Was She Told When She Was Young

The second song on side two of the Parlophone UK LP "Rubber Soul" or the ninth song on the CD version of the same was an original Lennon/McCartney composition written mainly by John entitled "Girl" supposedly about a dream girl Lennon had in mind. It's a mainly acoustic number and almost Russian sounding with a minor-major chord verse and a doo-wop type chorus. Interestingly, the Beatles arrangement plays around a bit with deep inhaling during the chorus and Paul and George singing the word "tit" over and over during the middle eight - probably some sort of inside joke. Maybe they were just in a nasty mood. This song was recorded during a marathon 13 hour session as it was late in the game and the LP was due to be delivered in the stores very soon. It's amazing that "Rubber Soul" is regarded as such a major work by the Beatles and one of the best albums and yet the whole thing was rushed with a lot of tunes being written rather quickly including "Girl".

"Girl" was recorded on Thursday November 11 1965 and two takes were required to complete the backing track. The instrumentation for the basic track was bass, drums, acoustic and overdubs included the vocals and backing vocals, the "russian" sounding stacatto acoustic near the end and some extra cymbal work by Ringo.

"Girl" was mixed for both mono and stereo on Monday November 15 1965 from the control room of Studio One. Another stereo mix (or maybe just an embellishment) was conducted in the 1980s for the release of the official 1987 CD release of "Rubber Soul". The difference is a touch of reverb to the song. This "mix" can also be found on the remastered mono set as a bonus track.

"Girl" is available on the Parlophone UK LP/CD "Rubber Soul" as well as the North American Capitol version of the LP/CD "Rubber Soul". The song is also featured in the Apple 2-LP/2-CD "The Beatles 1962-1966" and the EMI/Capitol compilation 2-LP "Love Songs".

"Girl" was never performed live. As an interesting aside, "Girl" was almost released as a single during the release of the 2-LP "Love Songs" project but it was scrapped - although some picture sleeves exist. It was to be backed with "You're Going To Lose That Girl" from the "Help!" soundtrack. The catalogue number would have been Capitol 4506. Promotional discs and labels do exist with "Girl" in mono on one side and stereo on the flip side (Capitol P-4506).