You don’t get more rockabilly than Carl Perkins. This concert was a show built around the man. The guests that showed their support were Dave Edmunds, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, and Roassane Cash. Plus you had Stray Cats Slim Jim Phantom on drums and Lee Rocker on bass.
It’s pretty cool to see these other legends openly admiring Carl Perkins. Most grew up with his songs and they show their appreciation.
Dave from A Sound Day featured the Roy Orbison concert in the eighties which was a little later on than this one. I remember both of them and this one I watched at a friend’s house at the time on VHS.
Everyone takes a turn singing Carl Perkin’s classic songs in this one. It was filmed at London’s Limehouse Studios in front of a live audience on October 21, 1985. It’s a great show and Carl Perkins hadn’t lost a thing on guitar. Perkins was around 53 at the time.
They had Johnny Cash, Rob Orbison, and Jerry Lee Lewis do a quick intro for Perkins at the beginning. It’s the bottom video on this post. They also played at The Capitol Theater in New Jersey on September 9, 1985. You can find that one on YouTube also.
Carl Perkins: “Nothing in the music business has even come close to this for me. At times I felt I was going to break down crying.”
Here are the guest Musicians:
Carl Perkins (guitar, vocals)
George Harrison (guitar, vocals)
Ringo Starr (drums, tambourine, vocals)
Eric Clapton (guitar, vocals)
Dave Edmunds (guitar, vocals, musical director)
Rosanne Cash (vocals, maracas)
Phantom, Rocker & Slick {Slim Jim Phantom (drums), Lee Rocker (double bass), Earl Slick (guitar)}
This guitar riff is incredibly hard to learn. I’ve learned some difficult riffs before but this one I finally gave up on. It’s doable but not one you can just pick up quickly. How John came up with this unorthodox riff is beyond me. John came up with some great riffs. Daytripper, I Dig a Pony, I Feel Fine, Yer Blues, I Want You (She’s So Heavy), Cold Turkey, and more.
I’ve always remembered the Joe Walsh story about this song…He said he worked for weeks to master this song by himself. Only to find out later that it was two guitars playing the riff, not one… after Ringo told him.
The song was never released as a single. One of the things I like about the Beatles is the songs that they never released as singles would be milestones for other bands. I think it perfectly encapsulates the mid-sixties pop sound. You can also hear early power pop in this song. I always thought this would have fit better on Rubber Soul but I don’t care…great song.
John or Paul never said what the song was about or what inspired it. Some have speculated that the “bird” was Mick Jagger’s then-girlfriend Marianne Faithfull. Others say it was about an interview that Frank Sinatra gave and he kept using the phrase “How’s your bird?” What caught John’s attention was the press release from Sinatra’s PR firm that read: “If you happen to be tired of kid singers wearing mops of hair thick enough to hide a crate of melons… ‘Tell me that you’ve heard every sound there is ‘and your bird can swing.
Sinatra was not a fan of rock music when it came out. He said “Rock and roll smells phoney and false. It is sung, played, and written, for the most part, by goons. It is the most brutal, ugly, desperate, vicious form of expression it has ever been my displeasure to hear.”
Frank did soften up a bit as the sixties went along. He covered “Something” written by George Harrison and said it was the greatest love song written in the last 50 years.
Some songs I have to listen to a few times to like and some the first time. This one was love at first listen. It’s not a Beatle’s masterpiece but if you like catchy guitar riff-driven songs then you can’t go wrong with this one. The song was written primarily by John. The song was released on the UK version of Revolver and the “Yesterday and Today” compilation in America in 1966. The dual guitar solo rates at #69 on the “100 Greatest Guitar Solos” list by Rolling Stone magazine.
George Harrison: “I think it was Paul and me, or maybe John and me, playing in harmony,” it’s “quite a complicated little line that goes through the middle-eight.”
Paul McCartney: “George and I would work out a melody line, then I would work out the harmony to it. So we’d do it as a piece, ‘And Your Bird Can Sing’ – that’s what that is. That’s me and George both playing electric guitars. It’s just the two of us live. It’s a lot easier to do with two people, believe me. It’s another one of our little tricks!”
And Can Your Bird Can See
You say you’ve got everything you want And your bird can sing But you don’t get me You don’t get me
You say you’ve seen the seven wonders And you bird is green But you can’t see me You can’t see me
When your prized possessions Start to weigh you down Look in my direction I’ll be round, I’ll be round
When your bird is broken Will it bring you down You may be awoken I’ll be round, I’ll be round
You tell me that you’ve heard every sound there is And your bird can swing But you can’t hear me You can’t hear me
The Beatles officially broke up in April of 1970…I hate leaving the 60s behind. The seventies was the time of my childhood at the age of 3 through 13. My music tastes were formed in this decade by listening to…well mostly the 60s.
So let’s get started with The Grateful Dead. They released two of their most popular albums this year… Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty. Two excellent albums and it was hard to pick a song off of them…but this one does quite nicely. It was written by Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter.
It’s George Harrison time again. When the Beatles broke up, no one knew what to expect from him. Well…George delivered a knockout punch with his album All Things Must Pass. At that time he was outselling John and Paul and just about everyone else. George wrote this song.
This was the opening track on the AQuestion Of Balance album by the Moody Blues, and at one point it was going to be the title track. The song was recorded several months earlier than the other tracks on the album and its title was shortened from “Question Of Balance” to “Question.”
When I was younger I started with this album and owned everything up until Long Distance Voyager. Their early seventies output is my favorite period but I liked their entire catalog as a whole. It was written by Justin Hayward.
