Got to Get You into My Life

Drugs come into the lyric (McCartney confirmed song is about marijuana), alongside the motifs of smoking and love, and they had done the same on 'Day Tripper' six months earlier. The lyric turns to double meaning (love song surface, ode to cannabis underneath). An extrametrical rhyme arrives once, "hold you / told". The title uses the word get and also runs exceptionally long, and the writing takes after R&B. One for the curious, the line "I want you to" turns up in 6 Beatles songs, among them 'Now and Then', 'You Really Got a Hold on Me' and 'Anna (Go to Him)'.

'Got to Get You into My Life' is a soul and R&B song in G major, around 125 BPM, and it owes something to Stax and Motown. It brings in woodwind players, which also turns up in 'You've Got to Hide Your Love Away', a year earlier. You can hear a melodic bass. Whether it was meant or not, its C → G7 → C → G7 → C → G → F chord progression is the move 'Get Back' makes as D → A → D → A → D → A → G.

Reportedly conceived by McCartney as an ode to marijuana. An early acoustic-with-harmonium version was rebuilt as soul-style R&B with brass overdubs at EMI Studio 2. Work on it ran from 7 April to 17 June 1966, and they reached for the Ludwig Super Classic, Starr's own kit since 1964. Close mic'ing and ADT (double tracked vocal) were used in making the record. It is taken out on a fade-out, a thing they returned to 46 times across 3 years. Of the 19 songs they began recording in 1966, this was the 2nd, and the 104th they ever made.

This song was written and sung by McCartney. There is a role swap on it, McCartney on electric guitar, with trumpet and tenor saxophone filling it out, the latter appearing on eight Beatles records in all. George Martin played organ, as he also did on 'Across the Universe (Wildlife version)' and 'Yes It Is'.

This track was released August 5, 1966, as part of Revolver. It got inside the American top ten (#7 Billboard Hot 100), and has been widely covered (Earth Wind & Fire, 1978, Cliff Bennett & the Rebel Rousers) ever since. Its first American album was Revolver (US), three days later. This song was the 15th of the 16 records the Beatles released in 1966, and the 117th counting from the start.