Another Girl

(Lennon/McCartney)

Quick Facts

Composer	Paul
Lead Vocal	Paul
Recorded	Feb 1965
Length	2:05
Key	A
Noted Takes	1 (+ 10 edit pieces)
Producer	George Martin
Engineer	Norman Smith

Originally released on

Help!

Parlophone — PMC 1255

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“Another Girl” is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1965 album Help! and included in the film of the same title. The song was written by Paul and credited to the Lennon–McCartney partnership.

Another Girl is a song by The Beatles, written by Paul and led on vocal by Paul. Paul plays the lead guitar himself. Paul’s second song contribution to Help! displays his romantic comedy gift, cast as a light romantic rebuff in the film’s narrative. Recorded during an evening session, ‘Another Girl’ balances intricate melodic work with the film’s comedic tone, establishing Paul’s role as the album’s primary contributor of uptempo pop confections.

The session work falls within the band’s Help! (1965) period, recorded 15 Feb 1965 at EMI Studios, Abbey Road. George Martin produced; Norman Smith engineered. The arrangement featured prominent electric guitar and standard four-piece rhythm-section setup.

What’s distinctive

One of 65 songs led primarily by Paul. Recorded at the very start of the Help! sessions, taped in one take on the same day as Ticket To Ride (afternoon) and I Need You (evening). Paul played lead guitar on this song — an unusual role swap documented in George Martin’s own session notes — making it one of a small number of Beatles recordings on which Paul handled the lead guitar part rather than George.^1,2

Recording

Another Girl was the second song taped on the evening of 15 February 1965, after Ticket To Ride in the afternoon. “Paul’s ‘Another Girl’ was the next song to be taped, and the ‘best’ version of this was the first and only take, although in ten additional edit pieces George had a go at perfecting a guitar flourish, with tremelo arm in full force, for the very end of the song. The seventh attempt was the best but then the idea was dropped at remix stage.” The master is therefore take 1 — not the “14 takes” sometimes attributed to this song, which belongs to the same evening’s third recording, I Need You (takes 1–5), or the following day’s Yes It Is (takes 1–14).¹
George Martin’s handwritten session notes record the instrument assignments for the basic track: “3 tracks as before” (i.e. the same three-track layout used for the preceding Ticket To Ride), with Paul on solo lead guitar, George on the Jumbo Gibson acoustic, and John on Fender Stratocaster. “Routined 6.15–7.10 Master 8.30” — the group rehearsed for nearly an hour before committing the master take at 8.30pm. Overdubs followed within the same session: “Overdub Paul doubletrack, John occasionally / Ringo tom tom and George Gretsch on end / Edit No 7.” The “Edit No 7” notation confirms the seventh of George’s ten tremolo-arm edit pieces was marked as the preferred ending, though it was later dropped at remix stage.^2,1
The following afternoon (16 February, 2.30–5.00pm), Paul overdubbed an additional lead guitar passage onto take 1 — “another guitar passage, played by Paul, onto take one of ‘Another Girl’.” George and John also apparently re-recorded their guitars on Track 2, with Paul providing “more lead guitar work, similar in style and tone to his ‘Ticket To Ride’ additions.” The result is a four-track tape on which Paul is responsible for both bass and the primary lead guitar lines — an unusual arrangement in the Beatles’ catalogue.^1,2
The four-track contents table documents the final track layout: Track 1 — Drums, Bass; Track 2 — Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar; Track 3 — Vocals; Track 4 — Vocals, Tambourine, Electric Guitars. The plural “Electric Guitars” on Track 4 reflects Paul’s overdubbed lead guitar work and George’s Gretsch addition on the ending, both laid down as overdubs onto the available fourth track.²
The song Paul plays almost all of — Read the two sessions together and the division of labour is startling. Paul wrote it, sang the lead and double-tracked it, played the bass, took the solo lead guitar on the basic track, and came back the following afternoon to overdub a further lead passage. John contributes a Fender Stratocaster on the basic track and occasional support on the double-tracked vocal. George is on the Gibson Jumbo acoustic, plus a Gretsch flourish on the ending — the one part of his contribution anybody was meant to notice, and the part that was cut. What survives on the released master is a lead-guitar record made by the bass player, with the group’s lead guitarist playing rhythm acoustic behind him. It is the same arrangement Paul had used that same afternoon on Ticket To Ride, done twice in one day.^1,2
Edit pieces are not takes, and the difference is the point — The session paperwork carries two separate categories for this song: one take, and ten edit pieces logged as unnumbered. A take is a performance of the song; an edit piece is a fragment recorded on its own to be spliced into an existing master. Ten of them were cut here for a few seconds of guitar at the very end of a two-minute record — more separate pieces of tape than the rest of the song required put together. The producer’s own notation settles which one won, “Edit No 7”, and then the whole flourish was abandoned at the remix stage, so no listener has ever heard any of the ten. It is a small but exact picture of how the group worked in February 1965: the performance captured almost instantly, the ornament laboured over, and the ornament thrown away.^1,2

