Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 15 June 1965
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Norman Smith
Released: 6 August 1965 (UK), 6 December 1965 (US)
John Lennon: vocals, acoustic rhythm guitar, electric guitar
Paul McCartney: bass
George Harrison: lead guitar, 12-string acoustic guitar
Ringo Starr: drums, tambourine
Available on:
Help!
Anthology 2
Written primarily by John Lennon, It's Only Love first appeared on the second side of the Help! album. It originally had the working title That's A Nice Hat.
Lennon later spoke of his embarrassment at the triteness of the lyrics. He told Hit Parader magazine: "That's the one song I really hate of mine. Terrible lyric." In another interview he named It's Only Love and Rubber Soul's Run For Your Life as his least favourite Beatles songs.
It's Only Love is mine. I always thought it was a lousy song. The lyrics were abysmal. I always hated that song.
All We Are Saying, David Sheff
Paul McCartney, who co-wrote the song at Lennon's home in Weybridge, was slightly more forgiving.
Sometimes we didn't fight it if the lyric came out rather bland on some of those filler songs like It's Only Love. If a lyric was really bad we'd edit it, but we weren't that fussy about it, because it's only a rock 'n' roll song. I mean, this is not literature.
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
In his book Revolution In The Head, Ian MacDonald explained how Lennon's melodies tended to be 'horizontal' in nature, often based around a single repeated note, whereas McCartney's would climb up and down the scales 'vertically'.
It's Only Love, however, is more melodically 'vertical' than many of Lennon's compositions of the time. If Lennon was later ashamed by the lyrics, the winding tune and explorative chord sequence showed that he wasn't simply going through the motions of songwriting.
In the studio
The Beatles recorded It's Only Love during an afternoon session on 15 June 1965. It took six takes to get right, though only four of those were complete.
Lennon double-tracked his vocals onto take six, and one of Harrison's guitar parts was recorded using a rotating Leslie speaker - later used to dazzling effect on Lennon's voice on Tomorrow Never Knows.
Take two of It's Only Love was included on Anthology 2 in 1996, along with the aborted take three from the session. Interestingly, Ringo Starr's drum part on take two was very similar to that later heard on another Lennon song, Rubber Soul's In My Life.
Harrison also played acoustic guitar (in addition to his lead guitar) when the backing track was recorded. He played the 12-string acoustic capoed at the fifth fret. You can hear it clearly on the early take on Anthology 2, entering at 00:06. In the final mix this backing track was mixed to the left channel (compare the two versions).
The right channel has Harrison's lead plus a dry "chick" electric guitar playing chords in the verses (probably Lennon).
Lennon may have thought "It's Only Love" was one of his more lousy songs but I've always thought it was a pretty classy one.
After listening to It's Only Love on the remastered mono CD, I wondered why the first ("I") and third ("high") words contain a noticeable warble that I never picked up on before. I also checked out the remastered stereo CD, and then the vinyl, and it appears on all of them. Almost sounds like there was a problem with the master tape, or some mild feedback. Any idea what caused it to sound like this, and not "smoother"?
The anthology version is just beautiful.