Yardbirds – PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture

Yardbirds – Over, Under, Sideways, Down

The 1966 song begins loudly with a snake-charming-sounding riff by Jeff Beck. It jumps out of the turntable. I had one of the many Yardbirds greatest hits packages in the 1980s and became a fan.

Jeff also plays the bass on this song. When you talk about the Yardbirds, you almost have to pick which Yardbirds you’re talking about. The Clapton Yardbirds? The Jeff Beck Yardbirds? The Page Yardbirds? They were a band in constant transition, always chasing the next sound (and guitar player). With Jeff Beck holding the guitar reins, they gave us one of their strangest and coolest singles.

From the opening guitar riff, you know you’re not in typical British Invasion territory. The tune was inspired by Middle Eastern scales. The band had been soaking up Indian and Eastern music around the same time the Beatles were dabbling in sitars. Instead of George Harrison’s spiritual leanings, though, the Yardbirds went for having a good time at all costs.

The song was a group composition, something the Yardbirds often did to keep things fair. Beck’s guitar is the real star, but the whole band had a hand in shaping its feel. It was one of their last sessions with bassist Paul Samwell-Smith, who would leave shortly afterward to focus on production. Chris Dreja, their rhythm guitarist, has said the song captured the manic, party-heavy atmosphere of their lives at the time.

Over, Under, Sideways, Down peaked at #13 in the Billboard 100 and #10 in the UK in 1966. I must say it’s one of my all-time favorite titles.

Jim McCarty: “‘Over Under Sideways Down’ was about the situation of having a good time – a bit of decadence, really – in the ’60s. Cars and girls are easy to come by in this day and age, and laughing, drinking, smoking, whatever, till I’ve spent my wages, having fun.”

Jim McCarty: “On ‘Over Under Sideways Down’ I think we all put in our bit. I put in a tune, somebody else said, ‘How about the state of things at the moment, it’s all over the place, so it’s sort of over, under, Sideways, down.'”

Jim McCarty: “It’s very much up and down. Yeah, it was very much like a microcosm of a life, really. Very extreme, because we’d go from being on top of the charts and going to fantastic places and traveling to places like California that were just our dream after being in a sort of post-war London, which was rather dismal and rather miserable. Suddenly we were going to sunny California where things were happening and things were rich and there were lovely girls and cars and everything. From that to sitting all night in a bus driving to a gig and not being able to stop and feeling absolutely wretched from being so tired. And getting on each other’s nerves and arguing. (laughing) So it’s very much the extreme life.”

Jeff Beck: “I actually didn’t have a guitar of my own, I was so hard up. The Yardbirds sort of sneaked Eric’s guitar out. He’d finished using the red Tele (Fender Telecaster)
and was using a Les Paul, so he didn’t care about the red Tele. The bands manager, said well, ‘You’d better use Eric’s guitar—we can’t afford to go out and buy one now.’ So I borrowed Eric’s for the first couple of gigs”.

Over, Under, Sideways, Down

(Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!)
Cars and girls are easy come by in this day and age.
Laughing, joking, dreams, weed smoking, till I’ve spent my wage.
When I was young, people spoke of immorality.
All the things they said were wrong are what I want to be.

(Hey!) Over, under, sideways, down,
(Hey!) I bounce a ball that’s square and round.
(Hey!) Over, under, sideways, down,
(Hey!) I bounce a ball that’s square and round.
When will it end? (When will it end?)
When will it end? (When will it end?)

(Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!)
I find comments ’bout my looks irrelativity.
Think I’ll go and have some fun, ’cause it’s all for free.
I’m not searchin’ for a reason to enjoy myself.
Seems it’s better done than argue with somebody else.

Yardbirds – For Your Love

This is the song that introduced the Yardbirds to me. I got into them heavily as a teenager. I just found one of my old Jr High notebooks with band names on the front, and The Yardbirds are on there. I always thought this was a different-sounding pop hit. Yes, you have the harpsichord, but the song also has a couple of time signatures.

