It’s been decades since the world’s biggest band broke up, but The Beatles’ famous songwriter and core member Paul McCartney is still going strong. McCartney still speaks fondly about The Beatles’ music to this day and has done quite a bit to keep the band’s musical legacy as clean and preserved as possible. However, McCartney is just like any other musician or songwriter; there are some songs that he wrote that just aren’t his cup of tea. Though, where other musicians will admit to outright hating their songs, McCartney will often casually mention that he wasn’t partial to certain tracks.
So, which song from The Beatles’ legendary discography was McCartney not a fan of? There are a few. But there is one song that he actually shared a distaste for along with John Lennon. And if you know anything about Beatles history, you know that the two rarely agreed on anything.
That song that neither John Lennon nor Paul McCartney liked was “Hold Me Tight” from the 1963 album With The Beatles.
Why Didn’t Paul McCartney Like “Hold Me Tight”?
John Lennon rarely shied away from sharing his distaste for some of The Beatles’ material. He notoriously disliked a lot of the band’s early tracks, including “Hold Me Tight”. In fact, Lennon said that he barely remembered the song years after it was released in 1963.
“That was Paul’s,” Lennon assigned the blame during an interview with David Sheff in 1980. “Maybe I stuck some bits in there, I don’t remember. It was a pretty poor song, and I was never really interested in it either way.”
Apparently, the song was recorded while the band was putting together their debut album Please Please Me, but it didn’t make the cut. It did, however, make it onto With The Beatles.
Surprisingly, Paul McCartney agreed with John Lennon’s “Hold Me Tight” sentiment.
“When we first started, it was all singles, and we were always trying to write singles,” said McCartney in the 1997 biography Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now. “That’s why you get lots of these two-minute 30-second songs; they all came out the same length. ‘Hold Me Tight’ was a failed attempt at a single which then became an acceptable album filler.”
“Hold Me Tight” isn’t The Beatles’ best song, but the dismissal of it is a little rough. Wouldn’t you agree?
