It Won't Be Long

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"It Won't Be Long"

Song by The Beatles
from the album With the Beatles
Released	November 22, 1963
Recorded	July 30, 1963
Genre	Rock and roll
Length	2:13
Label	Parlophone
Writer(s)	Lennon/McCartney
Producer(s)	George Martin
With the Beatles track listing
Side one "It Won't Be Long" "All I've Got to Do" "All My Loving" "Don't Bother Me" "Little Child" "Till There Was You" "Please Mister Postman" Side two "Roll Over Beethoven" "Hold Me Tight" "You Really Got a Hold on Me" "I Wanna Be Your Man" "Devil in Her Heart" "Not a Second Time" "Money (That's What I Want)"

"It Won’t Be Long" is the opening track on With the Beatles, and was the first original song recorded for the LP^[1] Although credited to Lennon & McCartney, it was primarily a John Lennon composition, with Paul McCartney assisting with the lyrics and arrangement^[2] The chorus is a play on the words “be long” and “belong” ^[3]. The song features early Beatles’ trademarks such as call-and-response yeah yeah’s and scaling guitar riffs. Typical also of this phase of Beatles song writing is the melodramatic ending (similar to "She Loves You" which had just been recorded and was about to be released) where the music stops, allowing Lennon a brief solo vocal ad-lib before the song finishes on a major seventh chord. There is an unusual middle eight - for what is, essentially, a rock and roll song - that uses chromatically descending chords.