Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere
I recently saw this trailer for Yesterday, which won't be coming out for a few months.
It's an odd premise. (If you didn't watch it, the idea is everyone but one guy forgets everything about The Beatles, so he pretends to write their songs and becomes a big star). But it did make me wonder what it would be like if someone else wrote the Beatles' music.
They're the greatest band of all, with the best songs, but would that mean their stuff would work any time, anywhere? In fact, forget the when. Let's assume we're back in the 60s. Would the music still sell from a different source?
At the very least, you've got to get the right publicity. The earliest Beatles' songs that were huge hits in Britain, like "She Loves You," weren't released by Capitol in America at first, so were distributed by smaller labels, where they didn't get much attention. It was only when the time was right, and the promotion was there, that the Beatles had their first American hit with "I Want To Hold Your Hand"
For that matter, would the songs have been hits if the Beatles hadn't performed them? The songwriting may be great (and Lennon and McCartney wrote hits for others as well), but it's the particular recordings that were hits, and it would seem to be the band's particular sound that made the difference.
I don't think just any song, or any recording, can be a hit. And I think there can be plenty of good stuff that goes unnoticed for various reasons (and plenty of lousy stuff that does well). But, as special as The Beatles' song are, I don't think they'd work no matter what. A lot of it is being in the right place at the right time.
posted by LAGuy @ 9:00 AM
8 Comments:
Somes songs are great as songs -- lyrics, melody, basic chord sequence. "Yesterday", "Something", "Norwegian Wood", "Julia" are good examples. If they first appeared in 1920 or 2019, they could easily be hits, if they were properly recorded and promoted.
But even when a song is great in this way, the proper recording is necessary for a hit. Folk-rock fans loved Bob Dylan from the beginning, but "Blowin' in the Wind" and "Mr. Tambourine Man" only became hits when they were covered by well-produced bands singing in a more mainstream style. The originals would never have gotten play on pop radio.
But there are also pop and rock songs that are great because of the lyrics, melody, chords, vocal styling, instrumental arrangment, and production -- with the last three items being indispensible. "I Want to Hold Your Hand", "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds", "I Am the Walrus", "She's So Heavy" -- these songs would sound dull and ridiculous if performed by a solo singer without much intonation and one acoustic guitar. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" gets its excitement from the vocal styling and the rock'n'roll beat.
A lot of rock music is like this. A stripped-down "unplugged" version of "Roundabout" or "Dream On" or "Black Dog" wouldn't grab anyone's attention.
Sorry, change "folk-rock fans" to "folk fans"! Dylan's early fans hated when he went electric!
On second thought, I am retracting "Something" as an example of a song that works no matter the arrangement. The hook (I guess you could call it the chorus) consists of three phrases:
"I don't want to leave her now
You know I believe and how"
Da da da DA DA DAAA.
Without Harrison's guitar on the third phrase the song has no hook.
As a substitute, I will suggest "Help". That works even in a radically different arrangement. And then add in "It's Only Love", "I've Just Seen a Face", "Michelle", "In My Life", "When I'm Sixty-Four", and "Blackbird". I think all of these are pure greatness based on the song alone.
Songs that were top hits for two different artists:
Please Mr. Postman (Marvelettes, Carpenters)
When a Man Loves a Woman (Percy Sledge, Michael Bolton)
Lean on Me (Bill Withers, Club Nouveau)
I Will Always Love You (Dolly Parton, Whitney Houston)
I Shot the Sheriff (Eric Clapton, Bob Marley)
Don't Let me be Misunderstood (The Animals, Joe Cocker)
I think in most of these, the second artist did do something notably different with the original material to create the second hit.
Oddly, I can't think, off hand, of a Beatles hit song that hit again when covered by another artist. "With a Little Help from My Friends" was a big hit for Joe Cocker, but the original Beatles release was not that big (outside the Sgt. Pepper's album).
I hope you're not claiming Michael Bolton "did something notably different" with "When A Man Loves A Woman" unless you mean that he completely screwed it up.
Why did you put Bob Marley after Eric Clapton, as if Marley did the cover?
In your short list you waste our time with the complete non-hit "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" by Joe Cocker? Who even remembers he covered it?
You mention the Carpenters covered "Please Mr. Postman." So did the Beatles. Also, the Carpenters first charted hit was a cover of the Beatles #1 hit "Ticket To Ride."
There are countless cover versions of Beatles songs. Few were hits simply because the Beatles already had the hits with them, and perhaps the radio audience didn't want to hear others do them when they had the originals.
Really, in general, rock music is not about cover versions, but the original hit (whereas pre-rock music was more about songs, with many different versions available, often at the same time).
Nevertheless, there are many notable Beatles covers. And within that group, there are a fair number of notable covers of songs that were Beatles' singles. Here's a short list:
Aerosmith “Come Together”
Jeff Beck “She’s A Woman”
The Carpenters “Ticket To Ride” (as noted above)
T.V. Carpio “I Want To Hold Your Hand”
Ray Charles “Eleanor Rigby”
Fats Domino “Lady Madonna”
Earth, Win & Fire “Got To Get You Into My Life” (a hit single for The Beatles when rereleased in the 70s)
Ella Fitzgerald “Can’t Buy Me Love”
Wilson Picket “Hey Jude”
Otis Redding “Day Tripper”
Peter Sellers “A Hard Day’s Night”
Del Shannon “From Me To You”
Frank Sinatra “Something”
Stars on 45 medley which includes “We Can Work It Out” and “Nowhere Man”
Steve Wonder “We Can Work It Out”
The 1976 film All This And World War II had a soundtrack consisting of Beatles covers, playing over footage of WWII. A bizarre concept, which not surprisingly flopped.
You can see the track list here. I used to have this on LP, and some of the cuts were pretty good. Elton John's cover of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" (which predated the movie but was included), Rod Stewart's cover of "Get Back", and Ambrosia's cover of "Magical Mystery Tour" were released as singles and became hits. And I've always been partial to Peter Gabriel's cover of "Strawberry Fields Forever".
But Aerosmith's "Come Together" is the only Beatles cover that I still hear on the radio, although I used to hear Joe Cocker's "WALHFMF" a lot.
If only they had chosen Pete instead of Ringo. Then they might have had something.
(No, no! Not the Best! Not the Best!)
Post a Comment
<< Home