PLAYLIST MARCH, 23 RD 2014

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2 2 PLAYLIST MARCH, 23 RD AM The Beatles - Tomorrow Never Knows - Revolver Lead vocal: John The first song recorded for what would become the Revolver album. John s composition was unlike anything The Beatles or anyone else had ever recorded. 2

3 3 Lennon s vocal is buried under a wall of sound -- an assemblage of repeating tape loops and sound effects placed on top of a dense one chord song with basic melody driven by Ringo's thunderous drum pattern. The lyrics were largely taken from The Psychedelic Experience, a 1964 book written by Harvard psychologists Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert, which contained an adaptation of the ancient Tibetan Book of the Dead. Each Beatle worked at home on creating strange sounds to add to the mix. Then they were added at different speeds sometime backwards. Paul got arranging credit. He had discovered that by removing the erase head on his Grundig reel-to-reel tape machine, he could saturate a recording with sound. Paul McCartney For No One - Give My Regards to Broad Street 84 John She Said - Home The Beatles - She Said She Said - Revolver Lead vocal: John The rhythm track was finished in three takes on June 21, 1966, the final day of recording for Revolver. When the recording session started the song was untitled. The key line came from a real-life incident. On August 24, 1965, during a break in Los Angeles from their North American Tour, The Beatles rented a house on Mulholland Drive. They played host to notables such as Roger McGuinn and David Crosby of the Byrds, actors and actresses, and a bevy of beautiful women, From Playboy, I believe, Lennon remembered. John, high on acid, found himself in a strange conversation with actor Peter Fonda, who kept coming up to him and whispering, I know what it s like to be dead. As a child, Fonda had a near-death experience after accidentally shooting himself on the stomach. The song was a last-minute addition to the Revolver, rehearsed and recorded on the final day of sessions when the band discovered they were one song short. McCartney recalls getting into an argument with John and leaving the studio. He believes this is one of the only Beatle records he didn t play on. It is assumed George played the bass in McCartney s absence. John sings the lead vocal and plays the organ, and John and George double-tracked the backing vocals. Revolver - Capitol LP 9.10 BREAK 3

4 4 The Beatles - Wait - Rubber Soul Lead vocals: John and Paul Recorded June 17, 1965 during the Help! sessions, the song was left unfinished when The Beatles had hit the deadline to submit the album. Five months later, as the deadline to submit Rubber Soul was upon them, they grabbed the unfinished song, threw on some overdubs and decreed it finished. Specifically, they added a tone pedal guitar, tambourine, maracas, and more vocals on November 11, 1965, the final day of recording for Rubber Soul. Rubber Soul - Capitol LP 4

5 5 The Beatles - I m A Loser - Beatles For Sale Lead vocal: John Recorded in eight takes on August 14, Written mostly by John Lennon. The song style, more autobiographical and introspective than the yeah, yeah, yeah pop the group had previously recorded, was heavily influenced by the work of Bob Dylan. Paul McCartney called it a folk song gone pop. The Beatles debuted I m A Loser on ABC s Shindig program, an appearance taped in London and airing on October 7. The song was performed during the Beatles European Tour commencing June 20, 1965, but was not on the set list for the U.S. shows two months later. John s harmonica solo was a last minute addition to the song, appearing first in Take 6. George Martin and the group considered I m A Loser a potential single and had initially chosen it to be the LP s opening song. Beatles 65 - Capitol LP The Beatles - If I Fell - A Hard Day s Night Lead vocal: John and Paul John Lennon s stunning ballad If I Fell was by far the most complex song he had written to date. It could be considered a progression from This Boy with its similar chord structure and intricate harmonies by John and Paul, recorded at their request 5

