Love Of The Loved

Song facts

From Wikipedia:

“Love of the Loved” is a song written mainly by Paul McCartney, credited to Lennon–McCartney. It is one of his earliest compositions and featured in the Beatles live act in their early days. The group recorded the song at their 1962 audition for Decca Records, but never issued it on any of their official releases. Instead, Cilla Black recorded it for her debut single, which was produced by George Martin. It was not a big hit for her, reaching #35 on the UK Singles Chart.

The Beatles audition version was left off Anthology 1, even though the other Lennon–McCartney originals from the same session, “Hello Little Girl” and “Like Dreamers Do“, were included. […]

From earlybeatlessongs:

Mark Lewisohn dates this song to the first half of 1959, and his supporting details are convincing. McCartney devised the song on his acoustic, during a night-time walk home. (He is said to have often burst into song on such occasions if he had his guitar with him.) His girlfriend of 1959, Dot Rhone, has corroborated this by stating that McCartney told her the song was written in her honour, which makes sense chronologically – except that Pete Best would state the song was written just prior to the group’s Decca audition, meaning that by his reckoning, it dates to late-1961.

On balance, the first account is probably the more reliable. Pete Best’s confusion might stem from the fact that “Love Of The Loved” apparently only appeared in the group’s stage act towards the end of 1961; he may not have known it was an oldie, and assumed it had just been written. In any case, it quickly found favour and was selected as one of just three originals in the group’s Decca session of January 1962, a recording from which survives.

The Beatles themselves could have recorded it for Please Please Me in February 1963, but passed it by. It seems the song was instead considered suitable for other artists, landing with Cilla Black just as Brian Epstein was agreeing management terms with her. For Black’s benefit, McCartney recorded a demo on guitar which is apparently lost. She recorded the song with McCartney’s help on August 28, and on release as her debut single, it made the UK charts (albeit peaking at a modest number 35).

The Beatles’ Decca version is the only one by the group. For reasons unclear, when the Decca tapes were (semi-) officially released, the three Lennon-McCartney songs were left off. The other two (“Like Dreamers Do” and “Hello Little Girl”) subsequently made the Anthology collection, leaving “Love Of The Loved” the only track from the day still commercially unavailable, although it had inevitably been bootlegged several times. 

The situation was resolved to some extent when the previously unissued “Love Of The Loved” fell out of protection after 50 years in the can, allowing it to finally surface legally on the double LP, I Saw Her Standing There in 2013, on the Rock Melon label.

John and I were a song writing team and what song writing teams did in those days was write for everyone – unless you couldn’t come up with something or wanted to keep a song for yourself and it was a bit too good to give away. John and I would get together, ‘Oh we gotta write one for Billy J, OK’… and we just knocked them out. In our minds there was a very vague formula and we could do it quite easily.

Paul McCartney – From a late eighties interview – From “Northern Songs: The True Story of the Beatles Song Publishing Empire”, by Rupert Perry

Last updated on November 8, 2021

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