‘Little Child’ was another of The Beatles’ original songs on their second album. Although written with Ringo Starr in mind, it was recorded with the writers sharing vocal duties.
‘Little Child’ was another effort of Paul and I to write a song for somebody. It was probably Ringo.
According to Paul McCartney, ‘Little Child’ was inspired in part by 1950s folk singer Elton Hayes. He acknowledged the melody’s debt to ‘Whistle My Love’, which featured in the 1952 Walt Disney film The Story Of Robin Hood.
’I’m so sad and lonely’, that little bit came from a line: ‘Whistle, my love, and I will come to thee, I’ll always find you’. It’s actually not the same tune, but in my mind it was a quote from Elton Hayes.
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
In the studio
‘Little Child’, never part of The Beatles’ live set, took some time to get right in the studio. They recorded it over three sessions at Abbey Road, initially laying down two takes on 11 September 1963, then returning to it the following day for a further 16 takes, including overdubs of harmonica and piano.
The Beatles were still dissatisfied with their progress, however, and recorded three more takes on 3 October 1963. Despite spending a considerable amount of time on the song by 1963 standards, the performance sounds spontaneous and, at times, fairly slapdash.
‘Little Child’ was a work job. Certain songs were inspirational and you just followed that. Certain other songs were, ‘Right, come on, two hours, song for Ringo for the album’.
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
Since it’s the first song to show audio panning, I think the harmonica is panning to the right during the instrumental break and pans back to the left afterwards.
It’s not panning, they are two different overdubs.
Forgettable fluff though it is, I always enjoy this one. Paul’s piano chugs along nicely and John blows harmonica “con brio” to borrow Paul’s phrase describing Ringo’s singing.
It’s not Ringo singing, it’s John and Paul duetting! I wonder if Joe knows when it was switched from being a Ringo song.
This has always been a favourite of mine from With The Beatles – it’s full of raw energy. To this day (I was 7 in 1963), I remember reading Tony Barrow’s sleeve notes, saying something like, “While Paul was adding the piano part, John was standing by another mike playing the harmonica,” and feeling privileged to have been given some information about how this wonderful music was created. And it’s a feeling I still get today, partly thanks to this brilliant website!
I wonder if in the parts “If you want…” and “When you’re by my side…” it’s John singing solo overdubbing his vocals.
There were only two instances in the song where I was sure I could hear McCartney singing. They were during the “come on come on,” parts and the “oh yeahs” at the very end. Other than that it mostly sounded like Lennon double-tracked. Anybody have any further insight into this?
Keep in mind that on alot of the earlier tracks, Paul and John doubled each other. Paul actually refers to this practice in the Anthology, where he had to “thicken” John’s voice from his demos of Free As A Bird and Real Love. Really neat trick they were always able to do! Genius! Pure Genius!
This song and “Every Little Thing” often raise debates on their lead singer(s) – whether it was John alone double tracked or in duet with Paul.
According to my ears, Paul is singing duet with John on “Every Little Thing”, but not on this song.
I can’t hear Paul at all other than on the “oh yeah” at the end of the song.
I love this song by the way – even if it’s more of a “work” song, it’s catchy, exciting and one of my favourites on With The Beatles.
Not sure how your listening to it. I am just listening to it on youtube 2009 stereo remaster and definitely hear Paul taking the higher notes. I hear him best at the “I’m so sad and lonely” part.
I think it’s John harmonising with himself. It has that distinctive nasal timbre of his voice. The only time I clearly hear Paul is his “Oh Yeah!” at the end.
I agree with Julian. The “I” of “I’m so sad and lonely” sounds quite a bit like Paul, but the “lonely”, to me, makes it very clear that it’s Paul.
I have to disagree. I couldn’t make McCartney’s voice out for a while either but after I listened intently to the vocals several times (particularly on the stereo mix) I came to the conclusion that they did indeed duet on this song. True Lennon’s voice is a little more prominent but I could here McCartney’s phrasing come through every once in a while.
Forgettable fluff? I don’t think so!
I concur. It’s too raw and raunchy for fluff.
Definitely an under-rated song. It’s hilarious if you interpret “I’m so sad and lonely” as being sarcastic. The singer is wooing a young woman on the dance-floor, saying “I’m so sad and lonely” with a big playful grin on his face.
Sam, I agree completely on the sarcasm! Sounds so much like John being silly. I recall a photo of young John which he sent back to his Aunt Mimi from Hamburg, and he wrote on it, “My ‘come hither’ look” or some such silliness. I feel like this line was sung in the same tone. I hear John doing that here and there on the early stuff. Like in She Loves You, when he sings “apologize to her-rer…” I feel like he’s being sarcastic on those lines. And I love it!
I love this song and John and Paul’s duet. Johns harmonica playing adds so much to this song. It is just such a catchy and infectious number.
Did George actually play on this song? I can’t hear much guitar on it.
There is a misunderstandig at how this song was recorded, there is really no proper guitar part. Little Child and I Wanna Be Your Man are the only song with vocals not done live but overdubbed later after the rhythm track had been laid down. Which indicates that Ringo was considered as singer for the song but it was John and Paul who overdubbed the vocals in the end, as we can hear on the final recording.
The basic live track was Ringo on drums, Paul on piano, John on harmonica (also singing “so come on come on come on” bit) and George playing “bass part”, probably just on his guitar’s bass strings. There is no other guitar in the song. This basic track can be heard in the left channel of the stereo mix. The only exception is the solo where sound engineer panned the harmonica to the right to have control over it during the mixing stage. The solo reveals that the harmonica was done live as there is huge amount of drums leakage onto the harmonica’s mic.
Ringo might have tried his vocals but probably didn’t feel the song. So John and Paul overdubbed the vocals. They sing in unison except for the ” I’m so sad and lonely” bit where John sings the upper part and Paul the harmony below. They also split for some ad libs during fade out.
Good observations . Actually, this is the first piano-based song on the entire Beatle catalogue .
Like Paul said just a work song, and not a really good one, maybe the worst on the album?
I kind of like this song. It’s energetic. Definitely better than the majority of the covers they did on the With The Beatles album which I think are fairly lackluster. I do like Money though.
The majority of the cover versions on With the Beatles are fairly lackluster? I don’t think so. The Beatles weren’t a “one-trick pony” act, they learned all sorts of music in order to fill those numerous hours of playing every night in Hamburg and the Cavern Club days. Their audience enjoyed the variety they gave. So many wonderful covers the Beatles themselves had cut, not only with rock & roll, rockabilly, R&B, soul, Brill Building pop, and American popular standards. This was why these four guys from Liverpool were miles ahead of their peers.
Wreckless Eric did a nice cover of Little Child for a Mojo Magazine cd called Im With The Beatles .
I don’t think anyone’s mentioned just how badass John’s harmonica is in this song. It really brings it up a few notches, maybe the most forceful harmonica playing he ever did.
On the back of the album cover, which I no longer have, sadly, I recall reading that George Martin played piano on ‘Little Child,’ although it could have also been, ‘You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me.’ Basically over 60 years ago.