And I Love Her

(Lennon/McCartney)

Quick Facts

Composer	Paul
Lead Vocal	Paul
Recorded	Feb 1964
Length	2:30
Key	E
Noted Takes	21
Producer	George Martin
Engineer	Norman Smith

Originally released on

A Hard Day's Night

Parlophone — PMC 1230 / PCS 3058

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Story

“And I Love Her” is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1964 album and film A Hard Day’s Night. Written principally by Paul McCartney and credited to the Lennon–McCartney partnership, it is one of the earliest Beatles ballads to feature a nylon-string acoustic guitar as the lead instrument. The song required three separate recording sessions and two complete re-makes before reaching its released form — an unusual level of reworking for the Beatles at this stage of their career.

McCartney’s vocal is accompanied by George Harrison’s nylon-string classical guitar, which provides the song’s distinctive arpeggiated introduction and the melodic riff between verses. The arrangement evolved substantially across the three sessions: the first attempt on 25 February 1964 used a heavier, electric arrangement reminiscent of Scott McKenzie; the second attempt on 26 February replaced drums with bongos and claves but was abandoned after seventeen takes; the third attempt on 27 February produced the spare, acoustic-led arrangement heard on the released master in just two takes.¹

What’s distinctive

At 2:30 it sits at the 46th percentile by length. One of 65 songs led primarily by Paul. Recorded during the A Hard Day’s Night (1964) sessions. Take count: 21 across three sessions — two complete re-makes before the released take 21 was achieved on 27 February 1964. The “take 50” sometimes cited is Paul’s joke: after Norman Smith announced “Take 14” during the 26 February session, Paul quipped “Ha, take 50!” — this was not an actual take count.¹

Recording

And I Love Her is the canonical early-Beatles example of a song re-made from scratch across multiple sessions. The released master (take 21, 27 February 1964) is the product of three distinct attempts over three consecutive days, each with a substantially different arrangement. The first attempt (25 February, takes 1–2) featured a heavier, more electric arrangement; the second (26 February, takes 3–19) introduced Ringo on bongos and claves in place of the drum kit but was abandoned after seventeen takes; the third (27 February, takes 20–21) stripped the arrangement down to the spare acoustic-guitar-led form heard on the released master, completing in just two takes what the previous two sessions could not achieve in nineteen.¹
All three sessions were at EMI Studio Two, Abbey Road, on the studio’s Telefunken M10/T9U four-track machine through the REDD.51 console (installed in Studio Two from January 1964, replacing the REDD.37). George Martin produced all three sessions; Norman Smith engineered throughout. The four-track process in early 1964 was still relatively new in its configuration: “From January 1964 the Beatles used the new Telefunken four-track machine in their sessions” — the M10 (and its companion T9U for playback) replaced the BTR-2 mono and earlier Telefunken machines that had been in use. Monitoring was still without headphones for the musicians; a White Elephant speaker placed in the studio provided overdub playback with the microphones’ figure-of-eight rejection pattern used to keep the speaker leakage off the recording.^1,2
George Harrison’s nylon-string classical guitar provides the song’s signature sound — the arpeggiated introduction and the melodic riff heard between verses. This is specifically documented as a nylon-string instrument: the 1964 equipment summary notes “nylon string guitar” as featured on And I Love Her. The nylon-string tone was captured through the standard Studio Two microphone complement of the period, which included the Neumann U47 and U48 as the primary vocal and instrument microphones.²
The mid-session arrangement pivot on 26 February is one of the most documented examples of a Beatles recording being reshaped in the studio. After five hours of work on takes 3–19, Ringo was moved from the drum kit to bongos and claves partway through the session — a significant textural change that lightened the rhythm section but was still not enough to satisfy the group. The session ended with the song left unfinished, to be re-started the following morning.¹
The 27 February morning session (10.00am–1.00pm) produced the released master in just two takes. The contrast with the previous day is striking: where the 26 February evening session ran five hours and produced seventeen takes without a satisfactory result, the morning re-make achieved the final arrangement in three hours and two takes. Take 21 was selected as the best and subsequently used for all mono and stereo masters.¹
Vocal capture and the four-track tape layout. The standard four-track convention in early 1964 placed rhythm instruments on track 1, guitar on track 2, vocals on track 3, and extras (overdubs, effects) on track 4. George Martin preferred to capture live vocals whenever possible rather than overdubbing them later: the performance energy of a live take was considered more valuable than the technical control afforded by a separate vocal overdub. On And I Love Her, the released master’s vocal has the quality of a live performance captured alongside the instruments.²
The amplification for the electric instruments in the 25–27 February sessions was through Vox AC50 Super Twin amplifiers — not the AC30 sometimes attributed to this period. The AC50 Super Twin was the Beatles’ primary stage and studio amplifier from early 1964 through July, captured via Neumann U47 microphones placed on the speaker cabinets. The 27 February session photo documents the Studio Two microphone setup: STC 4038 ribbon microphones on the drum overhead, STC 4033-A on the bass drum and bass cabinet, U47 on the Vox AC50 Super Twin amps, U48 in figure-of-eight pattern for John and Paul’s vocals, and a U47 suspended for John’s acoustic guitar.²
The two-source comparison reveals complementary coverage. Lewisohn provides the definitive session chronology (dates, times, take numbers, personnel, narrative) while Ryan and Kehew provide the equipment context (console, tape machines, microphone placement, amplification, outboard processing). Together they establish that the released master was recorded on the Telefunken M10/T9U four-track through the REDD.51 console at EMI Studio Two, with the RS124, RS114, and Fairchild 660 compressor/limiters available in the signal chain and the BTR-2 used for mono mixdown playback alongside the BTR-3 for stereo.^1,2