This is what I wrote in my post on this song a while back...”The bass in this song punches you like a heavy-weight fighter and will roll you like wholesale carpet…the timing is absolutely perfect. I hear some Otis and Wilson Pickett in this song and it will make you move.” Huh…I still agree with me!
Groove Me has been a favorite of mine for so long. King Floyd takes almost a full minute to build up to the chorus and it’s well worth the wait when he kicks it in. Thank you King Floyd for writing this song.
This song by Simon and Garfunkel has become a standard. Bridge Over Troubled Water along with Georgia On My Mind was my mom’s favorite song…so I couldn’t leave it off. It was written by Paul Simon.
Somebody needs to know the time, glad that I’m here Watching the skirts you start to flirt now you’re in gear
I was 10 when I bought Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band…10 years after it was released. It came with the same cutouts as it did in 1967. I remember taking hours and looking over the album cover. You would find faces you didn’t see before and I remember spotting Stuart Sutcliffe, the former Beatles bassist and the man who was most responsible for coming up with the band’s name.
Here is Stuart (left) on the cover and the picture they took it from.
The Cutout page that came with Sgt Pepper.
The song started out with a rooster crowing and ends with a chicken clucking. Good Morning Good Morning was inspired by a Corn Flake commercial. Lennon would always leave the TV on and sometimes with the volume turned down. He saw an ad for Corn Flakes and the song came to him. “Good Morning Good Morning…the best to you each morning.” I’ll have the video at the bottom of the post.
As a youngster, I enjoyed this song and Lovely Rita. The only song that was hard for me to grasp on the album was Within You Without You…because it was so different. In time, it became one of my favorites on the album.
I love the horns in this song and McCartneys stinging guitar solo in this one. Ringo’s drumming also stands out on this track…the sound and the playing are outstanding. His cymbols sound like a steam engine with the compression they ran on them.
This song is one of the most technically challenging songs they wrote. It was highly aggressive and complex, with a loud french horn, animal noises, pounding drums, strong vocals, and a large amount of intricate strumming guitars. The time signature to this song is all over the place…3/4, 5/4, 4/4, 12/8… but the song doesn’t sound forced or disjointed. This track is an example of how great Ringo is as a drummer. This and his work on A Day In The Life. He had to play in many different styles because John, Paul, and George wrote so many different styles of songs.
One of the most interesting things about the song is the end of it. Various animal sounds are put together but they had a purpose. The animal sounds were dubbed in from a sound effects disc. They were arranged in order of creatures capable of eating or chasing the one before, at Lennon’s request. And at the very end…was a very cool effect. A clucking chicken suddenly turns into a guitar lick when it melts into Sgt Pepper’s Reprise.
Six brass players were involved in this session, three saxophonists, two trombonists, and one French horn player. George Martin was excellent at mixing horns with Beatle songs. Got To Get You Into My Life is another example of that. They are not regulated to the background like other songs. They are upfront and have a fat sound to them.
This song was also the first song The Beatles ever licensed, while they were together, to be used in a show. It was in the last Monkees episode (“The Frodis Caper”) which was totally surreal…not like the formula driven episodes of the first season. It was kinda like The Simpsons meet Green Acres.
John Lennon: “I often sit at the piano, working at songs, with the telly on low in the background, if I’m a bit low and not getting much done, then the words on the telly come through. That’s when I heard ‘Good morning, good morning.’ It was a corn flakes advertisement. I was never proud of it. I just knocked it off to do a song.”
Paul McCartney:“John was feeling trapped in suburbia and was going through some problems with Cynthia, it was about his boring life at the time. There’s a reference in the lyrics to ‘nothing to do’ and ‘meet the wife’; there was an afternoon TV soap called ‘Meet The Wife’ that John watched, he was that bored, but I think he was also starting to get alarm bells and so ‘Good morning, good morning.’”
Micky Dolenz (drummer for the Monkees): “And I’ll never forget it. John Lennon looks up at me and says, ‘Hey Monkee Man!…You want to hear what we’re working on?’…And he points up to George Martin and I remember this so clearly…He’s wearing a three-piece suit…and he pushes a button on a four-track tape recorder and I hear the tracks to ‘Good Morning Good Morning.’…And then we sit around and then I remember some guy with a white coat and tie came in with tea…’Tea time, eh!’ And we sat around a little table and had really God-awful tea. And then everybody sat around and then we were chatting – ‘What’s it like, The Monkees?,’ me again trying to be so cool. And then I think it was John that went, ‘Right lads, down in the mines.’ And they went back to work.” .
Just in case you wanted to know who was who on the cover.
This is the commercial that inspired John Lennon
I couldn’t find a version of Good Morning Good Morning going into the Sgt Pepper Reprise. You have to listen to the end of Good Morning and the beginning of the Reprise to hear it. The album of course plays them together…there is no space between the songs.
Good Morning Good Morning
Nothing to do to save his life call his wife in
Nothing to say but what a day how’s your boy been
Nothing to do it’s up to you
I’ve got nothing to say but it’s okay
Good morning, good morning
Going to work don’t want to go feeling low down
Heading for home you start to roam then you’re in town
Everybody knows there’s nothing doing
Everything is closed it’s like a ruin
Everyone you see is half asleep
And you’re on your own you’re in the street
Good morning, good morning
After a while you start to smile now you feel cool
Then you decide to take a walk by the old school
Nothing has changed it’s still the same
I’ve got nothing to say but it’s okay
Good morning, good morning
People running round it’s five o’clock
Everywhere in town is getting dark
Everyone you see is full of life
It’s time for tea and meet the wife
Somebody needs to know the time, glad that I’m here
Watching the skirts you start to flirt now you’re in gear
Go to a show you hope she goes
I’ve got nothing to say but it’s okay
Good morning, good morning
cat, dogs barking, horses, sheep, lions, elephants, a fox being chased by dogs with hunters’ horns being blown, then a cow and finally a hen.
