‘Another Girl’, released on the soundtrack to The Beatles’ second film Help!, was written by Paul McCartney while on holiday in Tunisia.
The day before recording began for Help!, McCartney returned to England from Hammamet, a Tunisian resort where he was the guest of the British government. The embassy owned a secluded villa on the coast, which was discreet enough for someone as famous as a Beatle.
The villa had a bathroom decorated with Islamic tiles. McCartney composed ‘Another Girl’ there, with its acoustics perfect for songwriting.
You’d be sitting there having a cup of tea when the Russian delegation would be shown through by the government. You didn’t have any control over that. ‘This is one of our cultural guests.’ ‘Hello, how are you?’
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
Although little more than a filler on the album, McCartney has rightly claimed that very few Beatles songs were so cynically recorded.
It’s a bit much to call them fillers because I think they were a bit more than that, and each one of them made it past the Beatles test. We all had to like it. If anyone didn’t like one of our songs it was vetoed. It could be vetoed by one person. If Ringo said, ‘I don’t like that one,’ we wouldn’t do it, or we’d have to really persuade him.
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles
In the Help! film, the group performed ‘Another Girl’ in the Bahamas, while standing on coral reef on Balmoral Island, near New Providence Island. In the sequence McCartney held a woman in a bikini like a guitar, pretending to play her.
Featuring unusually harsh, occasionally smug lyrics (“She’s sweeter than all the girls and I’ve met quite a few”), ‘Another Girl’ may have been about McCartney’s relationship with Jane Asher. As noted in Ian MacDonald’s book Revolution In The Head, throughout their relationship McCartney kept a secret flat in London which he used for encounters with other women.
In the studio
The Beatles began recording ‘Another Girl’ on 15 February 1965, the same day they also worked on ‘Ticket To Ride’ and ‘I Need You’.
They capturing the rhythm track for ‘Another Girl’ in a single take. Track one contained McCartney’s bass guitar and Ringo Starr’s drums; track two had John Lennon’s Fender electric and George Harrison’s Gibson acoustic guitar; track three contained McCartney’s lead vocals, with backing from Harrison and Lennon; and track four had more vocals from Lennon and McCartney, tom-tom from Starr, and Harrison on Gretsch electric guitar. This last overdub was a guitar flourish, recorded 10 takes for the song’s ending, to be edited onto the song at a later date.
The next day McCartney overdubbed a lead guitar part. Harrison’s ending, meanwhile, was dropped during the mixing stage.
Few folks would mistake this for one of their most cutting-edge, profound or even most musically impressive efforts, but I marvel at how these “fillers” are still SO dang catchy. What other group has throways that can immediately make you tap your feet and sing along with gusto?!
I like Pauls’s sort of unhinged lead guitar fills. Sounds like a kid who will never get another chance to play lead, so he’s making the most of it. Especially the ending.
I dunno, this songs is just a great guilty pleasure of mine.
George Harrison taped 10 edit pieces of a guitar flourish. Is there a chance to hear it or was it erased from the recording tapes ?
dude PAUL played lead on this song, lol.
As clearly stated in the description. As is the fact that George did 10 takes that weren’t used. You’re either reading the description or you are just being snarky. You chose.
Is there a Beatles song that is closer to The Monkees blueprint than this?
One of the best song, Beatles 1965. Guitars, drums, bass, vocals. Everything is great.
One of the best songs from “Help!”, in my opinion. Actually, the guitar work was quite advanced for early 1965. Didn’t hear too many licks like this on Top 40 radio back then. This (like “I’ve Just Seen A Face”) is a song that could be worked up with a very credible C&W arrangement also. Just imagine the guitar licks being replaced by a steel guitar…
In the Beatles’s movie, “Help!” made in 1965, Paul plays a woman as if she’s a guitar during the “Another Girl” song sequence. Who is that woman?! I don’t want to be creepy or anything, I just want to know. Like, send her a postcard saying, “Good job 43 years ago!” or something.
That’s creepy Jose.
Jenny Landry
It’s not Jenny Landry in that scene but i also would like to know her name
Not a serious song. A very fun song. Underrated.
This is a great, underrated Beatle song. They may call them fillers…but it rocks. And the overdubbing or double tracking that’s out of sync on the voices creates that boss echo chamber effect that mark so much of their early work ..
A good track from a solid album. I feel AHDN and WTB to be superior albums although I know that most people would disagree.
I have always thought of this as an early reggae type song, the same way She’s a Woman does as well.
Me too; same upbeat chording
According to George Martin’s production notes George plays the rhythm acoustic on Gibson J-160e and John plays the off beat electric guitar on Fender Stratocaster. (And of course Paul plays the lead guitar fills on his Epiphone Casino).
Like many, many Beatles songs, if this one appeared today for the first time it would be a huge hit. Greatest band ever. Greatest songwriters ever. Simply the best.
My favorite Help song to listen to and to play. Love the vocal beginning and Paul’s lead guitar
As some else said if this had been released as a single, it would have been a huge hit.Paul McCartney really is the master of catchy tunes and this is just another example. It is great in the film “Help” with this song, when The Beatles are in the Bahamas.
