It Won't Be Long" is the opening track on With the Beatles, and was the first original song recorded for the LP Although credited to Lennon/McCartney, it was primarily a John Lennon composition, with Paul McCartney assisting with the lyrics and arrangement. The chorus is a play on the words "be long" and "belong" . The song features early Beatles' trademarks such as call-and-response yeah yeah's and scaling guitar riffs. Typical also of this phase of Beatles song writing is the melodramatic ending (similar to "She Loves You," which had just been recorded and was about to be released) where the music stops, allowing Lennon a brief solo vocal improvisation before the song finishes on a major seventh chord ("She Loves You" ends on a major sixth). There is an unusual middle eight - for what is, essentially, a rock and roll song -