You Really Got a Hold on Me

The motifs of plea, self reflection and relationship run through the lyric, and the writing is confessional in tone. The writing reaches for anaphora. As it happens, the title is long by any standard and also leans on the word get, which the Beatles used more in 1967 than in any other year, and it reaches once for extrametrical rhyme ("love you / of"). The language is built on a limited vocabulary and grim in subject (mistreated yet unable to leave). A small coincidence, but the line "I'm always thinking of you" turns up in one other Beatles song, 'Ask Me Why'. In 1963, more of their songs put the word get in the title than in any other year: 3 of them, 'All I've Got to Do', 'I'll Get You', and this song.

'You Really Got a Hold on Me' runs near 78 BPM in A major, and it is a soul and R&B piece from beginning to end. The tune carries call and response (backing echoes title line), 1963 being the year it turns up most. Worth a footnote, the chords run A → A7 → D → A → E7, the same shape 'Kansas City / Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!' plays as G → G7 → C7 → G → D7.

Cut in 11 takes at EMI Studio 2, with George Martin overdubbing the piano part. Lennon played the Rickenbacker 325, his guitar, 1963 being the year it turns up most. The session was set up with the Ludwig Downbeat, heard on 17 songs that year. Four songs came off that day's tapes, the 19th to the 22nd of the career.

Smokey Robinson wrote it, and Lennon and Harrison share the lead. George Martin played piano, as he also did on 'Lovely Rita' and 'A Hard Day's Night'.

The track came out with With The Beatles on November 22, 1963. America got it five months later, on The Beatles' Second Album, put out by Capitol. This track was the 26th of 32 released in that year, and the 28th in their whole run.