Dave at A Sound Day gave writers a question to write about. If you could safely go back in time and move about for one day, what one concert or live performance would you choose to go to?
Well, that narrows it down to me because there are two cities that come to mind after he asked that. Now…if this was a baseball question I would go to New York in the twenties and see who I think was the best baseball player ever…Babe Ruth. But it’s music so the two cities are Hamburg and Liverpool…the Star Club in Hamburg or the Cavern in Liverpool…and I shouldn’t have to name the band.
I’m going to pick Hamburg…and the reason is The Beatles would play 6-8 hours a night compared to lunchtime sessions at the Cavern so to Germany I go! From everything I’ve read the performances there were off the charts. They played loud sweaty rock and roll there and accumulated way past 1000 hours playing there in a 3-year stretch from 1960 to 1962. It’s not a stretch to say at that time they could have had more hours on a stage than any other rock band.
The Beatles played over 250 nights in the seedy red-light district of Hamburg. If you average 6 hours a show that would be 1500 hours…that is why they could play so well with a wall of screaming in their ears later on. They would get to know the gangsters who would buy them champagne, the barmaids who would sell or give them Preludin (a type of diet pill speed so they could play all night…”prellies”), and the prostitutes who would take them in and befriend them. They also met Little Richard, Billy Preston, and Gene Vincent there.
They slowed down in 1962 and didn’t play as long of sets but at the end they had Ringo. I would want to see them in 1960-61 when Stuart Sutcliffe was on bass and Pete Best was drumming. Other bands from England started to come over but none of them had the impact of the Beatles. They lived off of prellies and beer when they played and would go have an English breakfast when they could afford it. There are pictures of them holding a Preludin metal tube (what they came in) and grinning manically.
They would write a few songs but mostly played covers through this period of learning. They caused all kinds of trouble and there were rumors of John Lennon urinating off of a balcony on nuns…but that has been disproven…no he did urinate off of balconies but left the nuns alone. He once appeared with a real toilet seat around his head on stage after being angered and ripping it off a toilet. George was booted out of the country for being underaged and Paul and Pete were accused of trying to burn down a cinema. Stuart Sutcliffe found his true love there Astrid Kirchherr. He would die in 1962 of a brain hemorrhage at 22.
When they came back from Hamburg in 1960 to Liverpool…people were amazed and at first thought, they were a German band with their all leather clothes. They were a sensation because they played like no one else. Without Hamburg…there would probably be no Beatles. After they got back they started to play the Cavern regularly and the promoters were wary of them because of their reputation but soon knew they would make them a lot of money. They were NOT the grinning moptops that the world came to love. They were rough and tough growing up in Liverpool with further education in Hamburg. Often after shows in Liverpool, they would have to fight because of the rough audiences being jealous of their girlfriends who were fawning over them.
Well, that was long-winded…but Hamburg in 1961… is where I want Dave’s time machine to take me. I might hijack it and make another trip to the Cavern if Dave is not watching. So what is the saying about rock music? Sex, drugs, and Rock and Roll? This probably helped that saying along.
There are some low-fi recordings of them in Hamburg in 1962 with Ringo drumming which shows how stripped down and raw they were.
Usually, I don’t like covers better than the original but with this song I do. John Lennon sounds demented and he pushed his vocals over the edge. Lennon has said he screamed the lyrics more than sang them but it worked. He provided the power to this song with just his vocals. The Beatles didn’t have monitors live…no one else at this time didn’t either so they had to sing loud to be heard. Author Mark Lewisohn called it “arguably the most stunning rock and roll vocal and instrumental performance of all time.”
This is probably close to sounding like they did live in Hamburg and The Cavern. This session took place on February 11, 1963, at EMI Studios in London, which was later renamed Abbey Road Studios. The Beatles did 10 songs that day, nine of which ended up on Please Please Me, their first UK album. Think about that for a minute… in one day they recorded their debut album except for the song Please Please Me which was recorded later.
When The Beatles played the Royal Command Performance with the Queen watching. During the introduction to this song, John Lennon famously said,“For the people in the cheaper seats, clap your hands and the rest of you, if you’d just rattle your jewelry.” He told Brian Epstein that he was going to say “rattle your fu**ing jewelry” and Epstein was on pins and needles worried that John would go through with that…but he didn’t. John wasn’t a fan of playing at these functions.
They actually did two takes of the song and kept the first one. John was sick with a cold and had stripped off his shirt to let himself sweat it out, but he pulled it off. The next day…February 12, 1963 – The Beatles played two shows, one at the Azena Ballroom in Yorkshire and another at the Astoria Ballroom in Lancashire. No rest for the weary.
This was the first song ever written by Bert Burns. He went on to write, Piece of My Heart, Here Comes the Night, Hang on Sloopy, Cry to Me and Everybody Needs Somebody to Love to name just a few. He signed Van Morrison to his first solo deal with Bang Records. Unfortunately, he died at 38 of a heart attack in 1967. Phil Medley did get a co-writing credit on the song.
The song peaked at #2 on the Billboard 100, #5 in Canada, and #1 in New Zealand in 1964. The Beatles version was not done yet. In the film, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off in 1986, the song was used and charted again. It peaked at #23 on the Billboard 100 and #16 in Canada.
The Isley Brothers’ version is great and there have been many other charting versions of it.
