playing a piano intro, then concentrating on his bass part.  Once overdubs began onto take eight, John decided to play electric piano, as he had done earlier in the day on McCartney's The Night Before.  For the instrumental solo section, Paul and George Martin sat at the same Steinway piano and played answering phrases as George played an electric guitar part.  Finally, George double-tracked his lead vocals with Paul supplying the backing vocals.

As stated above, You Like Me Too Much appeared on the non-soundtrack side of the UK album Help!, which was released in August of 1965.  Here in the US, we actually got to hear the track two months earlier on the album Beatles VI.  It has never appeared on any post career compilations.