‘I’m Happy Just To Dance With You’ was written by Lennon and McCartney as George Harrison’s vocal spot on the A Hard Day’s Night album.
The song was purposefully written with Harrison’s vocal range in mind.
We wrote ‘I’m Happy Just To Dance With You’ for George in the film. It was a bit of a formula song. We knew that in E if you went to an A flat minor, you could always make a song with those chords; that change pretty much always excited you. This is one of these. Certainly ‘Do You Want To Know A Secret’ was. This one anyway was a straight co-written song for George. We wouldn’t have actually wanted to sing it because it was a bit… The ones that pandered to the fans in truth were our least favourite songs but they were good. They were good for the time. The nice thing about it was to actually pull a song off on a slim little premise like that. A simple little idea. It was songwriting practice.
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
In the studio
‘I’m Happy Just To Dance With You’ was recorded on 1 March 1964, The Beatles’ first session on a Sunday.
They completed three songs in three hours; the others were ‘Long Tall Sally’ and ‘I Call Your Name’. ‘I’m Happy Just To Dance With You’ was the first to be recorded that day, and took four takes to get right.
That was written for George to give him a piece of the action.
All We Are Saying, David Sheff
The only known non-EMI version of ‘I’m Happy Just To Dance With You’ was recorded on 17 July 1964 for the BBC’s From Us To You programme. It was taped at the BBC Paris Studio, London, and first broadcast on 3 August.
A bootleg version is also in circulation which features the BBC backing track only, captured without Harrison’s multitracked lead vocals.
This (https://www.dmbeatles.com/song.php?song=133) page says a “loose-skinned Arabian bongo” were used on the song. WHo is correct?
You’re right: Ringo played an Arabian drum during the overdub process (it can be during in the verses).
George doesn’t play lead guitar in this one, it’s just a simple rhythm part (Lennon played the lead-like rhythm part).
Ian MacDonald, in Revolution In The Head, identified it as an African drum. Do we know for sure it was an Arabian one? Until I can be sure I’ll leave Ringo’s contribution as just ‘drums’.
In his sleeve notes for With The Beatles, Tony Barrow said that Ringo played a “loose-skinned Arabian bongo (don’t ask me where he picked that up!)” on Don’t Bother Me. I wonder if the DM Beatles site is confusing two songs sung by George Harrison.
Ringo played loose-skin arabian bongo on “Don’t bother me”. For this one, he played an african drum, the same that George is going to play on “Mr. Moonlight”.
According to Paul in a 1964 interview, it was in fact Ringo playing the African drum on “Mr. Moonlight” and I’m not sure if George was actually that interested in playing percussion instruments at that time.
Derek Taylor got it wrong in the liner notes for “Beatles for Sale” and he also incorrectly stated that Ringo was on bongos – if you listen to the track, you can clearly hear Ringo using the toms in his drum kit while operating the hi-hats with his left foot.
Derek didn’t have session data or paperwork, so he wouldn’t have been privy to who played what unless he actually was a regular at the sessions.
Although there isn’t actually a lead part in the song, it does sound like two guitars are playing different guitar chord voicings.
There is a lead guitar just no solo. John plays fast chord triplets as a lead like he did on “All My Loving.” Like “All My…” George holds the rhythm steady allowing for the triplets to sing out.
In the remaster version of this song, you can hear the drum in question extremely clearly.
It sounds like the same drum they use on Mr Moonlight.
Maybe Ringo borrowed the Arabian Drum from Bob Dylan (Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands).
For sure, there is a different kind of bongo or drum.
Paul said that “I’m Happy Just to Dance With You” was a 50/50 collaboration with John, as this site said. However, John listed the song as one that he wrote (without Paul) in Hit Parader, April, 1972.
Both this and the previous made-for-George song “Do You Want To Know A Secret” have melodies that stick to the scale to an unusual extent. I wonder if John though George’s singing worked best on scales back then?
What I love is the transformation in the film “A Hard Day’s Night” when the, um, “square” (grownup, not hip) dancers are dancing to this melody played by the rehearsal pianist in a triple rhythm. It sounds vaguely familiar to the casual Beatles fan but might not be fully recognizable. Then the dance rehearsal is over, they leave the stage, the beat changes, and the Beatles sing and play the song their own way. It’s magical.
One of the very few Lennon-McCartney songs Beatles performed live of which no recording is known to exist. If it does, please enlighten me. A Hard Day´s Night film is excluded, as it is not a real live recording. The song was only used on stage during the October-November tour of the UK, when they still played cinemas and small halls.