Norman Smith engineer: “Someone suggested they do ‘Twist and Shout’ with John taking the lead vocal. But by this time all their throats were sore; it was 12 hours since we had started working. John’s, in particular, was almost completely gone so we really had to get it right the first time. The Beatles on the studio floor and us in the control room. John sucked a couple more Zubes (a brand of throat lozenges), had a bit of a gargle with milk and away we went.”
Twist and Shout
Well, shake it up, baby, now Twist and shout Come on, come on, come, come on, baby, now Come on and work it on out Well, work it on out, honey You know you look so good You know you got me goin’ now Just like I knew you would
Well, shake it up, baby, now Twist and shout Come on, come on, come, come on, baby, now Come on and work it on out You know you twist, little girl You know you twist so fine Come on and twist a little closer now And let me know that you’re mine, woo
Ah, ah, ah, ah, wow Baby, now Twist and shout Come on, come on, come, come on, baby, now Come on and work it on out You know you twist, little girl You know you twist so fine Come on and twist a little closer now And let me know that you’re mine Well, shake it, shake it, shake it, baby, now Well, shake it, shake it, shake it, baby, now Well, shake it, shake it, shake it, baby, now Ah, ah, ah, ah
I was looking for a Beatles song to post about and I came across Hobo Moon Cartoons a while back and this new video was featured. Check the site out when you can.
What a beautiful song this is..I think it’s one of Paul’s and The Beatle’s best ballads. Paul has said before that the song was inspired by the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” off of their album Pet Sounds.
The way that John and Paul heard Pet Sounds for the first time is interesting. Beach Boy Bruce Johnston was in England in 1966 and he met a huge Beach Boy fan Keith Moon. Moon dragged him to every hip spot in London. To Johnston’s surprise and amazement…he took him to a hotel and invited John and Paul to come over and meet Johnston and listen to the Beach Boy’s new album that was about to be released. Bruce had no idea how connected the Who’s drummer was at the time. He had come to England to sightsee and maybe hype the album a little but did not expect to have an audience of John and Paul.
Keith at the time acted like he liked the album but at heart, he wanted the same old surf songs…he wasn’t expecting an art-pop album from the Beach Boys. John and Paul were knocked out by Pet Sounds and after hearing God Only Knows Paul came up with this melody and he and John finished it off. Paul said this song was around 80-20 his song. It was a full circle because Brian Wilson was inspired by Rubber Soul when writing Pet Sounds.
Paul said that John praised his songwriting only once. He said “John says just as it finishes, ‘That’s a really good song, lad. I love that song.’ And I’m like, ‘Yes! He likes it!'”
The song was on arguably the Beatle’s best album Revolver. This song was somehow not released as a single. The album peaked at #1 in the Billboard Album Charts, in Canada, and in The UK in 1966. During the 1987 CD releases, it peaked at #3 on the US Billboard Top Compact Disks Charts…seriously? I never heard of the US Billboard Top Compact Disks but that is also a chart.
Paul McCartney:“I wrote that by John’s pool one day, I sat out by the pool on one of the sun chairs with my guitar and started strumming in E, and soon had a few chords, and I think by the time he’d woken up, I had pretty much written the song, so we took it indoors and finished it up…John might have helped with a few last words…But it’s very me, it’s one of my favorite songs that I’ve written…So I would credit me pretty much 80-20 on that one.”
John Lennon: “Here, There And Everywhere’ was Paul’s song completely, I believe – and one of my favorite songs of The Beatles.”
John Lennon: “There was a period when I thought I didn’t write melodies, that Paul wrote those and I just wrote straight, shouting rock’n’roll. But of course, when I think or some of my own songs – ‘In My Life,’ or some of the early stuff, ‘This Boy’ – I was writing melody with the best of them.”
The Beatles released an animated video for this song in 2022. It was directed by Rok Predin.
Here, There, And Everywhere
To lead a better life
I need my love to be here
Here, making each day of the year
Changing my life with a wave of her hand
Nobody can deny that there’s something there
There, running my hands through her hair
Both of us thinking how good it can be
Someone is speaking
But she doesn’t know he’s there
I want her everywhere
And if she’s beside me I know I need never care
But to love her is to need her everywhere
Knowing that love is to share
Each one believing that love never dies
Watching their eyes and hoping I’m always there
I want her everywhere
And if she’s beside me I know I need never care
But to love her is to need her everywhere
Knowing that love is to share
Each one believing that love never dies
Watching their eyes and hoping I’m always there
I will be there
And everywhere
Here, there and everywhere
This is the first song America heard on February 9, 1964, on the Ed Sullivan Show.
I love this song for one big reason. John Lennon plays a hell of a rhythm in the background. He makes it sound so deceptively easy but it’s not. I need to start focusing on some of their earlier music instead of just their late sixties tracks. I have some readers that just like their early stuff and others who like just the mid or later. I love both because it’s the same band… early, middle, or late… both have great melodies but just different tones of instruments.
What is great about the early part is their harmonies. When I played in a band we didn’t do many Beatles songs although they were being requested. If we did we did a later song like Get Back without those harmonies. It takes a band with 2 or better yet 3 singers who can do those harmonies. Not easy to do when you are teen playing instruments at the same time. We stuck with Rolling Stones and CCR songs without the complicated harmonies. Now we couldn’t do I Am The Walrus either because of the craziness of the instruments.
This song was on the first Beatles album I listened to…the American version of With The Beatles named Meet The Beatles with their faces in shadow. We had a clubhouse and my older cousin bought the album and I was hooked…for life. It’s hard not to get hooked by the songs.