I always thought the lyric was “She’s sweeter than all the girls, and I’ve HAD quite a few,” making the “harsh, occasionally smug” lyrics more harsh and smug.
According to notes written by George Martin in 1965, George played acoustic guitar while John played electric rhythm on his Fender.
I agree with many statements here and that this being a “filler” song is ridiculous. They didn’t have to revolutionize songwriting with every track they recorded. I enjoy these little gems in their catalogue that are not as familiar as some on rotation.
It would have been interesting to hear George Harrison’s original solo and compare it to McCartney’s. One of the reasons George was so annoyed with Paul was that he did stuff like this. Pity that Paul was so focused on his work that sometimes he’d forget the bigger picture was keeping the band enthusiastic about playing with one another.
If George was annoyed with Paul for making the swap, then it was really George who was forgetting the big picture – because Paul’s imaginative, funky guitar work is what makes the song really unusual and great. George’s solo I’m sure was fine but it couldn’t have been as good and memorable as Paul’s.
It couldn’t?
Probably not. Paul finally got a guitar and started doing leads himself out of frustrations over George’s oft-inability to create good, memorable leads himself. Like with his vocals, it took George a while to find his style and confidence. That would come with his discovery of all things India, and simple maturity.
I disagree with what you say about George being unable to come up with good or memorable lead guitar parts, because it’s absolute balderdash: just listen to his guitar playing on “Birthday”, “A Hard Day’s Night”, “Happiness is a Warm Gun”, “Here Comes the Sun”, “Roll Over Beethoven” and “Something” and you will hear what a good lead guitarist he actually was.
Paul was not intending to jeopardize George’s job as lead guitarist nor did he ever stop being the band’s bassist and besides, George’s guitar flourish was an edit piece, but went unused, so to say that Paul erased it and replaced it with his own is inaccurate.
Pete Best, on the other hand, was incapable of coming up with inventive drum parts – if you listen to the few surviving recordings with him on drums, he almost always played in one style, no matter what song it was – and that was clearly one reason why he got sacked.
That is nonsense. George was going beyond his initial rockabilly Gretsch sound and diversifying his repertoire of guitars as early as 1963 when he started to play the nylon-string acoustic guitar. During the ‘Help!’ sessions, he was starting to experiment with effects such as the volume pedal, Leslie speaker and even a bit of tremolo, which hardly matches the description of a musician who “can’t see the big picture”.
So what if George went into the Indian thing? It was no different to Paul going into classical music or brass bands or John going into experimental avant-garde music.
George also liked exploring different sounds for the band’s records, according to George Martin, and it says on Beatles Wiki that he showed electronics to John, Paul and Ringo as well as stereophonic sound. He was also the one who introduced the Moog synthesizer to his bandmates and they were all interested in its sonic potential.
I absolutely love this song, such a great song from the Help! album.
Hear him play this live in State College a few years ago, and it still rocks. Long live “filler” so sparkling as this!
Another Girl and The Night Before are fun songs. If people think they are fillers then so be it but I think they are still pretty darn good. Thanks.
From this day forward, I beseech, command, implore and suggest that NO BEATLES SONG IS “UNDERRATED.” EVERY SINGLE released single and album and EVEN THEIR OUTTAKES AND TRASH has been gone over with a fine tooth comb from THE MOMENT THEY WERE RELEASED UNTIL THIS VERY SECOND and continue to be deciphered and listened to obsessively by MILLIONS OF PEOPLE. There isn’t one lick, one fill, one lyric or one mistake that hasn’t been discussed, debated, fawned over or criticized.
Stop saying “underrated,” will ya? “Ringo is underrated as a drummer.” “George is underrated as a lead guitarist.” “John is underrated as composer of ballads.” No, they’re not, none of them are, not in the slightest. Ta and jam butties all around Gear Fab
Paul going into classical music or John going into avant-garde is hardly the same. Neither required putting aside the skills of one instrument to learn another. I’m not saying that George didn’t develop or wasn’t innovative in the early days but he dropped the ball regarding his guitar skills to concentrate on the sitar around 1966/1967. He more or less admitted that.
As far as the bigger picture goes – if George started to write songs as well then why shouldn’t he relinquish the lead guitar at times to Paul and John? After all, the original contract was for John and Paul to be the songwriters and George as lead guitarist. If the boundaries for songwriting moved then it seems fair enough for the boundaries for sharing instruments move as well. It wasn’t one rule for George and another for the rest of them.
No comments about the bridge? It’s incredible. And the lead playing is quirky to the max and totally unique in the world of pop lead guitar.
Are you talking about the guitar tag at the end of the bridge? (..she will always be my friend…). Nothing all that “incredible” there.
On the chorus part, I really hear Lennon more than Harrison and McCartney
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder……a song’s “beauty” is in the ears of the beholder. Some people think a song has to be complicated or sophisticated to be deemed good. Nonsense! Would Buddy Rich add anything to a Beatles song because of his complex and fast fills? Absolutely not. Just as Ringo added simple, yet unique drums to the songs, they were not throw-off “fillers” they were unique parts that added so much to the songs. Just look at his amazing, yet simple and unique part on A Day In the Life. Another Girl may not be a “sophisticated” song yet it is an excellent song with beautiful harmonies that makes you feel good.