I Will

Song facts

I wrote quite a few songs in Rishikesh. I was doing a song, ‘I Will’, that I had as a melody for quite a long time. But, I didn’t have lyrics to it. I remember sitting around with Donovan, and may be a few others … And I played him this one and he liked it and we were trying to write some words. We kicked around a few lyrics … I kept searching for better words and I wrote my own set in the end, very simple words, straight love-song words, really. I think they’re quite effective.

Paul McCartney – From “The Beatles: Off the Record” by Keith Badman

From Wikipedia:

“I Will” is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, from their 1968 double album The Beatles (also known as “the White Album”). It was written by Paul McCartney (credited to Lennon–McCartney) and features him on lead vocal, guitar, and “vocal bass”.

Background

“I Will” was one of the songs composed by the Beatles and their associates while in Rishikesh, India. Although the music came together fairly easily, the words were worked on in India, and remained unfinished even as recording began back in London. McCartney recalled that while in Rishikesh he and Donovan had written a set of lyrics with a “moon” theme, but he found them inadequate and so replaced them with “very simple words, straight love-song words”. Donovan could not recall writing any of the early lyrics for the song but said that he possibly assisted McCartney with the “shape of the chords”, in keeping with the “descending movements” in his own melodies.

McCartney also commented on “I Will”: “It’s still one of my favourite melodies that I’ve written. You just occasionally get lucky with a melody and it becomes rather complete and I think this is one of them; quite a complete tune.”

Recording

Recording for “I Will” took place at EMI Studios in London on 16 September 1968, with McCartney completing overdubs the following day. The basic track required 67 takes. George Harrison was not present at the session.

During take 19, McCartney ad-libbed an untitled song. Referred to as “Can you take me back?”, a 28-second segment of this ended up on side four of The Beatles, at the end of “Cry Baby Cry“, as what author Ian MacDonald described as “a sinister introduction to ‘Revolution 9‘”.

In take 29, McCartney, as an ad-lib, sung “won’t” in place of “will” during the first verse before John Lennon replies, “Yes you will.” McCartney chuckles after this ad-lib and then the song ends at this point. This take was included in the expanded box set of The Beatles released in 2018.

Release and reception

Apple Records released The Beatles on 22 November 1968, with “I Will” sequenced as the penultimate track on side two, between “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?” and “Julia“. In an interview for Radio Luxembourg to promote the release, McCartney emphasised the wide range of musical styles found on the double album. He said that “I Will” was a legacy of the Beatles having had to satisfy requests for styles such as rhumba during their pre-fame years in Hamburg.

Author Jonathan Gould identifies “I Will” as an effective “demure punchline” to the sexual suggestiveness of “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?”, and similar in mood and form to McCartney’s 1966 song “Here, There and Everywhere“. He also views it as lacking in genuine emotion, however, due to the lyrics and musical arrangement, and concludes: “This is one of the few instances in which the restraint Paul typically brought to his ballad singing blanches into something that sounds like simple indifference. ‘Who knows how long I’ve loved you?’ he asks, and it’s tempting to think, ‘Who cares?'” Howard Sounes welcomes the diversification of McCartney’s non-rock White Album contributions such as “Martha My Dear” and “Honey Pie” but he says of “I Will”: “[It] exemplified Paul’s weakness for the soft-centred love song. The melody was catchy, but the lyric, about loving his beloved forever and ever, etc., was the sickliest cliché, a taste of what was to come.”

Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of its release, Jacob Stolworthy of The Independent listed “I Will” at number 12 in his ranking of the White Album’s 30 tracks. He called the song “crystalline proof that no one can write a love song as effortlessly as McCartney”, adding that McCartney’s selection of it among his personal favourites is a tough choice to argue with. The song was sung in the 1994 film Love Affair, starring Annette Bening and Warren Beatty. […]

We’ve always been a rock & roll group, I suppose, you know. It’s just that we’re not just completely rock & roll. That’s what I was trying to say before about ‘Obladi,’ ‘USSR,’ they’re all different kinds of things. We’re not just completely one kind of group. ‘Cuz like, when we played in Hamburg, we didn’t just do rock all evening ‘cuz we had to have these sort of fat old businessmen coming in and saying… (jokingly) or THIN old businessmen, as well, were coming in and saying ‘Play a mambo. Can you do a rhumba?’ And we couldn’t just keep saying no, you know, so we had to get into mambos and rhumbas a bit. So this kind of thing is like a pretty sort of smootchy ballad– ‘I Will.’ But we have to do that kind of stuff, you know, so we always played alot of kind of things. I don’t know if it’s getting off the subject, but that’s why there’s great variety in this LP– ‘cuz in everything we do, you know, we just haven’t got one bag, The Beatles, you know. And ‘cuz on one hand you’ll get something like ‘I Will’ and then you’ll get ‘Why Don’t We Do It In The Road,’ you know. Just completely different things– completely different feelings and… But it’s me singing both of them. It’s the same fella. Uhh, and I’ve wrote both of them, you know. So you can’t explain it. I don’t know why I do ‘Why Don’t We Do It In The Road’ shouting it like that… and then do this sort of smootchy laughing American ‘Girl From Ipenema.’

Paul McCartney – from interview with Radio Luxembourg, 1968

From The Usenet Guide to Beatles Recording Variations:

[a] mono 26 Sep 1968.
UK: Apple PMC 7067 white album 1968.

[b] stereo 14 Oct 1968.
UK: Apple PCS 7067 white album 1968.
US: Apple SWBO 101 white album 1968.
CD: EMI CDP 7 46443 2 white album 1987.

This started as 4 track and was copied to 8 track, so it’s 2d generation. The “bass” (vocal) starts later in mono [a], after the first verse.

Last updated on September 26, 2021

Lyrics

Variations