You're Going to Lose That Girl

The words include a question ("What else can I do?"), and the lyric touches the motifs of plea and relationship. It is third person throughout, most at home in the Beatles' 1968 songs. A curiosity, the title is one of the longest they wrote and also mentions a woman. The language is built on a limited vocabulary and neutral in tone.

Written in E major and taken at about 132 BPM, 'You're Going to Lose That Girl' is a rock and pop piece. The tune carries call and response (backing vocals echo lead lines), and the Beatles had done the same on 'Baby It's You' 2 years earlier. You can hear yeah vocals. Then, it features a guitar solo, and the key moves from E major to G major in the bridge. Interestingly, its G → C → G → C → F chord progression is the move 'Drive My Car' makes as A → D/G → A → D7 → G7. Looking at the arrangement, on Help!, This song is the one track with bongos on it, out of 15 such recordings across the catalogue.

The song came out of EMI Studio 2, cut in two takes during an afternoon session. Piano and bongos overdubbed at a later session, with Harrison re-recording his guitar solo over the original. He played the Gretsch 6119 Tennessean on it, his guitar, something they had reached for on 'Slow Down' eight months earlier. They reached for the Ludwig Super Classic, Starr's own kit since 1964. Eight Beatles recordings use tape echo in all, this among them. It was the 9th of the 33 songs they began recording in 1965, and the 78th of their career.

The track was written and sung by Lennon. It has everybody in their usual roles, with Lennon on rhythm guitar, McCartney on bass, Harrison on lead guitar and Starr on drums, with bongos. The piano in the mix is a bottom-heavy overdub thickening backing. The bongos in the mix are a latin percussion overdub, 1965 being the year it turns up most.

The record came out with Help! on August 6, 1965. America got it seven days later, on Help! (US), put out by Capitol, with Only 7 Beatles tracks (versus 14 on the UK album), with 5 Ken Thorne orchestral score tracks filling side two. The Beatles put it on screen as well as on the record. This track was the 10th of 33 released in that year, and the 79th in the order they were recorded.