Paul McCartney says iconic With The Beatles cover was ‘shot quickly’ in hotel corridor

The iconic cover of The Beatles’ second album, With The Beatles, was not shot in a studio but a hotel corridor.

The Beatles‘ second album release, which would be named Meet The Beatles in the US, has the Fab Four appear on the cover and surrounded by shadows. While many may believe it to be a professional studio and lighting rig, Paul McCartney has since confirmed it was a hotel in Weston-super-Mare, which served as the backdrop for the photograph. In his book, Lyrics, the Let It Be hitmaker would confirm the “iconic” photograph was not shot on a sound stage or in a professional studio. Despite the sudden circumstances of taking the picture, the band remained proud of the image, which would be used for With The Beatles in the UK and Meet The Beatles in the US. McCartney would share this as he explained how All My Loving, a song which featured on With The Beatles, came to be.

McCartney wrote: “I get asked about that cover a fair bit, and people are often surprised to hear how quickly it was done. It looks like it was taken in a studo with professional lighting to achieve those shadows, but the photo was actually taken in a hotel corridor in Weston-super-Mare, an old seaside town on the west coast of England.

“We were over there to play a string of shows at the Odeon Cinema, and Bob [Whitaker] came to our hotel and was given an hour to get the cover. He set up a row of chairs and tried a few different arrangements – some with John at the front, some with me or George. But it was all done very quickly with natural light. That photograph has become pretty iconic now, so we were pleased it was on the cover of both releases.”

It’s as improvised and excellent as the guitar line featured on All My Loving, which McCartney confirmed is a last-minute addition from John Lennon. That guitar line was a last-minute addition, according to McCartney, who needed a strong riff to carry his With The Beatles track.

He wrote in his book, Lyrics, that the triplets chord structure was a spark of genius which gave the song its unique sound. He wrote: “The thing that strikes me about the All My Loving recording is John’s guitar part; he’s playing the chords as triplets.

“That was a last-minute idea, and it transforms the whole thing, giving it momentum. The song is obviously about someone leaving to go on a trip, and that driving rhythm of John’s echoes the feeling of travel and motion. It sounds like a car’s wheels on the motorway, which, if you can believe it, had only really become a thing in the UK at the end of the fifties.

All My Loving is a historic release from The Beatles, with it being the first song the band played on American television. Their performance on The Ed Sullivan Show saw the Fab Four play the McCartney-penned track. McCartney would suggest it was the song which catapulted The Beatles into their global success.

He added: “So to illustrate how quickly things were moving for us in those days, All My Loving helped us go from the Moss Empire circuit to conquering America in a little over six months. And a few months later I turned twenty-two.”

The Beatles had been on a “package tour” line-up when McCartney wrote the song. Package tours would feature five or six different acts on one show, though All My Loving made The Beatles big enough to host their own shows.