The song was written by Graham Gouldman, a teenage songwriter whose knack for hooks would later find full bloom in 10cc. For Your Love was handed to them by manager Giorgio Gomelsky, who saw the group’s potential beyond the blues clubs. The song offered a chance on the pop charts. Clocking in at under 2:30, it was compact, catchy, and just different enough to resonate with people. This was one of the few hit pop songs at the time to feature a harpsichord.

And for Eric Clapton, it was the final straw. Clapton wanted blues, and Gomelsky wanted hits. He couldn’t get behind its commercial lean. Within weeks of its release, he was gone, off to join John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, where the amps were loud and the blues roots ran deeper.

The song peaked at #6 in the Billboard 100, #1 in Canada, and #3 in the Uk in 1965. This song was more pop than blues. This inspired Eric Clapton to leave the Yardbirds because he feared they were becoming too commercial.

The Yardbirds had three of Rock’s greatest guitar players pass through them. Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page. They had such a raw edge to them with Jeff Beck, so that is the version I like best.

Jim McCarty on the songs by Graham Gouldman: “Well, they were always very original. Very interesting songs, very moody, because they were usually in a minor key, the ones we did, anyway. ‘For Your Love’ was an interesting song, it had an interesting chord sequence, very moody, very powerful. And the fact that it stopped in the middle and went into a different time signature, we liked that, that was interesting. Quite different, really, from all the bluesy stuff that we’d been playing up till then. But somehow we liked it. It was original and different.”

Jim McCarty: “To try and get a hit song in those days was quite a difficult thing to do for us. We could come up with ideas, but our first hit song was very important for us. And with ‘For Your Love’ we heard it and had the demo of it and it sounded like a hit song to all of us. Yeah, there wasn’t a problem doing that. It was the sort of thing that you relied on to get into that other echelon, to have a hit song. All our contemporaries were having hit songs: The Beatles and the Stones and the Moody Blues and Animals, they were all having #1 hits and we were really trying to keep up.”

For Your Love

For your love
For your love
I’d give you everything and more and that’s for sure
(For your love)
I’d bring you diamond rings and things right to your door
(For your love)
To thrill you with delight,
I’d give you diamonds bright
Double takes I will excite,
Make you dream of me at night
For your love
For your love
For your love
For your love,
For your love
I would give the stars above
For your love,
For your love
I would give you all I could
(For your love)
(For your love)
I’d give the moon if it were mine to give
(For your love)
I’d give the stars and the sun for I live
(For your love)

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.

Yardbirds – Heart Full Of Soul

The Yardbirds had three of Rock’s greatest guitar players pass through them. Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page. They had such a raw edge to them with Jeff Beck so that is the version I like best.

Heart Full of Soul peaked at #9 in the Billboard 100, #2 in the UK, and #2 in Canada in 1965. From the opening, it hooks you.

The lead guitarist Jeff Beck used an early version of a fuzz box on his lead part. They tried a sitar in the intro but they instead opted for Beck’s sitar-sounding guitar. “Heart Full of Soul” was the second of three Yardbirds singles written by non-member Graham Gouldman (the first was “For Your Love,” the other was “Evil Hearted You”).

This was the Yardbirds’ first single after Jeff Beck replaced Eric Clapton as lead guitarist. Released only three months after “For Your Love.” The song is interesting because it contains Eastern and Western musical influences.

Jeff Beck gave the song an Eastern feel by the way he played the intro. When Jeff Beck joined the Yardbirds he didn’t have a guitar.

Jeff Beck: I actually didn’t have a guitar of my own, I was so hard up. The Yardbirds sort of sneaked Eric’s guitar out. He’d finished using the red Tele (Fender Telecaster)
and was using a Les Paul, so he didn’t care about the red Tele. The bands manager, said well, ‘You’d better use Eric’s guitar—we can’t afford to go out and buy one now.’ So I borrowed Eric’s for the first couple of gigs”.

Drummer Jim McCarty: “‘Heart Full of Soul,’ which was very moody, gave us the ability to play the riff in sort of an Eastern way, give it an Oriental touch. Another very good song.”