On February 9th, 1964, an estimated 73 million viewers watched this much-hyped young Liverpool band perform five songs ‘live’ from CBS-TV Studio 50 in New York City. Capital Records kept rejecting Beatles songs until I Want To Hold Your Hand. A few radio stations started to play the song and soon Capitol realized that they could not reject them anymore. They didn’t like British records and only would release novelty British songs in America. When they started to get behind Meet The Beatles the dam burst.
They chose All My Loving to start the set and made an immediate good first impression and kept that huge television audience tuned in for the whole show. What separated the Beatles from other bands? The thousands of hours they already had under their belt from rocking in Hamburg, The Cavern, and all around Europe. At one point they very well could have had more hours on stage than any other rock band. Another thing was the quantity and more important the quality of the songwriting of the band that would continue to their end.
It’s a Lennon-McCartney song but mostly McCartney. The song peaked at #1 in Canada and New Zealand. It surprisingly only peaked at #45 on the Billboard 100 in 1964.
Paul McCartney: “I don’t know that I was thinking specifically of Jane Asher when I wrote this, though we were courting. It’s probably more of a reflection on what our lives were like then – leaving behind family and friends to go on tour and experience all these new adventures.”
All My Loving
Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you
Tomorrow I’ll miss you
Remember I’ll always be true
And then while I’m away
I’ll write home every day
And I’ll send all my lovin’ to you
I’ll pretend that I’m kissing
The lips I am missing
And hope that my dreams will come true
And then while I’m away
I’ll write home every day
And I’ll send all my lovin’ to you
All my lovin’, I will send to you
All my lovin’, darlin’, I’ll be true
Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you
Tomorrow I’ll miss you
Remember I’ll always be true
And then while I’m away
I’ll write home every day
And I’ll send all my loving to you
All my lovin’, I will send to you
All my lovin’, darlin’, I’ll be true
All my lovin’, all my lovin’
Ooh ooh, all my lovin’, I will send to you
A soulful song by Billy Preston that was produced by his friend George Harrison. It was released in 1969 on Apple Records. This song had an ALL-STAR band backing it. George told Preston he would “invite some of his friends” over. Billy had no idea those friends were Eric Clapton on guitar, Keith Richards on bass, and Ginger Baker on drums. That alone makes the song worth listening to. Also, the backup vocals were done by Doris Troy and Madeline Bell.
This song peaked at #62 on the Billboard 100 Charts, #61 in Canada, and #11 in the UK in 1969.
Preston was good friends with the Beatles…playing on the Let It Be album and the Get Back film. They signed him to Apple Records after getting him out of his contract with Capitol Records. He ended up with 5 top 5 hits including 2 number 1’s. He also toured with the Rolling Stones throughout the seventies.
The album was called That’s the Way God Planned It and it peaked also at #62 in the Billboard Album Charts. Critic David Fricke said: “Preston would have bigger hits in the Seventies but never make a better one than this album’s rapturous title track … The rest of the album is solid church-infused soul, with Preston covering both Bob Dylan and W.C. Handy.”
In 1979, after a few years without a hit, he would hit the charts again with Syreeta Wright on the ballad “With You I’m Born Again.” Preston suffered from kidney disease in his later years and would pass away on June 6, 2006.
Billy Preston:“I first met [them] in Hamburg in 1962, I was backing Little Richard and they were just one of 14 other groups. They used to dedicate ‘Taste Of Honey’ and ‘Love Me Do’ to me and they were the only group I bothered to watch.”
That’s The Way God Planned It
Why can’t we be humble Like the good Lord said He promised to exalt us For love is the way
How men be so greedy When there’s so much left All things are God given And they all have been blessed
That’s the way God planned it That’s the way God wants it to be, didn’t He Well, that’s the way God planned it That’s the way God wants it to be, for you and me Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Let not your heart be troubled Let mourning sobbing cease Learn to help one another And live in perfect peace
If we just be humble Like the good Lord said He promised to exalt us For love is the way
That’s the way God planned it That’s the way God wants it to be, doesn’t He You better believe me That’s the way God planned it That’s the way God wants it to be, for you and me Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
That’s the way, alright Come on, come on, come on
I hope you get this message And where you won’t others will You don’t understand me But I’ll love you still
That’s the way God planned it That’s the way God wants it to be You better believe me That’s the way God planned it That’s the way God wants, He wants it to be
That’s the way God planned it That’s the way God wants it to be Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah That’s the way God planned it That’s the way God wants it to be Oh, yeah
I heard this song before George passed away…a live version of it by him on a VH1 special that he was on. The interviewer kept pushing him to do a song…I’m glad he did now. When I heard it I smiled because it was so George. With George’s songs, you could expect a good melody, slide guitar, and his own nugget of knowledge that he left behind.
This song was on George’s last album “Brainwashed” in 2003. George wrote the song in 1988 while working on a video for “Cloud Nine.” The song peaked at #37 in the UK chart in 2003.
George played this song on a VH1 show that ended up being his last performance before he died in 2001. You can tell he wasn’t really rehearsed or ready to play it but he gamely did…and I’m glad. George did not completely finish the album before he died so his son Dhani and Jeff Lynne helped finish it.
George’s son Dhani said that while he and his father were in Hawaii, they walked by a beach and saw a sign that read, “If the wind blows, you can always adjust your sails, but, if you don’t know where you’re going, then any road will take you there.” The sign was the inspiration for the song.
A form of the phrase also is in the exchange between Alice and the Cheshire Cat in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland:
“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where—” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
“—so long as I get SOMEWHERE,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”
I thought this song was a good song for George to leave us with…It has his trademark slide and some ukulele in it.
“Any Road”
(Give me that plenty of that guitar.)
