Hold Me Tight

Hold Me Tight is a Beatles song from their 1963 album With The Beatles. It was first recorded during the Please Please Me album session, but not selected for inclusion and re-recorded for their second album.

History
"Hold Me Tight" was composed principally by Paul McCartney in 1961, and was part of The Beatles' stage act until 1963. In their book The Beatles: An Illustrated Record, Roy Carr and Tony Tyler call it the album's poorest track, saying it "fails because McCartney's vision of the complete tune obviously sagged somewhat, and his distressingly out-of-tune singing became quite embarrassing after only a few bars."

Indeed, both McCartney and John Lennon had, at one time or another, shared their distaste for the song, and in a 1980s interview with Mark Lewisohn in The Beatles Recording Sessions, McCartney says, "I can't remember much about that one. Certain songs were just 'work' songs, you haven't got much memory of them. That's one of them." In Barry Miles' Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now, the songwriter calls it "a failed attempt at a single which then became an acceptable album filler."

However, Ian MacDonald redeems it in his book Revolution in the Head, in which he writes: "Play it loud with the bass boosted, and you have an overwhelming motoric rocker strongly redolent of the band's live sound."

McCartney wrote a different song called "Hold Me Tight" for a medley included on his 1973 solo album Red Rose Speedway.

Credits

 * Paul McCartney – bass guitar (1961 Hofner 500/1), lead vocals, handclaps
 * John Lennon – rhythm guitar (1958 Rickenbacker 325), backing vocals, handclaps
 * George Harrison – lead guitar (1962 Gretsch 6122 Country Gentleman), backing vocals, handclaps
 * Ringo Starr – drums, handclaps

Cover versions
At least three known cover versions of this song have been recorded. The Treasures, a Phil Spector-produced vocal group, recorded the song in 1964, as a single released on Spector's Philles Records. British band Stackridge included a cover version on their 1976 album, Mr Mick. Another cover version was featured near the beginning of the 2007 Beatles-themed film, Across the Universe.