All My Loving

From Wikipedia:

“All My Loving” is a song by the Beatles, written by Paul McCartney (credited to Lennon–McCartney), from the 1963 album With The Beatles. Though it was not released as a single in the United Kingdom or the United States, it drew considerable radio airplay, prompting EMI to issue it as the title track of an EP. The song was released as a single in Canada, where it became a number one hit. The Canadian single was imported into the US in enough quantities to peak at number 45 on the Billboard Hot 100 in April 1964. It was the first song most Americans ever heard the group sing as it was the opening song on their debut on Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964.

Composition

According to journalist Bill Harry, McCartney thought of the lyrics whilst shaving, though McCartney told biographer Barry Miles that he wrote them while on a tour bus. He also said, “It was the first song I’d ever written the words first. I never wrote words first, it was always some kind of accompaniment. I’ve hardly ever done it since either.” The lyrics follow the “letter song” model as used on “P.S. I Love You“, the B-side of their first single. After arriving at the location of the gig, he wrote the music on a piano backstage.

McCartney originally envisioned it as a country & western song, and George Harrison added a Nashville-style guitar solo. John Lennon’s rhythm guitar track uses quickly strummed triplets similar to “Da Doo Ron Ron” by The Crystals, a song that was popular at the time. McCartney added a walking bass line.

Lennon expressed his esteem for the song in his 1980 Playboy interview, saying “it’s a damn good piece of work. … But I play a pretty mean guitar in back.”

It has been hypothesized that the piece draws inspiration from the Dave Brubeck Quartet’s 1959 song “Kathy’s Waltz“.

Recorded

They recorded the song on 30 July 1963 in eleven takes with three overdubs. The master take was take fourteen overdubbed on take eleven. It was remixed on 21 August (mono) and 29 October (stereo).

A slightly longer stereo edition of the song, featuring a hi-hat percussion introduction not found on the common stereo or mono mixes was released in Germany and the Netherlands in 1965 on a compilation album entitled Beatles’ Greatest. This version was later released in the UK, but only as part of The Beatles Box.

Releases and performances

“All My Loving” was originally released in the UK on 22 November 1963 on With the Beatles. The first US release was on Meet the Beatles!, released 20 January 1964. The song was the title track of the All My Loving EP released in the UK on 7 February 1964. The song was released on another EP, Four by The Beatles in the US, on 11 May 1964.

“All My Loving” was the Beatles’ opening number on their debut performance on The Ed Sullivan Show on 9 February 1964; the recording was included on Anthology 1. The group also performed “All My Loving” three times for BBC radio, once in 1963 and twice in 1964. The final version, which was recorded on 28 February 1964, was included on Live at the BBC.

The song was used twice in films by the group – it plays in the background at the end of the nightclub scene in A Hard Day’s Night (though without the drum opening and the coda), while an instrumental version appears in the movie Magical Mystery Tour.

According to Alan Weiss, a TV producer who happened to be there, “All My Loving” was playing on the sound system at Roosevelt Hospital emergency room when Lennon was pronounced dead after being shot on 8 December 1980.

Reviews

“All My Loving” has been praised by multiple critics. Ian MacDonald said, “The innocence of early Sixties British pop is perfectly distilled in the eloquent simplicity of this number” and described the song as helping McCartney be seen as more of an equal to Lennon. Richie Unterberger of Allmusic said it “was arguably the best LP-only track the Beatles did before 1964” and that if it had been released as a single in America it would have been a huge hit. […]

From The Usenet Guide to Beatles Recording Variations:

• [a] mono 21 Aug 1963.
  UK: Parlophone PMC 1206 With the Beatles 1963.
  CD: EMI CDP 7 46436 2 With the Beatles 1987.
• [b] stereo 29 Oct 1963.
  UK: Parlophone PCS 3045 With the Beatles 1963, Apple PCSP 717 The Beatles 1962-1966 1973.
• [b1] stereo, untrimmed.
  Germany: Odeon STO 83 568 With the Beatles 1963, Odeon SMO 83 991 (later 1C 062-04 207) Beatles Greatest 1965.
  Holland: Odeon OMHS 3001 Beatles Greatest 1967.
• [b2] stereo remixed from [b] 1963, by Capitol.
  US: Capitol ST 2047 Meet the Beatles 1964, Apple SKBO-3403 The Beatles 1962-1966 1973.
• [b3] mono made from [b] 1963, by Capitol.
  US: Capitol T 2047 Meet the Beatles 1964.
• [b4] mono probably from [b1] 1963, by Odeon (Germany).
  Germany: Odeon O 22 681 single 1963, probably Odeon O 83 568 With the Beatles 1963, probably Odeon O 83 991 Beatles Greatest 1965.
• [c] stereo 1993
  CD: EMI CDP 7 97036 2 The Beatles 1962-1966 1993.

The untrimmed stereo [b1] opens with 5 taps on a hi-hat, left, and then an intake of breath, right. The untrimmed mono [b4] is probably combined from [b1], unless we suppose there was also an untrimmed version of [a].

The CD remix [c] has the vocal track centered, leaving nothing far right.

A US CD of rarities issued by Westwood One in 1993 allegedly for radio stations has a forgery of the untrimmed [b1] made by joining a tape copy of a record of [b1] to a cleaner copy of [b]. The stereo image is reversed in one of them, and the intake of breath is missing.

Paul McCartney added “All My Loving” to the set list of his 2003 New World Tour, and the song has regularly been included in the setlists ever since.

Lyrics

Officially appears on

Bootlegs

Videos

Live performances

“All My Loving” has been played in 422 concerts and 41 soundchecks.

Latest concerts where “All My Loving” has been played

Going further

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