6 6 together on one microphone. Performed live on their world tour throughout the summer of Completed in 15 takes on February 27, Flip side of And I Love Her in the U.S. A Hard Day s Night - United Artists LP Something New - Capitol LP The Beatles - I m Down - Single Lead vocal: Paul Recorded in one take on June 14, Written entirely by Paul McCartney, who showed off his skills at the June 14 recording session by recording I ve Just Seen A Face in six takes, then the scorcher I m Down in one take, and following a dinner break, nailing Yesterday in two takes. I m Down was patterned after Little Richard s Long Tall Sally, or as George Harrison described it at the time, It s pretty wild because it has Paul s wild voice. Paul: I could do Little Richard's voice, which is a wild, hoarse, screaming thing. It's like an out-of-body experience. You have to leave your current sensibilities and go about a foot above your head to sing it. A lot of people were fans of Little Richard so I used to sing his stuff but there came a point when I wanted one of my own, so I wrote I'm Down. I ended up doing it at Shea Stadium. It worked very well for those kind of places, it was a good stage song. And in as much as they are hard to write, I'm proud of it. Those kind of songs with hardly any melody, rock 'n' roll songs, are much harder to write than ballads, because there's nothing to them. John Lennon plays the Hammond organ. The B-side of the Help! single, issued July 23, 1965 in the UK and July 19, 1965 in the U.S. Non-album single (B-side) UK: Non-album single (B-side) 6

7 7 The Beatles - Can t Buy Me Love - A Hard Day s Night Lead vocal: Paul The Beatles sixth single release for EMI s Parlophone label. During their 19-day engagement at Paris s Olympia Theatre The Beatles took time out to record German-language versions for two of their biggest hits. I Want to Hold Your Hand and She Loves You were chosen to get new vocals to increase sales in the German market. This was at the insistence of EMI s German branch, Odeon, which felt they couldn t sell large quantities of records unless they were sung in German. With less than an hour left on their booked recording time, The Beatles recorded four takes of a new song by Paul, Can t Buy Me Love. Issued in the U.S. on March 16, 1964, it sold 940,225 copies in the U.S. the day it was released, earning a gold record award that day and shattering all previous sales records. Within two weeks sales had totaled 2 million copies. The single went on to sell over 3 million by the end of the year. The UK single was released four days later, on March 20, Recorded Jan. 29, 1964 at Pathe Marconi Studio in Paris. It s inclusion in A Hard Day s Night was a decision by director Richard Lester, who opted for Paul s fast paced million seller over John s slower new song I ll Cry Instead. The decision to cut I ll Cry Instead from the film was so last minute that the American soundtrack LP, which had been rush-released on United Artists Records, included I ll Cry Instead in its song line-up. A Hard Day s Night - United Artists LP Hey Jude - Apple LP (1970) The Beatles - Everybody s Trying To Be My Baby - Beatles For Sale (Perkins) Lead vocal: George The second Carl Perkins cover song used for Beatles For Sale, Everybody s Trying To Be My Baby had been a part of the Beatles early stage show. George Harrison provides 7

8 8 the lead vocal, his only lead vocal contribution on Beatles For Sale. Recorded in just one take on October 18, The song is notable for its heavy use of vocal echo. Harrison performed this song live throughout the 1965 tours. Beatles 65 - Capitol LP The Beatles - No Reply - Beatles For Sale Lead vocal: John Recorded in eight takes on September 30, Written entirely by John Lennon. John and Paul had been giving away a treasure trove of original compositions to other artists to record and release because they felt the songs were too pop for Beatles records. John had planned to give No Reply to another Brian Epstein managed artist, Tommy Quickly, to record, but those plans were cancelled in early August 1964 when it was determined the group was going to be short of new material for their upcoming album. The song s storyline was based somewhat on Silhouettes, a number three hit in the U.S. for the R&B group the Rays, which was later covered with great success by Herman s Hermits. Lennon: I had that image of walking down the street and seeing her silhouetted in the window and not answering the phone. Includes some nice piano work from producer George Martin. Beatles 65 - Capitol LP Long Tall Sally (Johnson-Penniman-Blackwell) Lead vocal: Paul Paul McCartney recorded this Little Richard screecher in just one take on March 1, Prior to being properly recorded, the Beatles performed the song for an American audience during the Beatles first concert appearance, in Washington D.C. on February 11, In a rare instance, two of the songs from the Long Tall Sally EP were issued first in America ( Long Tall Sally on The Beatles Second Album and I Call Your Name on Something New ). The initial pressings of the Long Tall Sally EP credited only Enotris Johnson as the writer of Long Tall Sally. Johnson was a little girl that had written some original lyrics for a song she hoped Little Richard would record. She gave a popular local radio disc jockey a note with the lyrics to give to Little Richard. The DJ gave the note to Little Richard s producer and a hit was born. The Penniman that is credited is Richard Penniman, aka Little Richard. Little Richard s recording was released in March 1956 and hit #1 on the Billboard R&B sales chart, becoming the best-selling 45 of the history of Specialty Records. Originally recorded by Little Richard with the working title The Thing. The Beatles Second Album - Capitol LP U.K.: Non-album track (EP song) 8

