Badfinger – Lay Me Down

Lay Me Down was written by Pete Ham and is a wonderful pop/rock song. Another song that slipped through the cracks…I’ve heard Teenage Fanclub cover this one and I’ve liked it as well as their known hits.  I want to thank everyone who stuck with me through four Badfinger songs since Thursday.

The song was on the album Head First. Joey Molland had just quit and was replaced by Bob Jackson.

Badfinger’s management replaced Chris Thomas as producer because he didn’t think they should make an album so soon (6 months) after their last album Wish You Were Here. The band felt the same but they had no control… Kenny Kerner and Richie Wise was picked to produce them, Wise had just become successful by producing KISS.

They recorded Head First in December 1974 – January 1975 after Wish You Were Here with new member Bob Jackson. While recording the album Warner Brothers wanted to know where thousands of dollars went to that disappeared from an escrow account (in the managers pocket).

WB’s sought to attach the royalties due from their previous album Wish You Were Here. Consequently, WB suspended sales of Wish You Were Here.

Although the master tapes of Head First were delivered to and accepted by WB’s recording division in Los Angeles, WB’s publishing arm there refused to accept them because of the lawsuit. With a lack of publishing protection, the record division shelved the tapes and the album was not released.

The album was stuck in limbo for 26 years. It wasn’t released until 2000. I went out and bought this the day it was released at Tower Records. On a couple of songs, Hey Mr Manager and Rock and Roll Contract,  they are taking aim at their management and frustration. The songs that stand out to me are Lay Me Down, Hey Mr. Manager, Rock N’ Roll Contract, and Keep Believing. A good album and I wish it would have had a chance at the time it was recorded.

This song would have had a chance to chart.

This would be the last album released by Badfinger with Pete Ham. He would die 3 months after they finished the album. Tom Evans and Joey Molland would revive Badfinger in the late seventies and release two albums. They did have two minor hits.

Lay Me Down

Need your loving
Need your loving
Need your loving
It’s everything to me

Need your loving
Need your loving
Need your loving
It’s everything to me

Take me high take me low
Show me anything that you know
But tonight little lover lay me down
Make me laugh make me sigh tell me how and tell me why
But tonight lover little lay me down

Lay me down move me round
Let me hear your loving sound
In our mess we are blessed with our love
Take and give take and live all the love that we have found
And just send all our problems away

Play me fun play me sad
Tell me things that could make you glad
But tonight lover little Lay me down
Lay me down
Need you loving

Play to share play to care
You can play with me anywhere
But tonight lover little lay me down
But tonight lover little lover lay me down
Lay me down
Need your loving

Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player.

23 thoughts on “Badfinger – Lay Me Down”

      4. Yes that is me also…we just finished our living room floor….now we have to move everything back around and have a living room again!

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      5. Oh, wow, that sounds like a big project. We’re also likely going to have some bigger stuff on the home maintenance front come up over the next few months – don’t wanna think to much about it, it’s already giving me acid reflux! 🙂

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      6. LOL….this was stretched out for around 3 weeks! Doing things as we could…I just didn’t like making a path to everywhere. Today though it pays off finally.
        I want to do our stairs next…they are carpeted also.

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  5. I like this one quite a lot. It sounds Paul McCartney-ish to me. Should’ve been at least a minor hit had it been handled right. Amazing how messed up their business-end of the career was. This story may top Wilco and ‘Yankee Hotel Foxtrot’ with WB paying them to go away and NOT release the record , only to have Wilco put it online themselves then months later a different branch of WB pay them a big advance to get it and put it out.

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    1. Yea I was thinking top 40 anyway….looks like WB…would have wanted the album to make something to pay back the missing funds…but the contract probably had the money going to the manager’s holding company.
      This was right before Ham killed himself. His wife was pregnant with his daughter and he couldn’t pay his house note/rent. Don’t get me wrong….it was NOT the answer but it had to feel hopeless. It wouldn’t be until 10 years later that the money started to come in.

      That Wilco story is beyond crazy….but at least the band won on that deal.

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  6. I like this a lot Max. – agree it really should have had the chance to chart. Hey why ever happened to their slime ball manager. – do he ever get his just desserts?

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    1. No…lived to be 87 and never got punished for all of the people he screwed over. Two suicides tied to his actions and he gets off free….

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