Heart Full Of Soul

Sick at heart and lonely, deep in dark despair
When you want her only, tell me where is she where?
And if she says to you, that she don’t love me
Just give her my message, tell her of my plea
And I know, if I could have her back again, I would never make her sad
I got a heart full of soul I got a heart full of soul
She’s been gone such a long time, longer than I can bear
But if she says she wants me, tell her I’ll be there

And I know, if I could have her back again, I would never make her sad
I got a heart full of soul I got a heart full of soul
Sick at heart and lonely, deep in dark despair
When you want her only, tell me where is she where?
And if she says to you, that she don’t love me
Just give her my message, tell her of my plea
And I know, if I could have her back again, I would never make her sad
I got a heart full of soul I got a heart full of soul
I got a heart full of soul!

Yardbirds – Happenings Ten Years Time Ago

I remember this song on some Yardbirds album I had back in the day. The guitar riff is outstanding. This band had no shortage of guitarists. Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and then Jimmy Page.

This is the first Yardbirds song that Beck and Page played together. The bass player on this song, Led Zeppelin fans will know right away. John Paul Jones played bass on this song. Jones also played bass on the Yardbird’s tracks “No Excess Baggage” and “Goodnight Sweet Josephine.” The reason Jones, who was a studio musician at that point, played on these songs was that the regular bass player Paul Samwell-Smith was pursuing record production full-time.

Paul Samwell-Smith went on to be a successful producer with credits such Cat Stevens’ albums Tea for the Tillerman, Teaser and the Firecat, and Catch Bull at Four. He also produced Jethro Tull, Carly Simon, and others. A couple of years later…John Paul Jones would be part of the New Yardbirds before they morphed into Led Zeppelin. Page wisely kept the rights to the name and the band played their first shows under that name.

This song was released in 1966 as a single with the B-side Psycho Daisies. The song peaked at #43 in the UK. As the title of the B side suggests…music was going into a psychedelic period that would peak the following year with The Beatles Sgt Peppers album.

The song was credited to the band… Keith Relf, Jim McCarty, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page except for rhythm guitar player Chris Dreja and bass player Paul Samwell-Smith.

Jim McCarty: “On ‘Happenings Ten Years Time Ago,’ Keith (Relf) and I were trying to write a song about reincarnation. We’d seen everything before, and it was all happening again. That was quite an interesting viewpoint, really. Meeting people along our way that we’d seen from another day. Sort of bringing in that situation that we’d been there before.”

Jimmy Page: We rehearsed hard on all sorts of riffs to things like “Over Under Sideways Down” which we were doing in harmonies and we worked out where we’d play rehearsed phrases together. It was the sort of thing that people like Wishbone Ash and Quiver [later] perfected, that dual-lead-guitar idea.

Happenings Ten Years Time Ago

Meeting people along my way
Seemingly I’ve known one day
Familiarity of things
That my dreaming always brings

Happenings ten years time ago
Situations we really know
But the knowing is in the mind
Sinking deep into the well of time
Sinking deep into the well of time

Walking in the room, I see
Things that mean a lot to me
Why they do I never know
Memories don’t strike me so
Memories don’t strike me so

It seems to me I’ve been here before
The sounds I heard and the sights I saw
Was it real? Was it in my dreams?
I need to know what it all means

Happenings ten years time ago
Situations we really know
But the knowing is in the mind
Sinking deep into the well of time
Sinking deep into the well of time

Johnny Burnette Trio – Train Kept A Rollin’

Grease your hair and get the leather jacket…this will be a 1950s weekend at powerpop. I wanted to start it off with a bang. Power Pop Friday will return next week. I know some will see the post and go to the Zeppelin or Aerosmith versions automatically but this version is just as nasty in many ways.

I first heard this song by The Yardbirds and then by Aerosmith. The song was rollin’ in the 50s as well with this Johnny Burnette take of it. I’ve never heard a version that sounded bad. It’s like Johnny B Goode…a rock and roll classic.