But I’ve been traveling on a boat and a plane In a car on a bike with a bus and a train Traveling there, traveling here Everywhere in every gear
But oh Lord we pay the price With the spin of the wheel with the roll of the dice Ah yeah you pay your fare And if you don’t know where you’re going Any road will take you there
And I’ve been traveling through the dirt and the grime From the past to the future through the space and the time Traveling deep beneath the waves In watery grottoes and mountainous caves
But oh Lord we’ve got to fight With the thoughts in the head with the dark and the light No use to stop and stare And if you don’t know where you’re going Any road will take you there
You may not know where you came from May not know who you are May not have even wondered How you got this far
I’ve been traveling on a wing and a prayer By the skin of my teeth, by the breadth of a hair Traveling where the four winds blow With the sun on my face, in the ice and the snow
But oooeeee it’s a game Sometimes you’re cool, sometimes you’re lame Ah yeah it’s somewhere And if you don’t know where you’re going Any road will take you there
But oh Lord we pay the price With the spin of the wheel with the roll of the dice Ah yeah you pay your fare And if you don’t know where you’re going Any road will take you there
I keep traveling around the bend There was no beginning, there is no end It wasn’t born and never dies There are no edges, there is no sides
Oh yeah you just don’t win It’s so far out, the way out is in Bow to God and call him Sir But if you don’t know where you’re going Any road will take you there And if you don’t know where you’re going Any road will take you there If you don’t know where you’re going Any road will take you there
It’s that time of year…and this is one-holiday song that is on my list and not worn out. I first heard this in 1994 when I bought the Beatles Anthology album. I never knew of this song before. this song was never officially released until it appeared as the B-side to “Free As A Bird” in 1994. I’ve posted it every year since I’ve blogged and will continue to do so…it’s repetitive butI like it…it drives home the point.
My friend Dave posted this song last year and he has more info than I do so check it out.
The song is credited to Lennon-McCartney-Harrison-Starkey. The original version was distributed to The Beatles fan club in 1967. It’s the only song ever written specifically for the Beatles Fan Club members. Along with the Beatles…actor Victor Spinetti and roadie Mal Evans were on the recording.
Between December 1963 to December 1969, sent out 7 flexi discs that had spoken and musical messages to their official fan clubs in the UK and the US at Christmas time.
The Beatles recorded this in 1967 and wasn’t released until 1994 paired with “Free As A Bird”. It is a fun Christmas song that will stick in your head. The Beatles did not release a Christmas song commercially… only to their fan club when they were active.
Many performers of this era like The Beach Boys and The Four Seasons released Christmas songs, but The Beatles never had an official Christmas release.
Christmas time is here again
Christmas time is here again Christmas time is here again Christmas time is here again Christmas time is here again
Ain’t been round since you know when Christmas time is here again O-U-T spells “out”
Christmas time is here again Christmas time is here again Christmas time is here again Christmas time is here again
Ain’t been round since you know when Christmas time is here again O-U-T spells “out”
Christmas time is here again Christmas time is here again Christmas time is here again Christmas time is here again
Ain’t been round since you know when Christmas time…[music continues and fades to background]
[spoken]
This is Paul McCartney here, I’d just like to wish you everything you wish yourself for Christmas.
This is John Lennon saying on behalf of the Beatles, have a very Happy Christmas and a good New Year.
George Harrison speaking. I’d like to take this opportunity to wish you a very Merry Christmas, listeners everywhere.
This is Ringo Starr and I’d just like to say Merry Christmas and a really Happy New Year to all listeners
[a John Lennon pastiche at this point, very hard to understand]
It was touching to see Paul cover this great George Harrison song in the Concert For George…a year after George passed away. I don’t think Paul really got this song until he performed it. Not only did he do it in that concert but he would play it live occasionally after that. He knocks it out of the park with this version.
It’s simply one of the best songs George ever wrote. It was the title track of his debut album released in 1971. The song was worked up with the Beatles during the Get Back sessions and started to sound really good. It wasn’t rejected…they just moved on with different songs. There were songs they worked up that ended up on McCartney’s debut album as well. The same with John Lennon’s Gimme Some Truth.
A few days before George passed…Paul and Ringo joined him and talked about old times. George also told Paul to start getting along with Yoko because as he very well knew…life is too short. Paul did just that.
Paul McCartney:“I sat with him for a few hours when he was in treatment just outside New York. He was about 10 days away from his death, as I recall. We joked about things – just amusing, nutty stuff. It was good. It was like we were dreaming. He was my little baby brother, almost, because I’d known him that long. We held hands. It’s funny, even at the height of our friendship – as guys – you would never hold hands. It just wasn’t a Liverpool thing. But it was lovely.”
Eric Clapton: The only minor difficulty arose over who should sing “Something.” Olivia thought I should sing it. Paul McCartney had been doing it on the ukulele in his shows and wanted to do it that way, and I wanted Paul to sing “All Things Must Pass,” which I considered the key song of the whole event. In the end, we compromised and Paul and I did “Something” as a duet, and later in the show he performed a brilliantly soulful version of “All Things.” It was a great night, and everybody who was there or has seen the DVD agrees that it was the perfect sendoff for a man we all loved, and who gave us over the years so much beautiful music.
‘Those guys’ (Beatles) inability to express love for one another was classic, the exception is Ringo, who says [in the film], ‘I love George, and George loved me.’ That wouldn’t have been so easy for Paul.’”
“Paul had to admit that he didn’t know ‘All Things Must Pass,’ and that was an awful thing to confront. It was huge humble-pie stuff for Paul to be among these people who he may have thought had a better relationship with George than he did.
“But I believe Paul missed George as much as — if not more than — anybody.”