9 9 The Beatles - You re Going To Lose That Girl - Help! Lead vocal: John Often called You re Gonna Lose That Girl by fans. Recorded in two takes on February 19, Written by John and Paul at Kenwood, John s home on the St. George s Hill estate in Weybridge, Surrey (where the Beatles would be photographed for the cover of their Rubber Soul album). Overdubs included Paul on piano and Ringo on bongos. On U.S. albums: Help! - Capitol LP 9.42 BREAK 9

10 10 The Beatles - Yer Blues - The Beatles Lead vocal: John At John s request, Yer Blues was recorded in a small storage room next to the control room of Abbey Road s Studio Two. According to author Bruce Spizer, Lennon got the idea to record there when engineer Ken Scott jokingly complained to John about all the unconventional things the group was doing in the studio. Scott remarked, Bloody hell, the way you lot are carrying on you ll be wanting to record everything in the room next door! John thought it was a great idea and had the studio crew set up the band s amplifiers, microphones and instruments in the control room s tiny annex. Fourteen takes of the basic track were completed on August 13, On August 14, John recorded his lead vocal, Paul added his backing vocal line girl you know the reason why, and Ringo double-tracked his snare drum during the guitar solo. The vocal bleeding through in the final mix is John s guide vocal that was recorded on August 13, which he decided to leave as is. Ringo s count-in ( two, three ) was an edit piece recorded on August 20. John Lennon New York City Some Time In New York City 72 10

11 11 This is the best rocker of the LP and a testament to the love John felt for the place he would now call home. The Beatles - Dizzy Miss Lizzy - Help! (Williams) Lead vocal: John Recorded specifically for the American market at the urgent request of Capitol Records executives, who needed two songs to fill out their upcoming Beatles VI album. Of course, Capitol had four songs in its possession it could have included ( From Me To You, Misery, There s A Place and the German-language version of She Loves You, had all yet to appear on an LP in America), but they went to the Beatles and asked for something new ASAP. With no new material ready to go the band pulled two Larry Williams songs from their pre-fame club repertoire, Bad Boy and Dizzy Miss Lizzy, that could be recorded in one day and then the tapes would be air-freighted to Capitol Records in Los Angeles. Dizzy Miss Lizzy was added as the album closer on the UK Help! LP when several songs earmarked for the project fell through ( That Means A Lot and Wait ) and they decided against including the two most recent B-sides. Beatles VI - Capitol LP The Beatles - What You re Doing - Beatles For Sale 11

12 12 Lead vocal: Paul Recorded in seven takes on October 26, The most problematic song in the sessions for Beatles For Sale. The Beatles tried different arrangements over three days and finally hit upon one they liked on the last day of recording for the album. Written primarily by Paul between August 31 and September 1, 1964 in Atlantic City during days off on the Beatles North American Tour. Paul provides the double-tracked lead vocal. Beatles VI - Capitol LP Paul McCartney Flaming Pie Flaming Pie 97 The title track, it evolved out of jam between Paul and Jeff Lynne (during recording of the track, Souvenir ). It was recorded in a single session on February 27 th, NEWS HERE BREAK The Beatles -I Want To Hold Your Hand Past Masters Recorded 17th October 1963 Parlophone and Capitol single Capitol LP Meet the Beatles! Parlophone EP The Beatles Million Sellers Parlophone LP A Collection Of Beatles Oldies 12

