Category Archives: John lennon

The Beatles’s “Come Together” covered by Springsteen, Joss Stone, Joe Cocker, Aerosmith, and more..

beatles-come-together

“It was a funky record – it’s one of my favorite Beatle tracks, or, one of my favourite Lennon tracks, let’s say that. It’s funky, it’s bluesy, and I’m singing it pretty well. I like the sound of the record. You can dance to it. I’d buy it!”
~John Lennon (Playboy interview, 1980)

The Beatles recorded “Come Together” July 21, 1969.

We had a post here at JV yesterday: July 21: The Beatles recorded Come Together in 1969, and it got me thinking that there might be some great cover versions of this classic around..

We have to start with the original version (off course):

One comment over at our FB page suggested that Lennon’s live version from MSG, NYC in 1972 was even better than the original.. I tend to disagree, but it is a great version.

Continue reading The Beatles’s “Come Together” covered by Springsteen, Joss Stone, Joe Cocker, Aerosmith, and more..

The Beatles 40 best songs: at 24 “Help!”


help single

“The whole Beatles thing was just beyond comprehension. I was subconsciously crying out for help”.
– John Lennon (1980)

Help! is a song by the Beatles that served as the title song for both the 1965 film and its soundtrack album. It was also released as a single, and was number one for three weeks in both the United States and the United Kingdom.

Help! was mainly written by John Lennon, but credited to Lennon–McCartney.

“I seem to remember Dick Lester, Brian Epstein, Walter Shenson and ourselves sitting around, maybe Victor Spinetti was there, and thinking, What are we going to call this one? Somehow Help! came out. I didn’t suggest it; John might have suggested it or Dick Lester. It was one of them. John went home and thought about it and got the basis of it, then we had a writing session on it. We sat at his house and wrote it, so he obviously didn’t have that much of it. I would have to credit it to John for original inspiration 70-30. My main contribution is the countermelody to John.”
– Paul McCartney (Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now)

The Beatles – Help! (live):

Continue reading The Beatles 40 best songs: at 24 “Help!”

Today: A Hard Days Night by The Beatles was released in 1964

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“We were different. We were older. We knew each other on all kinds of levels that we didn’t when we were teenagers. The early stuff – the Hard Day’s Night period, I call it – was the sexual equivalent of the beginning hysteria of a relationship. And the Sgt Pepper-Abbey Road period was the mature part of the relationship.”
– John Lennon (1980)

A Hard Day’s Night is the third album by The Beatles; it was released on July 10, 1964. The album is a soundtrack to the A Hard Day’s Night film, starring the Beatles. The American version of the album was released two weeks earlier, on 26 June 1964 by United Artists Records, with a different track listing. This is the first Beatles album to be recorded entirely on four-track tape, allowing for good stereo mixes.

HDN

In 2000, Q placed A Hard Day’s Night at number 5 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. In 2003, the album was ranked number 388 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

The soundtrack songs were recorded in late February, and the non-soundtrack songs were recorded in June. The title song itself was recorded on April 16.

“…but A Hard Day’s Night is perhaps the band’s most straightforward album: You notice the catchiness first, and you can wonder how they got it later.

The best example of this is the title track– the clang of that opening chord to put everyone on notice, two burning minutes thick with percussion (including a hammering cowbell!) thanks to the new four-track machines George Martin was using, and then the song spiraling out with a guitar figure as abstractedly lovely as anything the group had recorded.”

– Tom Ewing, Pitchfork

A Hard Day’s Night (Paris, 1965):

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I saw the movie before I bought the album, and the pictures roll before my eyes as I listen to the album. The film is a masterpiece and so is the album.
a-hard-days-night movie

“Considering the quality of the original material on With the Beatles, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that Lennon & McCartney decided to devote their third album to all-original material. Nevertheless, that decision still impresses, not only because the album is so strong, but because it was written and recorded at a time when the Beatles were constantly touring, giving regular BBC concerts, appearing on television and releasing non-LP singles and EPs, as well as filming their first motion picture. In that context, the achievement of A Hard Day’s Night is all the more astounding.”
– Allmusic (Stephen Thomas Erlewine)

It was my first Beatles album, and even if it has lost it’s top spot on my Beatles list, I love it dearly. It always makes me happy when i put it on.

John Lennon was the main contributor to the album. He wrote A Hard Day’s Night,  I Should Have Known Better, Tell Me Why, Any Time At All, I’ll Cry Instead, When I Get Home and You Can’t Do That.

He also wrote the majority of If I Fell and I’ll Be Back, and wrote I’m Happy Just To Dance With You with McCartney.

I Should Have Known Better (my favorite song on the album):

That doesn’t mean that Paul McCartney was  left off the record. He wrote the  ballads Things We Said Today plus And I Love Her , and lets not forget the lovely single Can’t Buy Me Love.

Can’t Buy Me Love:

As always the lines blur on some of the songs, but there are a lot of indications that this was the way the songs were composed, or rather, who wrote the songs.

“When we knew we were writing for something like an album John would write a few in his spare moments, like this batch here. He’d bring them in, we’d check ’em. I’d write a couple and we’d throw ’em at each other, and then there would be a couple that were more co-written. But you just had a certain amount of time.”
– Paul McCartney

A Hard Day’s Night is classic album that is a true testament to their collaborative writing powers, and, man, they had become a tight band!

– Hallgeir

Sources: Wikipedia, Allmusic, Pitchfork, John Lennon Interview with David Sheff in 1980, Many Years From Now by Barry Miles (book)

My 5 Best Christmas Songs….

Let’s roll…

1. John Lennon -Happy Christmas (War Is Over):

2. Elvis Presley – Blue Christmas:

3. The Pogues Featuring Kirsty MacColl – Fairytale Of New York:

4.Bing Crosby & David Bowie – The Little Drummer Boy / Peace On Earth:

5. Bruce Springsteen – Santa Clause is Coming to Town:

Anyways.. that’s my list…

-Egil