The melody is typical Lennon with the hammering on the same note and the first short notes notes followed by three long notes .It´s a mix of Lennon music and pop music from 1930s, I think.
Lennon said he wrote the song and McCartney said it was co-written. We never know what McCartney means with “co-written”, the melody or did he helped with the lyrics? ( I think he prefered being undistinct) and the establishment thinks the melody is co-written. (They trust more in McCartney because he did Yesterday and is always smiling?)
Johan/John: we get it, you dislike Paul. Your constant anti-Paul posts are boring. Get beyond it, please. Thank you.
Johan, no one truly knows who wrote what for any of these songs except the imperfect minds of two guys with large egos. Your willingness to only believe what John says shows implicit bias towards him, just as only believing Paul would be imprudent… it just seems like Lennon fans are louder, more indignant and less compromising. While the truth is likely in between their two accounts, I think McCartney has the more consistent memory and didn’t frequently go on record talking about Beatles stuff while the wounds were fresh and he had bitterness toward his former partner. I also think many Lennon quotes (including ones about Paul sabotaging his songs like Strawberry Fields) show that he could be manic and unreasonable. This makes the lack of compromise from Team Lennon seem narrow-minded at best and hateful at worst.
To Jon.
Have you any musical points of view?
Please tell me what is typical McCartney in this melody?
I said the melody is “typical” for Lennon. I didn´t say I know he wrote it.
When singing “…I´m happy just to …”= short notes on the same note, “…dance with you…”=three long notes. All this is typical Lennon.
Yes, I’m a musician and I understand music theory, but I don’t assert that this song favors one writer over the other. To your claim that only Lennon wrote melodies with that specific sequence, I would direct you to I’m Down, The Night Before, the opening and chorus of Getting Better, the chorus to Fixing A Hole, the chorus to Baby You’re a Rich Man, Two Of Us, You Never Give Me Your Money, and Golden Slumbers. Besides, even if Paul hadn’t written any songs that fit those parameters, that wouldn’t substantiate his songwriting absence.
To Jon. Non of the songs you mentioned have these t h r e e l o n g n o t e s, in succesion, so typical Lennon.
But I give you right about Baby You´re a Rich Man. I know the chorus is McCartney´s part of the song, and the hammering on the same note there is very typical Lennon, but it isn´t Lennon´s.
This song is not an example of “three long notes” but rather Cretic meter (long, short, long): “DAAANCE with YOOOU”. The examples I gave were mostly based on your literal description, but in changing it to this rhythmic meter, I have found plenty more examples of McCartney hammering a note before using this sequence: Get Back, Sgt. Pepper’s, I Wanna Be Your Man, I’m Down, Long And Winding Road (bridge), I’ve Got A Feeling (bridge), Lady Madonna (bridge), Fixing A Hole (chorus) and When I’m Sixty Four (bridge) among many other songs that almost perfectly fit this pattern (Back In the USSR, Magical Mystery Tour, I Saw Her Standing There). You cannot deny that these songs all repeat the melody note before using the exact same meter.
It also seems like Paul can say anything he likes while John remains undeniably dead. Anything Paul has claimed after December 8th 1980, must be taken with a truckload of rock salt.
You can’t expect Paul to remember events from nearly 60 years ago exactly as it happened and copious amounts of drugs weren’t going to help their memories in the long run, that’s for sure.
Jon,
allow me to settle this for you and Johan and others. John wrote this song. when paul says he co-wrote it, what that means is that he threw in a line or two. and the reason is that it’s obvious. or, because the sky is blue.
When Paul says a song was “co-written” it usually means he was in the room (with 12 other people) when John was working on it.
This song is very John. I guess John did the George’s song and Paul did the Ringo’s stuff.
Not quite true.
Paul and John jointly wrote “Yellow Submarine”, “If You’ve Got Trouble”, “With a Little Help From My Friends” and “I Wanna Be Your Man”. They offered “Little Child” to Ringo, but I think he rejected it.
John wrote “Good Night” and “I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party” for Ringo to sing – he accepted “Good Night”, but he turned down “I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party” in favour of singing “Honey Don’t”.
George didn’t have to sing lead vocals on any subsequent John or Paul-penned songs, as he became a very skilled songwriter and penned “Something”, “Here Comes the Sun”, “Taxman”, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, “If I Needed Someone” and others.
A nice number written by John and Paul for George, I suspect mainly by John. It is catchy and fits in well to the “A Hard Days Night” film and album.Great sequence in the film.
