It Won't Be Long Reviews

	Reviewed by Ian MacDonald, in Revolution in the Head: The first Lennon-McCartney original to be recorded for With The Beatles, Lennon's IT WON'T BE LONG became the opening track. Confidently identifying the 'yeah yeah' choruses of the unreleased SHE LOVES YOU as an exploitable trademark, the song wastes no time in setting up an appropriate call-and-response pattern. Yet its layout is unusual, kicking off on a minor chorus, moving to a short major verse, back to the chorus, and then straight into the long chromatically descending phrase of the middle eight with its intricate vocal arrangement. Based on three chords, IT WON'T BE LONG says Lennon' in every bar (especially the one brusquely dropped from the verse to make it go faster). Everything revolves around lazy semitones, the middle eight pursuing these with the augmentations and sixths typical of its author's later style. (Typical, too, is his play on 'be long' and I belong', puns being the verbal equivalent of his close intervals.)
Taped in two sessions on 30th July, between which The Beatles dashed out to the Playhouse Theatre to record two shows for the BBC, IT WON'T BE LONG ran to twenty-three takes before it could be fitted together to the group's satisfaction. Even so the mix is poor - bass-light and with Harrison's guitar fills too detached from the rest of the sound. (There is also a dreadful edit at 1:08, slicing off an impatient flourish from Lennon's Rickenbacker.) Never part of their live set, the song shows signs of hasty arranging, and McCartney's bass-line, aside from his doubling of Harrison's figure at the end of each chorus, is unusually cautious. That aside, the performance has characteristic guts and drive, grabbing the attention with its punchy irregularities, graphic mood-changes, and sudden crescendo turnarounds. Piling surprise on surprise, the track veers from strident 'Twist-beat' roughness to smooth Miracles-style sophistication in its middle eight, ending cheesily on one of the group's favourite barber-shop major sevenths. The Beatles' early philosophy of recording was to pack it tight without a single dull second, 'needle-time' being precious. The hungry urgency of that period is loud and clear here.

Reviewed by Ian MacDonald, in Revolution in the Head:

The first Lennon-McCartney original to be recorded for With The Beatles, Lennon's IT WON'T BE LONG became the opening track. Confidently identifying the 'yeah yeah' choruses of the unreleased SHE LOVES YOU as an exploitable trademark, the song wastes no time in setting up an appropriate call-and-response pattern. Yet its layout is unusual, kicking off on a minor chorus, moving to a short major verse, back to the chorus, and then straight into the long chromatically descending phrase of the middle eight with its intricate vocal arrangement. Based on three chords, IT WON'T BE LONG says Lennon' in every bar (especially the one brusquely dropped from the verse to make it go faster). Everything revolves around lazy semitones, the middle eight pursuing these with the augmentations and sixths typical of its author's later style. (Typical, too, is his play on 'be long' and I belong', puns being the verbal equivalent of his close intervals.)

Taped in two sessions on 30th July, between which The Beatles dashed out to the Playhouse Theatre to record two shows for the BBC, IT WON'T BE LONG ran to twenty-three takes before it could be fitted together to the group's satisfaction. Even so the mix is poor - bass-light and with Harrison's guitar fills too detached from the rest of the sound. (There is also a dreadful edit at 1:08, slicing off an impatient flourish from Lennon's Rickenbacker.) Never part of their live set, the song shows signs of hasty arranging, and McCartney's bass-line, aside from his doubling of Harrison's figure at the end of each chorus, is unusually cautious. That aside, the performance has characteristic guts and drive, grabbing the attention with its punchy irregularities, graphic mood-changes, and sudden crescendo turnarounds. Piling surprise on surprise, the track veers from strident 'Twist-beat' roughness to smooth Miracles-style sophistication in its middle eight, ending cheesily on one of the group's favourite barber-shop major sevenths. The Beatles' early philosophy of recording was to pack it tight without a single dull second, 'needle-time' being precious. The hungry urgency of that period is loud and clear here.

Posted: 23 maart 2025