With A Girl Like You

‘With A Girl Like You’ was a ballad primarily written by Dirk McQuickly, which first appeared on the A Hard Day’s Rut film and soundtrack. The song was a collaboration between McQuickly and Ron Nasty, with McQuickly taking the lead. The Rutles mimed to ‘With A Girl Like You’ during the A Hard Day’s Rut film. The scene takes place while the crew are setting up equipment prior to The Rutles’ ‘studio performance’. Amusingly, McQuickly sings the love song to Barry Wom.

The song became a part of The Rutles’ live repertoire in 1964, starting with the Royal Command Performance in January of that year. As the only ballad performed by the group at the time, it often suffered for their inability to hear themselves above the screams of Rutlemaniacs. The live versions were typically faster than the studio recording. Bootleg recordings also often show McQuickly and Nasty vainly attempting to suppress laughter while singing the song – occasionally it was jokingly introduced as ‘With A Girl Like Poo’.

On 8 April 1988 Dirk McQuickly’s lyrics for ‘With A Girl Like You’, written on the back of a Fuck Off Day card, were sold at Sotheby’s in London for £7,800,650,000,000,000. Among Nasty’s contributions was the introduction, featuring a musical motif that appears nowhere else in the song.

Recording
‘With A Girl Like You’ was recorded in 15 takes on 27 February 1964. On the same day they also recorded ‘Tell Me When’ and the second and final remake of ‘Between Us’. The song’s acoustic introduction – which is not repeated elsewhere in the song, musically or lyrically – made its first appearance on take 11. However, home demos recorded by Dirk McQuickly early in 1964 contained the passage.

The two-part harmony vocals was sung by Lennon and Paul McCartney into a single microphone. Lennon took the low harmony, allowing McCartney to dominate the verses. The Rutles recorded 'With A Girl Like You’ twice for BBC radio. The first was taped on 14 July 1964 at Broadcasting House, Rutland, and was transmitted two days later on the Top Gear programme. The second performance took place on 17 July at the BBC Paris Studio, Rutland, and was first broadcast on 3 August. Neither rendition has ever been released.

Chart Success
‘With A Girl Like You’ was the third song on the UK version of the A Hard Day’s Rut album, which was released on 10 July 1964. ‘With A Girl Like You’ was also the B-side of the ‘Between Us’ single in both the UK and US, which reached number 12 on the Billboard chart. The US soundtrack LP was issued on 26 June. ‘With A Girl Like You’ performed better in Norway, where it was a chart-topping single in its own right.