This is one of my favourites from this period – and of course George made a fab job of it.
Excellent song. Love the busy rhythm guitar playing…if you listen carefully, they never seem to play the chords exactly the same way twice. There some embellishments going on like a B7aug and an E6. I really like the key of C#m and the relative E major. It’s the same as “Do You Want to Know a Secret”, “It Won’t Be Long”, “Ask Me Why”, “And I Love Her”, and the verses on “You’re Gonna Lose That Girl”. All those are top Beatles songs for me!
In bar three of this great song I hear a guitar playing some sort of choked off notes that have a bit of harmonic ring to them. Does anybody know how that was done? I’ve never heard anybody mention those notes being played anywhere. It sounds like an overdub. Won’t you please please help me?!
I was wondering why a slower version of the song was used in “A Hard Day’s Night. “. The album version is much livelier.
All songs were slowed down in the film. Maybe a machine pitch difference It’s a good job that happened. I like them better that way.
This was my first favourite beatle song. Love it still!
Are “Secret” and “Dance” the only 2 that John and Paul wrote for George?
Yes I believe they are the only 2 written specifically with George in mind as they are the only 2 Lennon/McCartney songs that George sings lead on.
That’s true. George made the right choice to write and sing lead vocals on his own songs.
To Gene – here’s a quote from an article about the film’s restoration: “During the performance sequence in the “TV studio”, the music has always sounded oddly slow — and for a reason. Lester sought to show the experience of the band being captured by television cameras, allowing the film audience to see their images on the on-stage CRT TV monitors. British video refresh rates being at 25 fps, and film cameras one frame short at 24 fps, Lester adjusted his cameras’ frame rates to 25 to avoid the characteristic black bar “roll” seen when a film camera’s frame rate is less than that of a video monitor’s. “He shot at 25 fps, but with them miming on set to the music played at the proper speed, when it’s projected back at 24 fps, it sounds slow,” Okell explains. “That’s 4% slower, which makes it a semi-tone lower than on the record. The slower speed is imperceptible to the human eye, but definitely noticeable to the ear.”
I hope this helps.
That thought occurred to me too. I once produced a theatrically released film featuring Stephen Hawking, and although we shot it in the UK we recorded it at 24fps. When the UK TV version was shown, the frame rate was adjusted to 25fps. Hawking, who kept the same synthesised voice for the second half of his life, rang to complain that his voice was pitched higher. That one frame per second doesn’t sound like much but it really makes a difference
I actually wrote this song for George, he never thank me for it, not even a card…
Don’t be so naive. John and Paul usually misremember who wrote what because none of them actually wrote it. Professional songwriters have been around for ages and guarantee the product will sell, that’s what they get paid for. I love the Beatles, but they were too good to be true. George Martin took care of the music, Brian Epstein took care of the image and marketing, and the Beatles took care of the live performances and voice recordings in the studio. Do you think a band is going to write and compose all those hits while touring, making TV interviews and shows, making movies, photo shoots, etc? No, by the 3rd album they would’ve burnt out from exhaustion.
Interesting thought and it seems perfectly plausible (if not likely), except for one fact. That is, over the course of 50 years, no one has ever come forward with such a claim. I’m not sure that it would even be particularly scandalous for John or Paul to have admitted to getting outside songwriting help — George Martin’s well known songwriting contributions notwithstanding (the “harpsichord” part in “In My Life,” for instance). Or for George Harrison to drop such a tidbit when in one of his snarkier moods. It’s fairly common knowledge that other songwriters (Dez, Wendy and Lisa, and several others) made substantial contributions to Prince’s catalog, for example, some credited and some not. If John and Paul had gotten songwriting help, too many people would have known about it for it to have remained a secret. It underscores the extent of their achievement. With nearly 200 songs written by Lennon-McCartney and and recorded by The Beatles, they did not produce even one true miss, let alone their incredible number of hits and other beloved titles. Incredible but true, they wrote em all. And in that whirlwind of composition in any spare moment they found between concerts, travel, rehearsals, appearances, etc, they’ve forgotten some of the details of who wrote what. Go figure.
That’s rubbish – The Beatles made their own records, wrote their own songs and played their own instruments in the studio.
Even the famous Wrecking Crew session drummer Hal Blaine had the decency to acknowledge the reality of The Beatles making their own records and in this interview (and in the other clip), he talks fondly of working with George on sessions for Jackie Lomax.
I like the guitar tone. If that’s George’s 1st Gretsch I want one.
There’s just something about John’s guitar part here. Sounds very “happy and cheerful”