Equipment

Studio	EMI Studios, Abbey Road — Studio Two (recording, 15–16 Feb 1965); Studio Two control room (mono mixing 18 Feb; stereo mixing 23 Feb)
Tape machine	Telefunken four-track (in machine room; the Studer J-37 was not installed in the Studio Two control room until April 1965)²
Console	REDD.51²
Microphones	AKG D19c (drums overhead), AKG D20 (bass drum; Paul’s bass rig), Neumann U47 (guitar amps), Neumann U48 (vocals, figure-of-eight)²
Guitars	Gibson Jumbo acoustic (George), Fender Stratocaster (John), Gretsch Nashville (George, ending overdub); Paul’s lead guitar (instrument unspecified in source)²
Amplifiers	Vox A.C.100 Super Deluxe (×2, mic’d with U47)²

Recording Timeline

15 February 1965 (Mon) — basic track + overdubs, Studio Two — EMI Studios, Studio Two, 7.00–10.30pm. P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: Ken Scott/Jerry Boys. Recording: Another Girl (take 1, and 10 [unnumbered] edit pieces). The evening session followed the afternoon Ticket To Ride session (2.30–5.45pm). The basic track used the standard three-track layout: drums and bass on Track 1, George’s Gibson Jumbo acoustic and John’s Fender Stratocaster on Track 2, Paul’s vocal on Track 3. The song was “routined 6.15–7.10” and the master committed at 8.30pm. Same-session overdubs: Paul double-tracked his vocal (John joining occasionally), Ringo added tom-tom, George played Gretsch on the ending. George’s ten edit pieces with tremolo arm for the ending were attempted but dropped at remix stage; the seventh was judged best. The session continued with I Need You (takes 1–5).^1,2
16 February 1965 (Tue) — guitar overdubs, Studio Two — EMI Studios, Studio Two, 2.30–5.00pm. P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: Ken Scott. Recording: SI onto Another Girl take 1; SI onto I Need You take 5. Paul overdubbed a lead guitar passage — “similar in style and tone to his ‘Ticket To Ride’ additions” — while George and John re-recorded their guitars on Track 2. The session also covered the I Need You overdubs (double-tracked George vocal, volume-pedal guitar, cowbell). The evening continued with Yes It Is (5.00–10.00pm).^1,2
18 February 1965 (Wed) — mono mixing, Studio Two control room — 10.00am–1.00pm. P: George Martin. E: Norman Smith. 2E: Ken Scott. Mono mixing: Another Girl (from take 1), alongside Ticket To Ride, I Need You, and Yes It Is.¹
23 February 1965 (Mon) — stereo mixing, Studio Two control room — 10.00am–1.00pm. P: n/a. E: Norman Smith. 2E: Malcolm Davies. Stereo mixing: Another Girl (from take 1), as part of a batch stereo-remix session for all 11 songs from the 15–20 February week. “Stereo remixes of all 11 new songs, made under the supervision of Norman Smith, not George Martin.” The group had flown to the Bahamas on 22 February to begin filming.¹

the ‘best’ version of this was the first and only take, although in ten additional edit pieces George had a go at perfecting a guitar flourish, with tremelo arm in full force, for the very end of the song. The seventh attempt was the best but then the idea was dropped at remix stage.— Mark Lewisohn¹