13 13 The Beatles Leave My Kitten Alone Beatles For Sale sessions The Beatles - Any Time At All - A Hard Day s Night Lead vocal: John Recorded June 2, 1964, the last day of recording for the A Hard Day s Night album. John Lennon: An effort at writing It Won't Be Long - same ilk. C to A minor, C to A minor with me shouting. The song was in an unfinished state when Lennon brought it to the band to record on June 2. The group worked out the arrangement throughout the day and night. Up against the wall on a deadline to submit the album, the piano section in the middle eight was left without lyrics. They had run out of time. On April 8, 1988, Lennon's handwritten lyrics for Any Time At All were sold for 6,000 at an auction held at Sotheby's in London. Something New - Capitol LP 13

14 14 The Beatles - Eight Days A Week - Beatles For Sale Lead vocal: John Recorded primarily on October 6, It is the first instance of the Beatles taking an unfinished idea into the studio and experimenting with different approaches to a song. Eight Days A Week is the first pop song with a fade-in introduction. Written mostly by Paul, the title was taken from a line spoken by a limo driver. McCartney: I was being driven over to visit John. The chauffeur was talking away to me, saying how hard his boss worked the staff, so hard that they seem to do eight days a week. We ve altered the plot a bit for the song, of course. The bloke loves the girl eight days a week. In later years John Lennon incorrectly referred to this title in interviews as the original working title for the film Help! The actual working title of Help! was Eight Arms To Hold You. On September 20, 1964 as the band and their entourage flew to their final 14

15 15 North American Tour concert destination, the press corps on board the Beatles private plane witnessed from a distance, careful not to interrupt, the four Beatles huddled together working on a new song. John, Paul, and George on guitars and Ringo tapping his knees, and all humming the tune of what would become Eight Days A Week. Released as a single b/w I Don t Want To Spoil The Party in the U.S. on February 15, Beatles VI - Capitol LP QUIZ #2 Name the A & B side Paul McCartney & Wings single released in GB today in KLOS The Beatles - Old Brown Shoe (Harrison) Past Masters Recorded April 16 th 1969 Abbey Road right before the Abbey Road sessions began, though some Abbey Road material was already laid down. flip of Ballad of John & Yoko Released as a single in UK April 11, 1969 And in the USA May 5 th The Beatles 1 st STEREO single in the UK Featuring Billy Preston on organ. WINNER HERE 15

16 16 My Love/The Mess (Single) Paul McCartney & Wings March 23, UK April 7 9h, 1973 US Reached #1 in the US Billboard Hot 100 Reached #9 in the UK BREAK 16

17 17 The Beatles - Magical Mystery Tour - Magical Mystery Tour (EP) Lead vocals: Paul and John When Paul McCartney was in the U.S. in early April 1967 he came up with the idea for a Beatles television film about a mystery tour on a bus. During the April 11 flight back home he began writing lyrics for the title song and sketching out some ideas for the film. Upon his arrival in London, Paul pitched his idea to Brian Epstein who happily approved. Paul then met with John to go over the details and the two began work on the film s title track. The title track was written primarily by Paul but was not finished when McCartney brought the song in to be recorded on April 25, John helped with the missing pieces during the session. 17