Equipment

Studio	EMI Studio Two, Abbey Road (recording, 25–27 Feb 1964); EMI Studio Three / Studio One control rooms (mono & stereo mixing, 9 Jun & 22 Jun 1964)
Tape machine	Telefunken M10/T9U four-track (recording); BTR-2 mono mixdown; BTR-3 stereo mixdown²
Console	REDD.51 (Studio Two, from January 1964)²
Microphones	STC 4038 (drum overhead), STC 4033-A (bass drum & bass cab), Neumann U47 (guitar amps, acoustic guitar), Neumann U48 figure-of-eight (vocals)²
Outboard / effects	RS124, RS114, Fairchild 660 (compressor/limiters); RS127 (EQ)²
Guitars	Nylon-string classical guitar (George Harrison — lead instrument); acoustic guitar (John Lennon)²
Amplifiers	Vox AC50 Super Twin (through July 1964)²

Recording Timeline

25 February 1964 (Tue) — first attempt, EMI Studio Two — 2.30–5.30pm. P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: Richard Langham. Recording: And I Love Her (takes 1–2). The first attempt used a heavier, more electric arrangement — described as having a Scott McKenzie–style guitar introduction. One complete take was achieved. This version was subsequently set aside in favour of the re-make begun the following evening. The 25 February outtake later appeared on Anthology 1 (1995).¹
26 February 1964 (Wed) — second attempt (re-make), EMI Studio Two — 7.00–10.00pm. P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: Richard Langham. Recording: And I Love Her (takes 3–19). The song was re-made with a substantially different arrangement. Partway through the session, Ringo was moved from the drum kit to bongos and claves — a textural shift that lightened the rhythm section. After Norman Smith announced “Take 14,” Paul quipped “Ha, take 50!” — a joke that has been misread in some secondary sources as an actual take count. The session produced seventeen takes but was left unfinished; the re-make would continue the following morning.¹
27 February 1964 (Thu) — third attempt (re-re-make), EMI Studio Two — 10.00am–1.00pm. P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: Richard Langham. Recording: And I Love Her (takes 20–21). The song was re-made again with the arrangement stripped further to its final acoustic-guitar-led form. Take 21 was selected as the best. The spare arrangement — nylon-string guitar, bongos/claves, bass, and vocal — was achieved in just two takes, a striking contrast with the previous evening’s seventeen.¹
3 March 1964 (Tue) — first mono remix, EMI Studio One (control room only) — Mono mixing: And I Love Her (remix 1, from take 21). P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. This first mono remix was later superseded by remix 2, produced on 22 June — the 3 March mix was not used on the released record.¹
9 June 1964 (Tue) — mono tape copying, EMI Studio Three (control room only) — 2.00–5.45pm. P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: Ken Scott. Mono tape copying of And I Love Her alongside seven other A Hard Day’s Night tracks for the United Artists film soundtrack. Two identical tapes of the best mono remixes were prepared for the film company.¹
22 June 1964 (Mon) — released mono remix + stereo mixing, EMI Studio One (control room only) — 10.00–11.30am: mono mixing of And I Love Her (remix 2, from take 21). 11.30am–1.00pm: stereo mixing of And I Love Her (from take 21). P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. An exhaustive day’s remixing, predominantly for the A Hard Day’s Night LP. The Beatles themselves were in Wellington, New Zealand, at the time.¹

