“Sometimes that’s all you get”: The Beatles songs Paul McCartney called filler

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“Sometimes that’s all you get”: The Beatles songs Paul McCartney called filler

Ben Forrest

FAR OUT Magazine

Tue 21 January 2025

(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)

Beatlemania has never truly subsided in the decades since The Beatles went their separate ways in 1971. During their relatively short time together, the four lads from Liverpool became a global phenomenon, hailed for the universal appeal of their songwriting and the experimental nature of their compositions. The cult of the Fab Four has attached itself to multiple generations of music fans, culminating in a Midas reputation that everything the group touched should be lauded as genius.

Admittedly, The Beatles produced enough earth-shatteringly original songs to justify that reputation. From the timeless teeny-bopper romanticism of their early singles to the profound explorations of life itself on their later records, the group repeatedly exercised their immense songwriting talents. Paul McCartney and John Lennon, as the band’s predominant songwriters, are inarguably among the most important songwriters of all time. Nevertheless, even McCartney himself has admitted to making a few miss-steps within the band.

Looking back, It is often forgotten that The Beatles were only young men when they began to receive unparalleled attention. They were still figuring out their path through the music industry, so, inevitably, some of their earlier efforts did not quite live up to the gold standard they set later on down the line. Before legions of Beatles purists pile on to defend the band’s earlier album-only material, McCartney himself has been less than complimentary about a number of Beatles tracks, so take up any complaints with the man himself.

Speaking in the biography Many Years From Now, McCartney reflected upon the band’s early years, sharing, “When we first started, it was all singles, and we were always trying to write singles.” Ironically, it was The Beatles who spurred on the shift in focus from singles to full albums, with releases like Revolver or Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Prior to those triumphs, however, the group played the game and tried to write singles exclusively.

This practice certainly inspired some of the band’s most enjoyable work but also led them down a lot of dead ends and blind alleys. “That’s why you get lots of these two-minute-30-second songs; they all came out the same length,” McCartney remembered. “‘Hold Me Tight’ was a failed attempt at a single which then became an acceptable album filler.”

Referring to any Beatles track as “filler” seems sacrilegious, but if you go back and listen to WIth The Beatles in full, not every song on there is worthy of unfettered praise. Originally, McCartney wrote ‘Hold Me Tight’ for the band’s debut, Please Please Me, before re-recording it for the follow-up. Ultimately, though, the re-recorded did not make the track stand out as Macca had hoped, allowing it to fall into relative obscurity.

‘Hold Me Tight’ is one of two Beatles songs that McCartney has derisively called “filler”, the other coming from the 1964 record Beatles For Sale. “‘What You’re Doing’ was a bit of filler,” the songwriter once said. “I think it was a little more mine than John’s […] You sometimes start a song and hope the best will arrive by the time you get to the chorus, but sometimes that’s all you get, and I suspect this was one of them.”

McCartney did identify some redeeming features of the 1964 song, saying, “Maybe it’s a better recording than it is a song; some of them are. Sometimes a good recording would enhance a song.” Ultimately, though, it is difficult to argue against the song being a filler track on Beatles for Sale, failing to stand out on its own merit.

All in all, it is quite comforting to realise that even The Beatles made the odd mistake here and there; it makes the otherworldly songwriters seem distinctly more human in their output.