One of Lennon and McCartney’s best songs. The opening verse - if verse is what it is (chorus and verse conventions don’t always operate with Lennon and McCartney) - is a touch prosaic, like a preliminary pleading.
‘If I fell in love with you, would you promise to be true and help me understand, ‘cos I’ve been in love before and found that love was more than just holding hands.’
In the Beatles’ original recording, John Lennon takes the lead vocal. It’s gritty and unsubtle - there are no dynamics, no rise and fall of emotion - he is not helped by the crude unrhythmical accompaniment of clunking guitars. Things pick up a bit when Paul McCartney takes up the harmony vocal at ‘If I give my heart….’ but overall it is too primitive to do justice to the song. The potentially heartstopping moment when the melody rises at ‘…’cos I couldn’t stand the pain’ is missed.
Musical and emotional subtlety is missing. This is one of their first adult songs, and deserved better. As the words say, we’ve moved on from the teenage puppy love of ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand’ to something more tentative and fragile. The very insistence of that ‘If…’ is uncertainty, agony of doubt that love might be returned, knowing the real pain of rejection.
Here is Maura O’Connell’s recording of the song. She provides the vocal quality it deserves.
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