It’s Only Love
Yesterday it was a sunny afternoon in San Francisco and my friend and I went to our favorite pizza hole-in-the-wall. (Did you really think I'd name it?) The cook and wait staff are young and smart and one of them put the Help! soundtrack on the restaurant sound system in honor of us old fogies. (She also happens to genuinely love classic pop music, bless her heart.) My friend and I hadn't heard this 1965 Beatles song in a while and it hit me deeply. It was written (mostly) and sung by John Lennon, who disparaged it as a "lousy song" with "abysmal lyrics." Included in the British version of the Help! album (and on the Rubber Soul LP in the U.S.), the song was compared unfavorably by critics at the time to other Lennon tunes on the Help! soundtrack like "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" (one of my favorite Beatles songs of all time).
But "It's Only Love" withstands the test of time. At least MY time. The song immediately grabs your heart, with John's aching, longing voice (one of the best in rock 'n' roll despite what he himself thought) and George Harrison's twangy guitar accompaniment.
Even the lyrics are NOT abysmal. "It's only love and that is all. Why should I feel the way I do? It's only love and that is all. But it's so hard loving you." In John's voice, the words sound as complicated, as wounded, as DEEP as he was.
Play it again.