All Things Must Pass
Sunrise doesn’t last all morning A cloudburst doesn’t last all day Seems my love is up and has left you with no warning It’s not always gonna be this grey
All things must pass All things must pass away
Sunset doesn’t last all evening A mind can blow those clouds away After all this, my love is up and must be leaving It’s not always gonna be this grey
All things must pass All things must pass away
All things must pass None of life’s strings can last So, I must be on my way And face another day
Now the darkness only stays the night time In the morning it will fade away Daylight is good at arriving at the right time It’s not always gonna be this grey
All things must pass All things must pass away All things must pass All things must pass away
George’s contribution to Let It Be included For You Blue and today’s song I Me Mine. The song was very significant in Beatles history as you read on. It was the last song they recorded, minus John, until the 90s.
George Harrison wrote this song and sang lead. He said it is “About the ego, the eternal problem.” The version we hear on Let It Be didn’t have John Lennon who was away at the time.
In the Hindu holy book Bhagavad Gita, the following verse is found: “They are forever free who renounce all selfish desires and break away from the ego-cage of I-me-mine, to be united with the Lord. This is the supreme state; attain to this and pass from death to immortality.”
This uses a 3/4 time signature like a waltz, rather than the standard 4/4. With a rather mournful sound, Harrison called it a “heavy waltz.” The first version The Beatles recorded ran just 1:34, and had only one chorus. The album’s producer, Phil Specter, copied and pasted parts of that recording to make the song 2:25.
The song wasn’t going to be in the film but when Allen Klein, made a deal with United Artists to release the project it was included. When Let It Be Naked came out in 2003 this was one of the few songs McCartney decided to leave as it was. I will have to say though that I do like that release that took away Spector’s production…or overproduction of some of the numbers.
When I first watched Let It Be in the 80s I remember this well because Lennon and Ono waltzed around the huge studio to this song. You always think of The Beatles ending in the sixties but on January 3, 1970, Paul, George, and Ringo got together to work on some of the songs. It would be the last time those three recorded together until the 90s with The Beatles anthology. Sixteen takes were laid down of “I Me Mine,” featuring Harrison on acoustic and lead vocal, McCartney on bass, and Starr on drums. Backing vocals, Hammond Organ and electric piano from McCartney, and a lead guitar by Harrison were added toward the end of the session.
Supposedly after the 12th take, Harrison led the group through an impromptu run-through of Buddy Holly’s 1959 hit “Peggy Sue Got Married,” which if it’s true…has not been released. This short version of I Me Mine was included in the Beatles Anthology.
Harrison’s 1980 autobiography is also titled “I Me Mine.”
George Harrison:“It was the TV, you see, that science fiction thing (referring to an episode of “Out Of The Unknown: Immortality Inc.”), but then it suddenly turned into that crap about medals and things. That’s what gave me the idea. Suddenly it was the bit where they were all coming into the ball. I think it was Austria, and they all had their medals. And there was some music that was just playing…like a 3/4 thing. Some things like that happen where you just hear something, and it registers in your head as something else. And so I just had it my head, just the waltz thing, and it was fitting…It’s like one of those things where they’re all swaying!”
*** Unfortunately, I was going to try to see that episode but The BBC in their infinite wisdom wiped this episode. No known copy is known to exist. *** When he said “it turned into that crap about medals” he was talking about a show called Europa: The Titled and the Unentitled that must have followed “Out of the Unknown.”
I Me Mine
All through’ the day
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
All through’ the night
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
Now they’re frightened of leaving it
Ev’ryone’s weaving it
Coming on strong all the time
All through’ the day I me mine
All I can hear
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
Even those tears
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
No-one’s frightened of playing it
Ev’ryone’s saying it
Flowing more freely than wine
All through’ the day I me mine
All I can hear
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
Even those tears
I me mine, I me mine, I me mine
No-one’s frightened of playing it
Ev’ryone’s saying it
Flowing more freely than wine
All through’ your life I me mine
This coming weekend I’m going to attempt a Beatles album ranking post which I’ve never done… so I’ve been listening to the White Album. Rocky Raccoon is a great way to start out the week
I bought the White Album in the winter of 1981 right after John Lennon was murdered. It has remained my favorite album ever by far. You have such a variety on this album and it gives you different glances at the Beatles without many studio tricks and sounds.
This song starts with a strumming guitar and then comes Paul talking/singing in his best western voice. Now somewhere in the Black Mountain Hills of Dakota There lived a young boy named Rocky Raccoon.
The main character was originally called Rocky Sassoon but McCartney changed it to Raccoon, as he thought the name was more cowboyish.
The original title of the album was going to be “A Doll’s House“… but the band Family used the title Music from a Doll’s House for its debut album, so The Beatles scrapped the idea. The album’s real name ended up being “The Beatles” but the plain white cover nickname soon took over. From some accounts here is the original cover.
In 1968, McCartney got the idea for it when he was playing guitar with John Lennon and Donovan Leitch at the Maharishi’s camp in India. Rocky in the song is a cowboy in the old west and challenges Dan when Dan ran off with Rocky’s girl. In the gunfight, Dan is too quick and shoots Rocky wounding him. When the song was recorded… Beatles producer George Martin played the piano in an old-west saloon style.
Rocky in this song is not a raccoon but a boy whose girl runs off with his rival, Dan. The song is set in the Old West, so Rocky does what any self-respecting cowboy would do: he challenges Dan to a gunfight. Unfortunately for Rocky, he Dan is quick on the draw and shoots him first, wounding Rocky and proving himself worthy of the girl.
The album peaked at #1 in the US, Canada, UK, and just about everywhere in 1968.