When Norman Smith announced “Take 14” over the talkback, Paul jokingly replied “Ha, take 50!” Again, they ended up leaving it for another time, and yet another re-make. At last they got it right — the second take of this second re-make being considered ‘best’.— Mark Lewisohn¹

Studio Notes

Three arrangements in three days — The evolution from a heavier electric arrangement (25 Feb) through an intermediate bongo-and-claves version (26 Feb) to the final spare acoustic arrangement (27 Feb) is one of the most fully documented arrangement pivots in the early Beatles catalogue. Each version represents a distinct conception of the song’s identity: the first attempt placed it in a pop-rock idiom; the second lightened the percussion but retained a fuller instrumental texture; the third achieved the intimacy that defines the released master. The three-day sequence demonstrates how the studio itself functioned as a compositional tool for the Beatles even at this early stage.¹
REDD.51 console — first months of operation in Studio Two — The And I Love Her sessions fell within the first two months of the REDD.51’s installation in Studio Two (January 1964). The REDD.51 replaced the REDD.37 and offered improved signal routing for four-track work. A peculiarity of the REDD.51’s stereo mixing mode meant that the stereo output characteristics differed subtly from the mono: the stereo masters of early-1964 recordings carry the REDD.51’s characteristic tonal signature, distinct from the REDD.37-era recordings of 1963.²
No-headphones monitoring and the White Elephant speaker — During the early-1964 sessions, the Beatles did not use headphones when overdubbing. Instead, a “White Elephant” studio speaker was placed in the live room to play back the previously recorded tracks while the musicians performed their overdubs. The figure-of-eight polar pattern of microphones like the U48 was used to reject the speaker’s output from the recording, relying on the null axis of the figure-of-eight to minimise leakage. This method shaped the room sound and performance energy on records like And I Love Her: the musicians heard their overdubs in the acoustic space of the room rather than in isolated headphone mixes.²
Four-track tape layout convention — The standard early-1964 four-track layout placed rhythm instruments (drums, rhythm guitar) on track 1, lead guitar on track 2, vocals on track 3, and extras (additional overdubs, effects) on track 4. George Martin preferred to capture live vocals during the basic-track take rather than overdubbing later, prioritising performance energy over technical isolation. The interplay between live and overdubbed elements varied by song; on And I Love Her the sparse arrangement allowed greater separation between the nylon-string guitar and the vocal even without the extensive track-bouncing that characterised the more complex recordings of 1966–68.²
Nylon-string guitar as lead instrument — a genre precedent — And I Love Her is one of the first Beatles recordings to use a nylon-string classical guitar as the primary melodic instrument rather than as accompaniment. The nylon-string tone — warmer, rounder, and with less sustain than steel strings — is the defining sonic characteristic of the released master and set a template for the acoustic ballad idiom that the Beatles would revisit on songs like Yesterday (1965) and Blackbird (1968). The equipment summary specifically names And I Love Her alongside the nylon-string guitar entry for 1964.²
Ringo’s bongos and claves — The decision to replace the drum kit with bongos and claves, taken partway through the 26 February session, carried through to the 27 February re-make and the released master. Ringo’s percussion on the released take 21 consists entirely of bongos and claves rather than his Ludwig kit — an early example of the Beatles deploying unconventional percussion to serve a song’s arrangement, a practice that would become more frequent from Rubber Soul (1965) onward.¹
The “take 50” misattribution — Paul’s quip “Ha, take 50!” after Norman Smith announced “Take 14” during the 26 February session has been misread in some secondary sources as evidence that the song required fifty or more takes. The session sheets document exactly 21 takes across three sessions: takes 1–2 (25 Feb), 3–19 (26 Feb), and 20–21 (27 Feb). The joke is in fact evidence of the group’s frustration with the arrangement — by take 14 of the second session they had not yet found the right shape for the song — rather than a literal count.¹
Anthology 1 outtake (25 February version) — The first-attempt version from 25 February 1964 was released on Anthology 1 (1995), providing a rare opportunity to hear the heavier arrangement that was rejected in favour of the acoustic re-make. The two versions illustrate how radically the song changed across three days: the 25 February take is recognisably the same composition but with a substantially different sonic character, confirming that the arrangement evolution documented in the session record produced genuinely distinct recordings rather than minor variations on a single approach.¹

