"Hold Me Tight" was composed principally by McCartney in 1961, and was part of The Beatles stage act until 1963. In their best-selling The Beatles: An Illustrated Record, Roy Carr and Tony Tyler call it the album's poorest track, saying it "fails because McCartney's vision of the complete tune obviously sagged somewhat, and his distressingly out-of-tune singing became quite embarrassing after only a few bars."