Monday, April 1, 2013

"Hold Me Tight" Outtakes

There are not many outtakes from the Beatles' Second UK LP "With the Beatles" but a couple of tunes have been issued and "Hold Me Tight" is one of them.
The song was originally recorded at EMI Studio Two on February 11 1963 in order for it to appear on the first UK LP "Please Please Me". Nine takes were completed with four edit takes and it was decided to scrap the song at that point. None of these takes have been released (as far as I know) although it would be interesting to hear the genesis of the tune at this point.
Fast forward to September 12 1963: The Beatles are once again at EMI Studio Two working on the second LP and "Hold Me Tight" is once again brought to the fore. This time, we have various takes that have been available on bootleg. There is a short rehearsal take (a fragment actually) before we get into the recorded takes:  Takes 20, 21 and 22 have vocal mistakes by Paul and/or backing vocal mistakes. Takes 23 picks it up again with another vocal mistake by Paul and take 24 nails the backing and overdubs are added to this.
The overdub session consist of takes 25 and 26 (this overdub being used on most of the released version). Takes 27 and 28 break down while take 29 is also completed and could be edited onto the final commercial release as well as take 26.
According to John C. Winn's excellent book (Way Beyond Compare): it is take 26 used on the mono version of the song and maybe take 29 finally used for the stereo version.
The session can be heard in parts on both "Unsurpassed Masters Vol. 1" and "Unsurpassed Masters Vol. 7" on compact disc. If you are looking for take 20, it can be found on the vinyl LP "Arrive without Travelling/Arrive Without Aging".  For the entire session, you can find it on the CD "The Ultimate Collection Volume 2, Studio sessions, March 05 and Septe
mber 12 1963".

1 comment:

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