18 18 Magical Mystery Tour - Capitol LP The Beatles - Sexy Sadie - The Beatles Lead vocal: John On February 19, 1968, the Beatles left the comforts of the UK for an oft-postponed extended trip to Rishikesh, India. Arriving the next day, they had come to learn the powers of mediation under the direction of Indian guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at the Academy of Transcendental Meditation. The compound was located 150 feet above the Ganges surrounded on three sides by jungle-covered mountains. Students would live in stone cottages. Each cottage had twin beds and modern bathroom facilities. George Harrison had been enlightened by the Indian culture and the Maharishi s teachings and invited his band mates to immerse themselves in it as well. But instead of rejuvenating the other Beatles, the trip became tedious. Ringo and wife Maureen left Rishikesh after 10 days, complaining of missing their children and not liking the food. John and Paul turned it into a songwriting vacation, much to Harrison s irritation. Paul and girlfriend Jane Asher returned to England on March 26. In April, things came to a head when a rumor circulated that the Maharishi had made sexual advances toward at least one of the women at the compound. John: We went to see him after we stayed up all night discussing was it true or not true. When George started thinking it might be true, I thought well, it must be true, because if George started thinking it might be true there must be something to it. So we went to see Maharishi, the whole gang of us, the next day, charged down to his hut, his bungalow, and as usual, when the dirty work came, I was the spokesman. But instead of accusing the Maharishi outright of wrongdoing or inquiring about the specifics of the rumor, Lennon announced cryptically We re leaving. When the Maharishi asked why, Lennon s response was Well, if you re so cosmic you ll know why. True or not, Lennon and Harrison had had enough and left with their entourage immediately. Sexy Sadie was written by John while waiting at Delhi Airport, and was originally titled Maharishi with lyrics being Maharishi, what have you done? You made a fool of everyone. At Harrison s request, Lennon backed off and substituted Sexy Sadie for Maharishi. 18

19 19 The Beatles - Taxman - Revolver (Harrison) Lead vocal: George Completed in 11 takes on April 21, Written by George when he started realizing the majority of his money was going to the British government in the form of taxes. George went to John Lennon for some help with the lyrics, and Lennon was especially pleased with his line Now my advice for those who die: declare the pennies on your eyes. Featuring a nice lead guitar solo by Paul on his Epiphone Casino. The pennies lyrical reference derives from Greek mythology it is the payment to Charon (the ferryman of the underworld) to ferry the deceased to their destination in the underworld. To pay the ferryman, the deceased person's relatives place a coin on each eye of the deceased. The Mr. Wilson and Mr. Heath mentioned in the song were real people. Harold Wilson was the Prime Minister and Edward Heath was head of the opposition party at the time the song was recorded. It is the first time a George Harrison composition opens a British Beatles album. Revolver - Capitol LP John Lennon Tight A$ - Mind Games 73 This track was an interesting turn for John s songwriting, as this was the first song that wasn t about something 19

20 20 The Beatles - Think For Yourself - Rubber Soul (Harrison) Lead vocal: George The fifth original composition by George Harrison to be recorded by The Beatles was completed on November 8, 1965 in one take with overdubs under the working title Won t Be There With You. The song features Paul playing his bass through a fuzz box to give it a distorted sound. Rubber Soul - Capitol LP The Beatles - The Word - Rubber Soul Lead vocal: John Recorded in three takes at a late night session starting on November 10, 1965 that ran until 4 a.m. the next morning. Overdubs include Paul on piano, George Martin on 20

21 21 harmonium, and Ringo playing the maracas. The song is a full collaboration between Lennon and McCartney, and began as an attempt to write a song based around a single note. Rubber Soul - Capitol LP QUIZ HERE Who s singing this Beatles song? BREAK 21

22 22 Ya know Eng. We have yet to hear Richard Starkey sing a lead vocal this morning Ringo & Elton - Snookeroo Goodnight Vienna `74 John & Elton I Saw Here Standing There Live MSG John & Eric Give Peace A Chance Live Peace In Toronto `69 George & Leon - Beware Of Darkness Concert For Bangladesh `71 Paul & Linda Maybe I m Amazed Glasgow soundcheck `79 22

23 BREAK George & Paul Simon Here Comes The Sun SNL Paul & Jimmy Fallon Scrambled Eggs Live Paul Great Day Flaming Pie fin 23