Yardbirds – Shapes of Things

This is the Yardbirds… Jeff Beck edition. Great song that peaked at #11 in the Billboard 100, #3 in the UK, and #7 in Canada in 1966. Beck’s guitar solo in this song is fantastic as he uses distortion, sustain, feedback, and some Eastern influence. This was shortly before Jimmy Page joined the group.

The band recorded this song at Chess Studio in Chicago, their first time there. Chris Dreja said it’s one of the best songs they ever made. Shapes of Things was about the state of the UK during the Vietnam War, so it was an anti-war song according to the band. The song was written by Jim McCarty, Keith Relf, and Paul Samwell-Smith.

The band is best known now because of the great guitarists that were in the band. Eric Clapton joined the band in 1963, but soon quit to concentrate on the blues with Cream.

Jeff Beck replaced him in 1965, and then Jimmy Page joined in 1966 on bass. He soon switched to guitar, and the band had Page and Beck together.

Later, Beck walked out of the band, leaving only Page. The Yardbirds broke up, but Jimmy Page kept the name and played under “The New Yardbirds” with his new bandmates Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham, who would change their name to Led Zeppelin.

Jeff Beck liked the song so much that he used it on arguably his best album Truth. He was able to control feedback and use it to enhance the song. The song is often considered a precursor to the heavier, more experimental rock sound that would emerge in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Jeff Beck: “The way they worked was completely off the cuff: We’d jam, Keith would rush off and write some lyrics in the toilet, it was exactly like that. After four verses, let’s go into this raga thing. I kept changing guitar sounds all the way through. So we did two or three takes of my guitars and blended them all together. But the solo on “Shapes Of Things” was pretty honest until that feedback note that comes in over it. If nothing else, that was the best single.”

Bassist Paul Samwell-Smith: I wrote it in a bar in Chicago. I just lifted part of a Dave Brubeck fugue to a marching beat. It’s a sort of protest song.

Jim McCarty: “With ‘The Shapes of Things’ I came up with a marching type of rhythm that I tried to make interesting. And at the end of each line we’d build up like we used to do with some of our stage stuff – the rave ups. And then the bass riff came on top of that. And the bass riff was loosely based on a Dave Brubeck song, sort of a jazz song, around a doo doo doo doo doo doo, and then the chords came over that. The chords were very basic, came between the two tones, I think G and F, and then resolving it in D, each verse. And then the tune came on top of that. In fact, I remember putting the backing track down, which sounded great. I wasn’t at the session where Keith made up the tune, and when I heard the tune, I thought, Oh, that’s great. It’s a real surprise. He made up the tune, and then we had this sort of ‘Come tomorrow,’ but that was part of the song, anyway, at the beginning. So it was an exciting song to be involved in.”

Jim McCarty: “That’s probably the hardest thing to try and do. Every time we tried to do that it never really succeeded. I suppose we were lucky in that when we did ‘Shapes of Things’ it was like a hit song, but we were really coming from not trying to create a sort of a 3-minute piece of music, it was just something that seemed natural to us. We started with the rhythm, we used a bass riff that came from a jazz record, got a groove going with that and then added a few other bits from elsewhere, other ideas that we’d had. And I think it was a great success for us, it was a good hit record that wasn’t really selling out. And it was original.”

Shapes of Things

Shapes of things before my eyes,
Just teach me to despise.
Will time make men more wise?
Here within my lonely frame,
my eyes just heard my brain.
But will it seem the same?

(Come Tomorrow) Will I be older?
(Come Tomorrow) May be a soldier.
(Come Tomorrow) May I be bolder than today?

Now the trees are almost green.
But will they still be seen?
When time and tide have been.
Fall into your passing hands.
Please don’t destroy these lands.
Don’t make them desert sands.

Chorus, Lead.

Soon I hope that I will find,
Thoughts deep within my mind.
That won’t displace my kind.

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.

