I'll Be Back

The track reaches for motifs of love, relationship and greetings, and the telling is confessional in tone. There is anaphora in the writing, and the writing draws on Buddy Holly. Incidentally, the line 'I love you' turns up in 19 Beatles songs, among them 'You Really Got a Hold on Me', 'Words of Love' and 'In My Life'.

'I'll Be Back' is a folk rock and ballad song, written in A major and taken at about 108 BPM, with Del Shannon influences. The tune carries an appoggiatura leaning against the chord, which also turns up in 'This Boy', eight months earlier. Also, it reaches for a min6 chord, one that thirteen of the Beatles' records feature, such as 'Michelle' and 'Sie Liebt Dich'. As it happens, the harmony moves Bm → E → D → E, the same shape 'Do You Want to Know a Secret' takes as F♯m → B7 → A → B.

Cut on June 1, 1964 at EMI Studio 2 in 16 takes - the band first attempted the song as a 3/4 waltz before abandoning that arrangement, settling on the irregular-phrased 4/4 reading captured on the final master. The Gibson J-160E was Lennon's acoustic, 1964 being the year it turns up most. The session was set up with the Ludwig Downbeat, Starr's own kit since 1963, and the record carries double tracked vocal, as on 139 of their records. It shares its session day with three others, the 47th to the 50th of their career.

The words and the music are both Lennon's. It was cut by the standard four-piece, with classical guitar (Harrison's nylon-string fills) in the arrangement, which turns up on seven Beatles records in all, such as 'Till There Was You' and 'And I Love Her'.

The song reached the public as an album track on A Hard Day's Night (UK). Held back from the US LP and issued on Capitol's Beatles '65 in December 1964. Never released as a single in any territory. In the running order it closes the album. It got there five months later, with a mix of Beatles For Sale tracks with recent singles including 'I Feel Fine'. This track was the 19th of 35 released in that year, and the 53rd counting from the start.