The second of George Harrison’s songs to be recorded by The Beatles, ‘I Need You’ was featured in the film Help! and appeared on its soundtrack LP.
A simple, rather melancholic love song, ‘I Need You’ was written for Harrison’s future wife Pattie Boyd. It appeared in the Help! film during the Salisbury Plain sequence, along with ‘The Night Before’.
In the studio
The Beatles recorded the rhythm track of ‘I Need You’ in five takes on 15 February 1965 – the first day of recording for what was to become the Help! album.
The line-up was unusual, and documented by George Martin in his detailed session notes (originally published in his limited edition book Playback). George Harrison played a Spanish guitar and Paul McCartney was on his usual Höfner bass, but Ringo Starr created a percussive rhythm on the back of a Gibson Jumbo acoustic guitar. John Lennon, meanwhile, played the snare drum on beats two and four throughout the song.
The backing of ‘I Need You’ was recorded onto track one of the tape. Harrison’s guide vocals were recorded at the same time onto track two. More guide vocals, with Harrison joined occasionally by McCartney, were added to track three; and track four contained further vocals from the pair, with cowbell by Starr.
Track four was wiped the next day, and Harrison added a new lead vocal part, with harmonies from Lennon and McCartney. Harrison’s guide vocals on track two were replaced with more vocals from Lennon and McCartney, as well as cowbell by Starr and Harrison’s Rickenbacker 12-string guitar, the latter played using a volume foot pedal. The effect was used again for ‘Yes It Is’ during the same recording session.
There was a guy in Liverpool [Colin Manley] who used to go to school with Paul and I, and he was in a hand called The Remo Four and played with Billy J Kramer. And he got all that stuff and could play all those Chet Atkins ones where you can play both tunes at the same time like ‘Colonel Bogey’. He had a volume pedal, and I think we tried that, but I could never coordinate it. So some of those, what we’d do is, I played the part, and John would kneel down in front of me and turn my guitar’s volume control.
Guitar Player, November 1987
i love every beatle song but for some reason this one is my favorite.i think i like it so much because of its melancholic nature
Same here. This one might be my favorite.
isn´t the 12-strings rickenbacker again with a pedal ?
A volume pedal AND John Lennon turning the volume knob, while George played. George explained: “I could never coordinate it. So some of those, what we do is, I played the part, and John would kneel down in front of me and turn my guitar’s volume control.”
I still don’t get it, and I’m a guitar player. How did they do both of those things at the same time?
Yes it is!!!!!!
Clever allusion?
George could write beautiful melodies…
Too bad they didn’t let him do it more often. I need you is one of his early bests.
He was not a confident writer at this time… He could barely string two songs together so not too sure what you’re saying.
Too bad some people seems to really believe John and Paul owned The Beatles and would not allow George to compose. It is the same as thinking George was kind of stupid person that had no voice and even so remaining in the band for so long. He was not stupid. He could not write songs all the time and only became inspired in 1966 as he said later. He had the same importance as any other , they even had an oral agreement stating that. So if he remained with less space for his song he agreed with that. I know he complained about it during the time of trouble, but that were the times of trouble and all of them said things they should have never said. Really too bad so many regard John and Paul as dictators torturing the dear victim George Harrison. Very sad indeed.
I agree with you – it is so disgraceful for people to gullibly believe all of this journalistic nonsense that John and Paul never allowed George to put any of his songs on Beatles albums, which clearly was not true, as they never made any effort to be the only writers for the group, let alone deny vocal showcases for George and Ringo.
I also agree that in post-1970 interviews, they all said things out of anger that they didn’t mean and obviously regretted blurting out later on. It’s just a part of life that sometimes when we get angry, we say things to upset others and we don’t mean it.
This song & “Don’t Bother Me” are 2 of George’s earliest compositions, & still 2 of my favorites by him… Sorry, but his later Indian stuff left me cold.
Does John play guitar on this? There’s no mention of it in George Martin’s Playback notes … but who knows!
No, he played the snare drum, obviously using the one in Ringo’s drum kit, and even George Martin’s useful handwritten notes confirm this.
Trough the years. I always thought that George used a volume pedal on this song. I’m amused to read here that John controls George’s guitar volume knob while strumming the part/chord A – A9 – Asus4 – A. 🙂
Actually its A – Asus2 – Asus4 – A, i believe
I always loved how in the “Hard Day’s Night” end credits, George pops up to let us know that “I Need You” was (written) by George Harrison. Very dry sense of humour our George.