Studio Notes

Paul as lead guitarist — Another Girl is one of the clearest examples in the Beatles catalogue of Paul taking over the lead guitar role from George. George Martin’s session notes record “Paul solo with John and Geo,” placing Paul as the lead instrumentalist with John and George in supporting guitar roles. The following day’s overdub session reinforced the arrangement with Paul adding “more lead guitar work, similar in style and tone to his ‘Ticket To Ride’ additions.” On Ticket To Ride, recorded the same afternoon, Paul had also played lead guitar — consecutive songs, same day, same arrangement. This was part of a broader 1965 trend in which Paul increasingly contributed lead guitar alongside his bass duties.^2,1
George’s tremolo-arm edit pieces — experimental ending dropped at remix — The ten unnumbered edit pieces represent an unusually methodical approach to perfecting a single guitar passage. George used “tremelo arm in full force” for the ending flourish, with each attempt recorded as a separate edit piece rather than as numbered takes. The seventh was chosen as best (Martin’s notation: “Edit No 7”), but the entire idea was abandoned at remix — the released master’s ending does not feature the tremolo-arm passage at all.^1,2
“3 tracks as before” — production continuity from Ticket To Ride — Martin’s notation confirms the same three-track basic-track layout established on Ticket To Ride was carried forward: drums and bass on Track 1, guitars on Track 2, vocals on Track 3, with Track 4 reserved for overdubs. This standardised approach across the 15 February sessions reflects the production efficiency of the early Help! recordings, where the group typically committed a basic track in one or two takes and then built the arrangement through overdubs — “an impressively economical operation which frequently belied the work involved.”^1,2
Telefunken four-track, not Studer J-37 — The 15–16 February 1965 sessions predate the April 1965 installation of the Studer J-37 in Studio Two’s control room. Recording used one of the Telefunken machines (T9U or M10) housed in the machine rooms. “April of 1965 saw an important new addition to the Control Room of Studio Two: a four-track tape machine was finally installed inside the Control Room. EMI had purchased four new Studer J-37 four-tracks for use at Abbey Road.” With the Telefunken in a separate room, the tape operator worked physically apart from the balance engineer and the band — a configuration that changed when the J-37 brought the four-track into the control room itself. “Virtually all four-track recording carried out for the remainder of the Beatles’ career would take place on the J-37.”²
Session microphone setup (16 February) — The 16 February session notes (shared across I Need You, Another Girl, and Yes It Is) document the microphone configuration: “AKG D19c as Ringo’s overhead and an AKG D20 on his bass drum. The D20 remains in use on Paul’s bass rig. John and George’s A.C.100 SDL rigs are mic’d with U47 microphones. John and Paul sing into a U48 set to figure-of-eight.”²
The mono and the stereo are not the same balance — The most useful thing to know about this song’s two 1965 mixes is that the main rhythm track sits quieter in the mono than it does in the stereo. That is a balance decision, not a mastering difference, and it changes what the record is about: in the mono, the double-tracked vocal and the overdubbed lead guitar carry the song over a rhythm bed that has been pulled back; in the stereo, the drums and bass come up and the track sounds like a band playing rather than like a singer over an accompaniment. The two mixes were also made five days apart and not by the same hands. The mono was made on 18 February, three days after recording, in a batch with Ticket To Ride, I Need You and Yes It Is. The stereo waited until 23 February, when all eleven songs from the February week were remixed in one sitting under the supervision of Norman Smith rather than George Martin, the group having flown to the Bahamas on the 22nd to begin filming.^1,3
One take, an hour of rehearsal, and an ending nobody kept — The take number on this song is a poor measure of the work behind it. The master is take 1 — the first and only complete take — but the group routined the song from 6.15 to 7.10 before a master was committed at 8.30pm, then overdubbed the double-tracked vocal, the tom-tom and the Gretsch part in the same session, and returned the next afternoon for more lead guitar. Ten unnumbered edit pieces were cut for the ending alone, all of them George attempting a tremolo-arm flourish, and the seventh was marked as the keeper — then the whole idea was dropped at remix stage, so none of it is on the record. February 1965 was, in Lewisohn’s phrase for the period, “an impressively economical operation which frequently belied the work involved”, and this is the sentence made literal: eleven songs in a week, one take apiece on paper, and an evening’s work behind each number.^1,2

Releases

The two 1965 mixes differ in balance rather than in content, and the difference is easy to hear: the rhythm track is quieter in the mono. A third, later stereo replaced the 1965 one on compact disc.

1965 UK mono LP — Help! (6 August 1965, Parlophone PMC 1255, side A track 5) — The main rhythm track is mixed quieter here than in the stereo, so the double-tracked vocal and the overdubbed lead guitar sit further forward and the drums and bass further back. The leaner, more vocal-led of the two 1965 readings.
1965 UK stereo LP — Help! (6 August 1965, Parlophone PCS 3071, side A track 5) — The rhythm track comes up, and the four tape tracks are spread across the picture rather than blended, so the acoustic and electric guitars on one side sit apart from the vocals and tambourine on the other. Fuller at the bottom and wider than the mono, and the version most listeners know.
1965 US LP — Help! (1965, Capitol MAS-2386 mono / SMAS-2386 stereo) — Capitol’s soundtrack edition of the album, which interleaves incidental score between the songs. The song itself is the same pair of mixes through Capitol’s own cutting chain; there is no Capitol remix and no fold-down.
1987 CD — Help! (1987, EMI CDP 7 46439 2) — The compact-disc issue carries a later stereo rather than the 1965 one, so a CD and an original PCS 3071 pressing are two different mixes. Anyone chasing the quieter-rhythm-track comparison needs a 1965 mono pressing and a 1965 stereo pressing, not a disc.
2009 remasters — Help! (2009, Parlophone 99456 2) — The remaster programme reissued the album in both stereo and mono. The mono disc restores the 18 February 1965 mono with its pulled-back rhythm track; the stereo disc carries the later stereo. Between them they are the most accessible way to hear the balance difference this song turns on.

Sources

Mark Lewisohn, The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions (New York: Harmony Books, 1988), 54–56, 62.
Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew, Recording the Beatles: The Studio Equipment and Techniques Used to Create Their Classic Albums (Houston: Curvebender Publishing, 2006), 388–89, 396, 407.
Joseph Brennan, Usenet Guide to Beatles Recording Variations (rev. edn.), Another Girl entry.

Frequently asked

Who wrote Another Girl?

“Another Girl” is credited to Paul (Lennon/McCartney).

Who sings lead on Another Girl?

The lead vocal on “Another Girl” is by Paul.

When was Another Girl recorded?

“Another Girl” was recorded 15–16 February 1965 at EMI Studios, Abbey Road, Studio Two.¹

How many takes did Another Girl require?

One — the session log records take 1 as the master, plus ten unnumbered edit pieces in which George attempted a tremolo-arm guitar flourish for the ending, the seventh of which was marked best and then dropped at remix stage.¹

On this page

Story Section status: Outdated

What’s distinctive

Recording

Equipment

Recording Timeline

Studio Notes

Releases

Sources

Frequently asked