The song was written by Pete Ham, produced by Chris Thomas and Badfinger, and released on Apple Records in 1973.
The song is about Pete Ham having regrets leaving Apple Records where the Beatles signed them but Stan Polley (the manager) was pursuing a larger contract by moving to Warner Bros. Records. This is where Badfinger started their slide into hell. The album cover was about being led away from Apple.
Warner Bros offered them a huge contract. As it turned out they would never see the Warner Bros money as Polley took it out of escrow without telling the band. In the next few posts and little more info on this will be given.
The reason Polley wanted the band to leave Apple Records is because he could control everything with a new contract with Warners. He started to take all of the Apple royalities as well until the members stopped Apple from giving it to him. After that no one got the money (Apple held the money waiting for the courts to decide) and the band members were broke. It was held up in litigation until 1985 when some of the money was distributed.
The song peaked at #102 in the Hot 100 in 1973. Apple didn’t do a good job pushing this album because they knew Badfinger was leaving. This song ended up being the last non-ex-Beatles release on Apple Records.
In 1985 the band and family members finally got their money that had been tied up from Apple because of the lawsuits with Warners…all caused by a ruthless manager who really never got punished for his deeds and lived to be 87.
A movie was going to be made of their story…and still might be one day.
Apple Of My Eye
Oh, I’m sorry, but it’s time to move away
Though inside my heart, I really want to stay
Believe the love we have is so sincere
You know, the gift you have will always be
You’re the apple of my eye
You’re the apple of my heart
But now, the time has come to part
Oh, I’m sorry, but it’s time to make a stand
Though we never meant to bite the lovin’ hand
And now, the time has come to walk alone
We were the children, now we’ve overgrown
You’re the apple of my eye
You’re the apple of my heart
But now, the time has come to part
Oh, I’m sorry, but it’s time to move away
Though inside my heart, I really want to stay
Believe the love we have is so sincere
You know, the gift you have will always be
Now, the time has come to part
Now, the time has come to part.
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A fascinating account, Max, of greed at work and the ultimate destruction of good things.
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Yep…a manager causing all othat mayhem leading to two suicides. Now I don’t agree with that no matter how bad things are but it shouldn’t have got there.
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Badfinger was the most unlucky band in history even though they had great talent.
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Yes they were and are…another post coming soon…I bought a Badfinger album in 2000 that was just released that year because it got held up by ligation for 27 years.
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interesting story and song. I’d never heard it before, rare to see such obvious and honest lyrics (even though the relationship was business not romantic). How did they end up with Polley anyway, and why didn’t they fire him if he seemed to be pushing them clearly to things they didn’t want , even before they knew how crooked he was?
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It was the bait and switch routine. Their first manager is the one that reccomended him because he could not handle them getting really big. Polley was fine at first…detailed that they were going to live on a modest salary and sock all of the money away so they would never have to worry…etc.
Plus Pete was from all accounts a VERY gentle soul who trusted everyone…he was the last one to admit they had been taken…and taken good.
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Shady manager strikes again. I think if I was in a band back than I would have tried making the call to Peter Grant. lol
On my WordPress reader it shows no pic below the band pic all it says in the box where a pic is supposed to be is Ass (album)- Wikipedia lol
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Yep…it lead to 2 suicides in the band because he left them broke and no way to make a living.
That is odd…it should have the picture with the post….YEP! that is the Ass album lol
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I’ve enjoyed your Badfinger posts. I need to listen to more, but I love ‘No Matter What’, and ‘Without You’. Their story is very sad… On another note: they really released an album titled ‘Ass’??
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Yep…I don’t know if they did it on purpose in this order… albums… No Dice…Straight Up…Ass
lol…fill in the blanks.
I have a few more coming.
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This is a nice song from them. The way they were ripped of is beyond belief.
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I know…I hate to keep dwelling on it also but a lot of people don’t know…. the depth of it is unbelievable.
It’s been fun to listen to them this much again. I guess Baby Blue was the fuse.
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I agree, everyone needs to know the story.
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Such a beautiful tune – love their harmony singing! It seems to me Jim’s comment hit the nail on the head: “Badfinger was the most unlucky band in history even though they had great talent.”
What’s mind-boggling to me is how Stan Polley got away with all of this without serving prison time – not even one day, based on my understanding! That scumbag passed away at age 87. Pete Ham and Tom Evans tragically took their own lives, living until 27 and 36, respectively.
Once again, this story goes to show life oftentimes just isn’t fair!
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No it’s not fair…I had a book on them and what makes it worse…is Pete Ham was such a great human being and trusted everyone…and that was a big fault of course.
Polley got in trouble with the law again…he ripped off 250,000 grand from a guy but the court told him to pay it back and he never did…just a shame he didn’t get his punishment.
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Man, really sounds like Polley was rotten to the core!
I just read he once practiced law – hard to believe! I imagine this gave him a good background how to game the legal system!
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Oh yea he knew the loopholes… He also managed Lou Christie and Al Kooper….Kooper was able to get out of his grasp mostly in check.
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Great song – shows how versatile they were. Thanks for the background on Polley like I said on a another post hopefully he is rotting in hell
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He should be Paul…it’s a wonder they had the hits they did but they should have had more….Polley was an idiot also…if he would have been a little less greedy and let them be successful he could have made much more money.
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Such a poignant song. You wonder how some humans (and that’s being generous) like Polley can be so cruel and void of any empathy to have done what he did to Badfinger and still live with himself. He was an evil sociopath.
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I know…and he lived a long life. He had been asked that and just ignored the question.
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