#82: I've Just Seen A Face

Written by: John Lennon & Paul McCartney
Released: August 6, 1965
Appears on: HELP!
Lead vocal: Paul 

Paul managed to get a trilogy of his own songs on HELP!, except unlike John's opening saga on Beatles For Sale, not only is it stuck on the tail end of the second side but all three songs are vastly different. "I've Just Seen A Face" is the second song in the set and is Paul's turn at the folk world. Considering that John was the one that seem to have a hold on the folk songs the Beatles were putting out at the time, it's a little surprising. 
The song starts with a slow tempo before moving faster than a speeding bullet, culminating in a track time of barely two minutes. It's a shame that British fans had to hear the song stuck between two songs and thrown onto side two, because it makes for a great opener. As I said in the "It's Only Love," entry, these two songs were used on Capitol's Rubber Soul. "I've Just Seen A Face" was chosen as the opener, which right away gives the record a drastically different feeling than "Drive My Car".
The instrumentation features the Beatles playing all acoustic instruments. John and Paul play acoustic rhythm while George plays the lead. Ringo replaces his drums with a snare and maracas, completing the Country-Western, folksy feel of the song. 
Also like "It's Only Love", the song had an interesting working title: "Aunty Gin's Theme", in honor of Paul's aunt. 
Capitol never released the song on a 45, but since Rubber Soul was getting more attention in the States simply because there were no singles, the track got a lot more notice. So much so, that Paul performed the song as just one of five Beatles songs during the Wings Over America 1976 tour. He again did it for his Unplugged show in 1991 and in the more recent tours. Unfortunately, this still doesn't save the song from obscurity. It's a shame, but when the same man who wrote this also wrote the next song, you can understand why it gets stuck in the 'hidden gem' files.