A reference to Siouxsie and the Banshees in Andrew Greig’s In Another Light (review to come) reminded me of the band’s treatment of this Beatles’ song.

Siouxsie and the Banshees: Dear Prudence

What do you say about the man who brought us The Beatles? The man largely responsible for the soundscapes of those ground breaking recordings of the mid-sixties starting with Revolver and continuing through Sgt Pepper (please note; not Sgt Pepper’s; not in Britain, anyway) and Magical Mystery Tour. By the time of The White Album a lot of that sonic experimentation had gone (Revolution No 9 excepted) though the album for the Yellow Submarine film stemmed from the same seam.

Martin was a crucial part of the Beatles’ sound, his facility with arrangements and classical accompaniment giving them a dimension – or dimensions – which on their own or with a different producer might never have arisen. I remember seeing him on a TV documentary saying he had come up with and played the piano interlude on a well-known song which I think was Lovely Rita.

The Beatles: Lovely Rita

I also seem to recall that the “final” version of Strawberry Fields Forever was a mix of two takes which had originally been played in different keys. One was slowed down slightly the other speeded up so that they would synch, which gave it that weird effect that it still has all these years later.

The Beatles: Strawberry Fields Forever

Then there was all that stuff with looping and playing tapes backward. Think of the swirling accordion/funfair sound in Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite.

The Beatles: Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite

Immense.

George Henry Martin: 3/1/1926 – 8/3/2016. So it goes.

The Truth found difficulty coming up with their own songs. As this link from last week says, their singles were all written by people from other, more famous bands, in order here: The Beatles, The Kinks and The Rascals.

The Truth: Girl

The Truth: I Go To Sleep

The Truth: Sueno

This is me breaking the (self-imposed) rules of my category – again.

And how does it break the rules?

It’s a Beatles song. (There have been none so far.)

Well, I say a Beatles song but they never released it in the 60s – and the main item isn’t performed by the Beatles.

The song was, though, written by George Harrison for the White Album sessions but not used on the release. Instead it’s notable as the only track on which three members of the Beatles recorded together for an artist other than themselves during the band’s lifetime; the artist being Jackie Lomax. The line-up contained Lomax on vocals, George Harrison and Eric Clapton on guitars, Nicky Hopkins on piano, Paul McCartney on bass, and Ringo Starr on drums, although McCartney’s contribution was actually overdubbed later.

I include a “Beatles” version from the White Album sessions.

Jackie Lomax: Sour Milk Sea

The Beatles: Sour Milk Sea

I was sorry to hear of the death of one of Sheffield’s finest, Joe Cocker. I’ve mentioned before his hit with the radical reworking of the Beatles’ song With a Little Help From My Friends and also his Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour.

From that tour here’s the live version of Delta Lady.

Joe Cocker (Mad Dogs and Englishmen): Delta Lady

John Robert (Joe) Cocker: 20/5/1944 – 22/12/2014. So it goes.

Another one from 1970, following on from last week’s 60s Boxtops song.

Joe Cocker is perhaps most famous for his reworking of the somewhat bland, almost throwaway, With a Little Help From My Friends from the Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper, making that song into something unforgettable (though eminently parodyable) and in his “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” incarnation also had a 1960s hit with the Leon Russell song Delta Lady, but they later also transformed the Boxtops hit The Letter.

Joe Cocker: The Letter

Here, for comparison purposes, is the version by the Box Tops:-

The Box Tops: The Letter

Way back in the day there was a book published – I forget its name and author – that had photographs of rock/pop stars of the 1960s (or early 70s) appearing above a line from a song lyric that was vaguely appropriate. This was an attempt of sorts to sum up the late 1960s zeitgeist.

The image/line combination that most struck me – it has remained in my mind all those years – was the last one in the book.

The line was, “Hope I die before I get old,” from, of course, The Who’s My Generation.

And the star whose image it illustrated?

Frank Sinatra.

That sentiment is doubly ironic now that The Rolling Stones have celebrated 50 years in “the business” and The Who themselves continue to tour. Not their fault, of course, that the line was used in such a way. It did reflect though the disregard – even contempt – in which “old men’s music” was held by the generation that grew up in the long shadow of World War 2; a generation whose 1960s efforts were partly an attempt to shuffle off the stifling shackles of that conflict and define a future for themselves. In Britain too there was the nagging sense of loss that the disappearance of the Empire caused – something no-one, quite rightly, gives a stuff about now.*

I could never understand Sinatra’s appeal myself. I still can’t. The man could not hold a note. He always, always, sang flat and could ruin a song’s rhythm and meaning by eccentric phrasing.

One of the purveyors of old men’s music, indeed he was said to be Sinatra’s favourite other singer, was Matt Monro. Matt Monro was an English singer who made his name in the 1950s and 60s before moving to the US, from where, because his wife was homesick he later came back.

Monro was one of the first singers to perform a Bond movie theme in From Russia With Love and also had a biggish hit with another song from a film, Born Free. A couple of years ago I happened to catch a TV documentary about his life and came to a deeper appreciation of his gifts as a singer. His voice has a crystal clarity with great diction and he can carry a note, or a phrase, seemingly effortlessly. The good lady heard him on the radio recently and wondered when he actually took a breath!

His image in the 60s though was deeply uncool; early LPs merely had his photo and a list of some songs as a cover design, a practice pop and rock abandoned even before the Beatles’ Sgt Pepper. I would not normally have listened to him at the time. There was one song he performed, however, which really stuck with me.

It was released in 1970 and more or less topped and tailed that attitude of the 1960s I described earlier, that intuition of something different (which, naturally enough, never came to pass; it never does.)

The song was called We’re Gonna Change The World and considering who sang it was quite a counter-intuitive choice to be put out as a single.

Judge for yourselves.

Matt Monro: Were Gonna Change The World

*Edited to add:- well the Brexit vote showed how wrong that perception was.

Speaking of Badfinger, this song of theirs only just creeps in to this category as it was released in the UK in December 1969.

Badfinger were one of the (few?) successes of the Beatles’ Apple label. The only other one I can recall was Mary Hopkin.

Badfinger: Come And Get It

I was sad to hear that former Monkee Davy Jones has died, apparently from a heart attack.

Though Davy was nominally the Monkees lead singer, that duty frequently fell to fellow actor Micky Dolenz, leaving Davy to flail away somewhat unconvincingly with a pair of maraccas.

They were probably the first manufactured band, brought together to reproduce the Beatles films’ format on TV, but had some of the best pop songwriters of the day composing for them. This – I chose it because it actually features Davy on lead vocals – was written by Neil Diamond.

The Monkees: A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You

A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You was the only Monkees single I bought back in the day and I came to love the B-side The Girl I Knew Somewhere, written by group member Mike Nesmith. So much so I referenced its title in a line of A Son of the Rock.

David Thomas Jones, 30/12/1945 – 29/2/2012. So it goes.

See picture on the Scottish Cinemas website.

This building’s main claim to fame is that the Beatles once played there. I think it was when they were just on the cusp of fame. I wasn’t around at the time. (Not in Fife anyway.)

Like many cinemas it failed to survive the changing times and is now demolished.

Shame it’s gone, though.