39 thoughts on “Yardbirds – Shapes of Things”

  1. Pingback: Yardbirds – Shapes of Things – MobsterTiger

      4. Oh Dave…Bailey and I are about to see Godzilla x King Kong…fun fun fun….even as old as I am…I still like monster movies.
        I’ll be back later

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  5. I don’t know why I don’t listen more to them. Stories like this, how the song came together based on a Jazz tune. You just can’t duplicate that, ‘brilliant’ as they often say in the UK.

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    1. Randy…I can’t imagine living in the middle of the sixties…what an exciting time. I know you are not big on the Who…but the experimental music that was going on including this one…something new all of the time with the Kinks, Beatles, Who, Yardbirds, and more. That period is maybe my favorite time in pop history.

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      2. For the band players back then it must have been like sugar deprived kids being let loose in a candy store- electrification, big speakers, distortion, reverb, feedback, sonic journeys at the touch of your hands.

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  7. When you hear this kind of music (Truth version) at a young age it kind of sets a tone for future listening habits. I just heard a remake of this (maybe another Yardbirds song) and I cant remember who did it. Driving me nuts. Has a Who crash bang sound especially at the 1:50 mark.

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      4. I got it Max it was ‘Heart Full of Soul’ Robert Gordon and Chris Spedding also Box Of Frogs with some of the original members with Roger Chapman on vocals. Chris Isaak also does a great turn I knew it was the Yardbirds involved.

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      5. Oh I remember Bopx of Frogs. I haven’t heard them in years.
        Chris Isaak’s version is really good. He greated such an atmosphere when he sang. His guitar player had a great tone.

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  8. It took me a minute to figure out what song this was. The first video it was so wild and woolly and pretty danged good. Am used to the more upbeat tempo and less distortion. There’s an almost Bolero flavor to it. Never realized it was a political protest song. The guitar solo rocks. So Clapton must have gone to The Yardbirds after John Mayall’s group. I had no idea (or forgot) that Led Zep was called The New Yardbirds before.

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    1. It’s like controlled chaos in this song. Yea it was recorded not long after Bolero…so that would make sense. On Becks version…like CB said…it does sound like Moon but it’s not.

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      1. Max, I totally forgot Beck did a rock cover of Ravel’s Bolero! I was thinking of the original. But yes, pulling the distant past’s music into the future for the young people is important. I do love Beck’s Bolero though!

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  9. The innovations and going deeper and louder in the mid 60s are what made Rock, and then on to Metal etc. A band just couldn’t get the same depth and sound when standing centre stage at, say, Shea Stadium, playing an acoustic guitar and a stand-up bass and reach an audience. Dylan saw the future and it WAS electric- not out of pissing off the Folk purists but out of necessity. (Sorry if that’s a bit rambley, my brain sorta knows what it wants to say but the damned Covid still weighs on it a tad.😑)

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    1. Well first, it’s good to see you back and feeling probably a little better anyway
      I totally agree, and the technology got better and better and caught up with everything. But I have to say this, the amplifiers were so much better back then than now, but the PA systems there is no comparison they’re much much better now.

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      1. Yep, I’m improving, but – excuse the synonym- I’m up and about, fully charged, and then it feels like someone pulls the plug and its time to sit down and reach for something to give me strength. Yes, its brandy to the rescue!

        See, as a muso you know what has improved and what has not. I flick through a few ‘Guitar Player’ mags at the library and there is such a lot of talk about subtle nuances in a guitar or amp. As a listener all I do is shake my head in confusion and think ‘Well, at least I know what I like, if not how it came about.’ 

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      2. Well I’m glad you are up and about…even though weaker…
        Yes the new amps have those effects but in 10 years they will be in a landfill…they still don’t sound as good as the old tube amps (which are still going strong) did then and now.

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  10. Great song I actually first heard covered by Gary Moore on his 1984 hard rock album “Victims of the Future.”

    Herr Deke, do you know it? 🙂

    Anyway, only years later, I heard the original by the Yardbirds and eventually also the Jeff Beck solo rendition – both excellent!

    If I would have to pick one of the three, I’d go with Beck. At the time, Rod Stewart still was a legit rocker!

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    1. Stewart’s golden era to me was to about 1974-75…I liked him after that but not as much as I did through that period.
      It’s a great song to work with.

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