Paul Burlison, the Trio’s lead guitarist, had dropped his amp and knocked one of its vacuum tubes loose. When he played through it, he found that his guitar made a new, menacing sound, fuzzy and distorted, and though he repaired the amp, he started deliberately loosening his tube to recreate the sound. That is where the tone started with this song. The song failed to chart.

The song was written by Tiny Bradshaw, Howard Kay, and Lois Mann, it was originally performed by Tiny Bradshaw’s Big Band in 1951. Johnny Burnette recorded a rock version in 1956, and The Yardbirds popularized the song with their rendition in 1965.

Aerosmith covered it in 1974, often playing the song as their encore in their early years. In the ’60s, Steven Tyler was on the same bill as The Yardbirds for some early shows before Zeppelin.

It was the first song Zeppelin played at their first rehearsal in Soho, their performance of it at the Texas International Pop Festival in 1969 was captured on tape and they were still playing it on their final tour.

On August 14, 1964, Burnette’s unlit fishing boat was struck by an unaware cabin cruiser in Clear Lake, California. The impact threw him off the boat, and he drowned. He had a son named Rocky Burnette who had a hit in 1980 with Tired of Toein the Line.

Watch for Bettie Page in this one!

Train Kept A Rollin’

I caught a trainI met a dameShe was a hipsterAnd a real gone dameShe was prettyFrom New York CityAnd we trucked on down that old fair laneWith a heave and a hoWell, I just couldn’t let her go

Get along, creepy little womanGet along, well, be on your wayGet along, creepy little womanGet along, well, be on your wayWith a heave and a hoWell, I just couldn’t let her go

Well, the train kept a-rollin all night longThe train kept a-rollin all night longThe train kept a-movin all night longThe train kept a-rollin all night longWith a heave and a hoWell, I just couldn’t let her go

We made a stopIn AlbuquerqueShe must’ve thoughtThat I was a real gone jerkWe got off the train at El PasoOur lovin was so good, JackI couldn’t let her goGet alongWell, I just couldn’t let her go

Get along, creepy little womanGet along, well, be on your wayGet along, creepy little womanGet along, well, be on your wayWith a heave and a hoWell, I just couldn’t let her go

The train kept a-rollin all night longThe train kept a-rollin all night longThe train kept a-rollin all night longThe train kept a-rollin all night longWith a heave and a hoWell, I just couldn’t let her go-oh-oh

Johnny Burnette Trio-Train Kept A Rollin’

This song you may remember from the Yardbirds and Aerosmith but this version rocks roots style. No matter what version you know…this song is built for a rock band of any kind.

It was written by Tiny Bradshaw, Howard Kay, and Lois Mann, this song was originally performed by Tiny Bradshaw’s Big Band in 1951.

This version features guitar lines in what many historians consider to be the first recorded example of intentionally distorted guitar in rock music, although blues guitarists, such as Willie Johnson and Pat Hare, had recorded with the same effect years earlier.

The Trio’s guitarist, Paul Burlison, recounted that he noticed the sound after accidentally dropping his amplifier, which dislodged a power tube. Later, “Whenever I wanted to get that sound, I’d just reach back and loosen that tube”

Johnny Burnette recorded this rock version in 1956, and The Yardbirds popularized the song with their rendition in 1965. Aerosmith covered it in 1974, often playing the song as their encore in their early years. Tyler had seen the Yardbirds do it in the sixties and as he said it knocked him out.

Train Kept A Rollin’

I caught a train
I met a dame
She was a hepster
And a real gone dame
She was pretty
From New York City
And we trucked on down that old fair lane
With a heave and a ho
Well i just couldn’t let her go

Get along, creepy little woman
Get along, well be on your way
Get along, creepy little woman
Get along, well be on your way
With a heave and a ho
Well i just couldn’t let her go

Well, the train kept a-rollin all night long
The train kept a-rollin all night long
The train kept me movin’ all night long
The train kept a-rollin all night long
With a heave and a ho
Well i just couldn’t let her go

We made a stop
In Alberquerque
She must of thought
That I was a real gone jerk
We got off the train
At El Paso
Our lovin was so good, jack
I couldn’t let her go
Get along
Well I just couldn’t let her go

