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"And I Love Her"

 By JOHN LENNON & PAUL MCCARTNEY

      Imbedded in the midst of the Beatles' "Hard Day's Night" is this dark and mysterious gem. With cunning subtlety, no wasted notes and an awareness beyond their years, the boys from Liverpool penned a poignant love song imbued with hope, fear and sadness, and the sense of romance as something born in the unplumbed depths of the universe.
      "And I Love Her" makes use of deceptively simple harmonic quirks and rides on a shifting musical foundation. It seems to rely in part on some Romany European tradition, yet it completely breaks free of the constraints of a folk or pop song. Alan W. Pollack did a very nice musicological analysis of the piece back in 1989, but "And I Love Her" could just as easily be studied by a poet, psychologist or philosopher. Better yet, absorb its mysteries and make it yours.
      Where did this band acquire the wisdom to create such a recording while only in their 20s? They tapped into a deep wellspring of emotion; "And I Love Her" seems not so much like a pop tune as it does a haunting plea for warmth from inside the eternal night of loneliness. Two minutes and 28 seconds of purity.

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Copyright © 1998 by Keith Purtell. All rights reserved.