Releases

1964 UK mono LP A Hard Day’s Night (10 July 1964, Parlophone PMC 1230, side A track 5) — Released mono master from remix 2 (22 June 1964, from take 21). P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. The first mono remix (3 March 1964) was superseded by the 22 June remix, which was used on the released LP. The mono and stereo mixing sessions took place the same day (22 June) in the Studio One control room, while the Beatles were in New Zealand.¹
1964 UK stereo LP A Hard Day’s Night (10 July 1964, Parlophone PCS 3058, side A track 5) — Stereo master mixed from take 21 on 22 June 1964 at EMI Studio One. The REDD.51’s stereo mixing mode imparts a subtly different tonal character from the mono remix produced the same morning. The stereo mix was prepared alongside stereo masters for seven other A Hard Day’s Night tracks in a single morning session.^1,2
1964 US LP A Hard Day’s Night (26 June 1964, United Artists UAS 6366, side B) — US Capitol/United Artists pressing from the same masters, with the standard UA mastering-chain differences. The US LP included orchestral film-score tracks by George Martin on side A alongside the Beatles’ recordings on side B.¹
1964 US single (20 July 1964, Capitol 5235) — “And I Love Her” / “If I Fell.” Released as a US single on the same date as the Something New LP. The single format gave the song standalone chart visibility in the American market; the B-side pairing with “If I Fell” placed two A Hard Day’s Night ballads together.¹
1964 US LP Something New (20 July 1964, Capitol T‑2108 / ST‑2108) — The Capitol compilation included And I Love Her alongside other A Hard Day’s Night tracks plus the German-language recording “Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand.”¹
1964 UK EP Extracts from the Film A Hard Day’s Night (6 November 1964, Parlophone GEP 8920) — Four-track EP featuring “A Hard Day’s Night,” “I Should Have Known Better,” “If I Fell,” and “And I Love Her.”¹
1995 Anthology 1 — The 25 February 1964 outtake (takes 1–2, heavier arrangement) was released on Anthology 1, providing a documented alternate version with the pre-acoustic arrangement.
2009 Stereo Remasters — 24-bit flat transfer of the 1968 stereo master (Allan Rouse / Guy Massey / Steve Rooke), preserving the original REDD.51 stereo mix characteristics. The Mono Masters companion carries the 1964 mono master.

Sources

Mark Lewisohn, The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions (New York: Harmony Books, 1988), pp. 39–41, 45–47, 200.
Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew, Recording the Beatles: The Studio Equipment and Techniques Used to Create Their Classic Albums (Houston: Curvebender Publishing, 2006), pp. 374, 376, 378, 385.

Frequently asked

Who wrote And I Love Her?

“And I Love Her” is credited to Paul McCartney (Lennon–McCartney).

Who sings lead on And I Love Her?

The lead vocal on “And I Love Her” is by Paul McCartney.

When was And I Love Her recorded?

“And I Love Her” was recorded across three sessions on 25, 26, and 27 February 1964 at EMI Studio Two, Abbey Road. Takes 1–2 (25 Feb), 3–19 (26 Feb), and 20–21 (27 Feb). The released master is take 21.¹

How many takes did And I Love Her require?

21 takes across three sessions. The song was re-made twice: the first attempt (25 Feb, takes 1–2) was a heavier arrangement; the second attempt (26 Feb, takes 3–19) introduced bongos replacing drums but was left unfinished; the third attempt (27 Feb, takes 20–21) produced the released master.¹

On this page

Story

What’s distinctive

Recording

Equipment

Recording Timeline

Studio Notes

Releases

Sources

Frequently asked