Get along, creepy little woman
Get along, well be on your way
Get along, creepy little woman
Get along, well be on your way
With a heave and a ho
Well I just couldn’t let her go

The train kept a-rollin all night long
The train kept a-rollin all night long
The train kept her movin’ all night long
The train kept a-rollin all night long
With a heave and a ho
Well I just couldn’t let her go-oh-oh

Yardbirds – Train Kept A-Rollin’

This track was produced by Sam Phillips of Sun Records, the man who signed Elvis Presley. It was recorded at Phillips Recording studio, a newly updated state-of-the-art studio in Memphis TN. Jeff Beck, who is a fan of early rockabilly, said that he introduced the song to the group: “They just heard me play the riff, and they loved it and made up their version of it”

I’ve always liked this version and Beck’s filthy sound he had on his guitar.

It was written by Tiny Bradshaw, Howard Kay, and Lois Mann, this song was originally performed by Tiny Bradshaw’s Big Band in 1951. Johnny Burnette recorded a rock version in 1956, and The Yardbirds popularized the song with their rendition in 1965.

Aerosmith covered it in 1974, often playing the song as their encore in their early years. In the ’60s, Aerosmith was on the same bill as The Yardbirds for some shows, and former Yardbird Jeff Beck opened some shows for them in the ’70s.

The song didn’t chart in Billboard but was included on the album “Having A Rave Up” in 1965 which peaked at #53.

From Songfacts

This song is about a guy who is blown away by a woman, but he has to act cool to make sure he doesn’t scare her away. The train rolling is in reference to sex.

In the beginning of the song, Jeff Beck used his guitar to create the train whistle sound.

There are two voices singing throughout the song. Both belong to lead singer Keith Relf. In the beginning, they sing different words, but by the end, both sing in unison.

When Jimmy Page joined the band and he was playing lead guitar with Jeff Beck, the Yardbirds appeared in the 1966 Michelangelo Antonioni film Blowup playing a new version of this song re-titled “Stroll On.” The Yardbirds appeared as a band in the film, which is about a London fashion photographer who may have witnessed a murder. It was one of the first major films with a full frontal nudity scene.

In an interview with Q Magazine January 2008, John Paul Jones recalls this was the first ever song he played with Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Bonham after joining Led Zeppelin: “I can remember the first song I played with Led Zeppelin in a tiny basement room in Soho in 1968, with wall-to-wall amps. That was ‘Train Kept A-Rollin’,’ the Yardbirds song, which I didn’t know at the time. But I knew immediately, ‘This is fun.”

Train Kept A-Rollin’

I caught the train, I met a dame,
She was a hipster, well and a real cool dame,
(She was handsome,)
She was pretty, from New York City,
Well and we trucked on down in that old Fairlane,
(Goin’ on,)
With a heave, and a ho,

Well, I just couldn’t let her go.
(Yes I did,)
Get along, sweet little woman, get along,
Be on your way,
Get along, sweet little woman, get along,
Be on your way,
With a heave, and a ho,
(Love the way you walk,)
I just couldn’t let her go.
(Yes I do now.)

Well, the train kept a-rollin’, all night long,
(Sweet little woman, get along,)
The train kept a-rollin’, all night long,
([You’re my queen?])
The train kept a-rollin’, all night long,
(Sweet little woman, get along,)
The train kept a-rollin’, all night long,
(You’re my queen?)
With a heave, and a ho,
(Love the way you walk,)
Well I just couldn’t let her go,
(Yes I do.)

We made a stop at Albuquerque,
She must have thought I was a real gone jerk,
We got out the train in El Paso,
Lookin’ so good, Jack, I couldn’t let her go.
Get along, sweet little woman, get along,
(Oh, right,)

Well, the train kept a-rollin’, all night long,
The train kept a-rollin’, all night long,
The train kept a-rollin’, all night long,
The train kept a-rollin’, all night long,
With a heave, and a ho,
Well I just couldn’t let her go.