Paul McCartney:“Rocky was me writing (speaks-sings in a baccy-chewing old prospector voice), ‘It was way back in the hills of Dakota-or Arkansas-in the mining days. And it was tough, picking shovels, and we were underground 24 hours a day…’ I could have taken this serious route, researched it – ‘Take This Hammer’ (a prison work song recorded by British skiffle star Lonnie Donegan in 1959), stuff I’d been brought up on. But at that point I was a little tongue-in cheek. So I crossed it with a (British singer and banjo player popular in the 1940s) George Formby sensibility, where John and I would go (sings a bit of doggerel in a choppy rhythm) – Stanley Holloway, Albert in The Lion’s Den (the comic poem The Lion and Albert, written by Holloway’s creative partner Marriott Edgar in 1932). We were very versed in all that stuff (sings opening lines of Rocky Raccoon in the same choppy way). The scanning of the poetical stanza always interested me. Somehow this little story unfolded itself.
I was basically spoofing ‘the folk-singer.’ And it included Gideon’s Bible, which I’ve seen in every hotel I’ve ever been in. You open the drawer and there it is! Who’s this guy Gideon! I still don’t know to this day who the heck he is. I’m sure he’s a very well-meaning guy. Rocky Raccoon was a freewheeling thing, the fun of mixing a folky ramble with Albert In The Lion’s Den with its ”orse’s ‘ead ‘andle,’ ha ha.”
Many cover versions have been recorded. Some of the artists are Richie Havens, Ramsey Lewis, Jack Johnson, Andrew Gold, James Blunt, Phish, Jimmy Buffett, Maureen McGovern, Kingston Wall, Charlie Parr, and Andy Fairweather Low.
Rocky Raccoon
Now somewhere in the Black Mountain Hills of Dakota
There lived a young boy named Rocky Raccoon
And one day his woman ran off with another guy
Hit young Rocky in the eye
Rocky didn’t like that
He said, “I’m gonna get that boy”
So one day he walked into town
Booked himself a room in the local saloon
Rocky Raccoon checked into his room
Only to find Gideon’s Bible
Rocky had come, equipped with a gun
To shoot off the legs of his rival
His rival it seems, had broken his dreams
By stealing the girl of his fancy
Her name was Magill, and she called herself Lil
But everyone knew her as Nancy
Now she and her man, who called himself Dan
Were in the next room at the hoe down
Rocky burst in, and grinning a grin
He said, “Danny boy, this is a showdown”
But Daniel was hot, he drew first and shot
And Rocky collapsed in the corner
Now the doctor came in, stinking of gin
And proceeded to lie on the table
He said, “Rocky, you met your match”
And Rocky said, “Doc, it’s only a scratch
And I’ll be better, I’ll be better, Doc, as soon as I am able”
Now Rocky Raccoon, he fell back in his room
Only to find Gideon’s Bible
Gideon checked out, and he left it, no doubt
To help with good Rocky’s revival
This is an old Robert Johnson song that I’ve always liked. I learned about this song from a bootleg of Leon Russell, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, and Eric Clapton many years ago. Eric wasn’t in the best of shape when this was recorded during the Bangladesh rehearsals. George takes the solo in this blues song and makes it fit really well. I added this version along with Johnson at the bottom of the post.
Robert Johnson recorded it on November 23, 1936, at the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio, Texas and it was produced by Don Law. Johnson only recorded 29 songs in total with 13 surviving outtakes. In one hotel room, Johnson performed and in a second adjoining room, the recording equipment was housed.
In 1990 the compilation album The Complete Recordings was released and peaked at #80 in the Billboard Album Charts. It also won a Grammy Award in 1991 for “Best Historical Album. This song has had over 100 known cover versions by other artists.
Robert Johnson was a huge influence on guitarists such as Eric Clapton, Jimi Page, Peter Green, Brian Jones, and many more. He sounded different than his peers at the time which could have contributed to him not being better known in the 1930s. His style was ahead of his time and it took til the 1960s for him to catch on. In 1961, King of the Delta Blues Singers was released with 16 of his songs on the album…a generation of musicians was influenced.
Johnson died in 1938 at the age of 27. Some say Johnson had been flirting with a married woman at a dance, and she gave him a bottle of whiskey poisoned by her husband…he died two days after drinking it. That is not known for sure but we will probably never know.
Eric Clapton – His music is like my oldest friend, always in the back of my head and on the horizon. It’s the finest music I’ve ever heard. I’ve always trusted its purity. And I always will.’ I don’t know what more you could say….”
Bob Dylan: If I hadn’t heard the Robert Johnson record when I did, there probably would have been hundreds of lines of mine that would have been shut down—that I wouldn’t have felt free enough or upraised enough to write.
Come On In My Kitchen
You better come on in my kitchen Well, it’s goin’ to be rainin’ outdoors Ah, the woman I love, took from my best friend Some joker got lucky, stole her back again You better come on in my kitchen It’s goin’ to be rainin’ outdoors
Oh, she’s gone, I know she won’t come back I’ve taken the last nickel out of her nation sack You better come on in my kitchen It’s goin’ to be rainin’ outdoors Oh, can’t you hear that wind howl? Oh, can’t you hear that wind would howl? You better come on in my kitchen Well, it’s goin’ to be rainin’ outdoors
When a woman gets in trouble, everybody throws her down
Lookin’ for her good friend, none can be found You better come on in my kitchen
Babe, it’s goin’ to be rainin’ outdoors Wintertime’s comin’, it’s gon’ be slow You can’t make the winter, babe, that’s dry, long, so You better come on in my kitchen, ’cause it’s goin’ to be rainin’ outdoors
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