It was “Help”, not “A Hard Days Night”. 🙂
Lennon seems to have had a hand in writing “I Need You” and “You Like Me Too Much”, spending the night before Starr’s wedding finishing the two songs with Harrison:
…Ritchie and…Maureen tied the knot on 11 February 1965…George and John dared to arrive on a bicycle, looking surprisingly alert considering that he and John had been up most of the night polishing off two of his compositions for possible inclusion on the soundtrack of HELP!…
Alan Clayson, RINGO STARR, p99
“Well it was four-thirty in the morning when we got to bed, and we had to be up at six-thirty–what a fantastic time.”
Harrison in Alan Clayson, THE QUIET ONE, p168
(and Record Mirror, January 1, 1966)
The slow whole-note backup vocals by John and Paul are exquisite, and provide a great deal of the melancholy feel that mentioned above.
That musical genius, my friend… saying so much by doing so little!
(Similar accolades for their wonderful backup singing on “I’m Happy Just to Dance With You”)
I love all the technical data of those great recording sessions.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have also a quick pointer to a description of every instrument used?
I always felt “I Need You by George Harrison” was spoken over the end credits of Help because in AHDN “all songs by Lennon/McCartney” was credited even tho “Don’t Bother Me” be George was included in the disco scene.
The songs written for the movie (i.e., soundtrack) were indeed Lennon/McCartney. The bits-and-pieces of previous songs were not written for the movie and not considered part of the actual soundtrack.
I love I need you its just awesome cos back at school I sang it at a concert with a partner who gave me butterflies wow wonder where he would be right now memories beautiful schooldays
One of the things I do here at my office is every time a Beatles song comes on Little Steven’s Underground Garage on Sirius XM I jump over here and read about the song while listening. Very informative.
Beatles’ songs are the only ones that I can sing word-for-word while actually concentrating on something else, such as reading about the song while it is playing as you describe.
One of the highlights of the help album. I also enjoy the night before and ive just seen a face to name a couple.
I love this song. I could never figure out what that background instrument was. It almost sounds like an accordion until the end when it does sound like a guitar. Glad I came here to find that out.
Needs more cowbell.
I first heard this song on”Love Songs” compilation and instantly loved it.Later got it on the album it was originally off “Help!”. Fine George Harrison composition, love the words, his vocal delivery and 12 string electric guitar on this. As some one else pointed out Harrison was a great melody writer. Love this in the film “Help!”.
The vocal is not George alone. Listen closely and you will hear Paul’s voice, unison singing.
That’s why the vocal sounds so good.
No, the lead vocal is George alone – as the article says if you read the sequencing of tracks. Paul did the harmony with John.
Did George ever play this live -during the post Beatle years?
No. Never. One would like to say: isn’t it a pity?
Has anyone every explained WHY Ringo didn’t drum on this as usual?
Should you have taken the time to read the heading…you would know, that Ringo had “worked out a rythym on the back of a Gibson acoustic guitar’, using his hands. So what we hear is Ringo…playing a drum rythym on the back of a guitar with his hands, while John, hits a snare drum, on the 2 and 4 beats. Your welcome.
Maurice Tani (SF Bay area artist), recorded a beautiful C&W tinged version on one of his CD albums.
Saw him play his version live, so great when you hear other musicians realization and deep love for the Beatles song book.
good question on the snare part by John…my totally intuitive guess is if John was up late the night before helping George polish the song he probably was banging the 2 and 4 beat with his hand, a drum stick or something on a table and that led to him playing on the record..maybe a little payback from George for helping out….the great thing I think is that John didn’t ask for writer’s credit…he and Paul were always going to be a team as writers no matter which one of them wrote the song, but I have read before how John and Paul both would lend suggestions to George…I also think George’s writing had to improve significantly just being around the other duo. You can hear influences.. but George was great in his own way and when nailed one he really hit it out of the park…a couple of the best Beatle songs were his I believe…he just wasn’t near as prolific as Lennon/McCartney
That was true – at this point in time, George didn’t have too many songs that he had written to offer to the group for recording. He did acknowledge this in the Anthology documentary (I’m just paraphrasing).
Gerry Beckley of America was interviewed recently.
Beckley mentioned that the title for the America song ‘I Need You’ is from George Harrison’s song.
I never knew that John played drums on a Beatles song, was this the only time Lennon played drums?
No. The second case is Back In The U.S.S.R., which The Beatles recorded when Ringo temporarily left the group. According to engineer Ken Scott: “They did Back In The U.S.S.R. with what I seem to recall was a composite drum track of bits and pieces, possibly with all of the other three playing drums.”
In the “Recording Reference Manual” book, it shows different recorded tracks onto the four-track. Someone has Martin’s notes on the song?