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I
Saw Her Standing There:
"She's
The One" - The Chartbusters
Single, June 1964; Nuggets (LP) Vol. 4, 1984
Okay, we're off to the perfect start: "Ah-one,
two, three, Go!" -- sounding like an odd combination of Paul McCartney and Sam the Sham -- launching the song into that archetypical
4/4 Mersey beat. And then the obligatory
"Whooo's" punctuating every chorus. Despite the group's name this didn't quite bust the charts, but it did crack the Top 40, reaching #33 in August of 1964.
This song
is on the Rhino "Nuggets" LP collection from 1984 (although
not the current CD box set); they aptly described it as the best exercise
in Merseybeat practiced in America until the Knickerbockers' "Lies"
showed up. What those Rhino liner notes also describe is the original
version of this song, done by a group called "The Manchesters" on a Beatles-rip
album called Beatlerama Volume 2. I don't know if the Manchesters were or were not one
and the same as the Chartbusters, but their version sounds suspiciously
similar. (It's the Manchesters' version of the song that I'm including
here. It lacks the false ending of the Chartbusters' verssion, with
its "one more time" reprise, but it's superior in the scratchiness
department, at least.) More can be learned about the Chartbusters (and
their mp3s downloaded) at
www.garageband.com.
She's
The One.mp3
"Little
Lover" - The Hollies
Stay With The Hollies; January 1964
Getting to
the Hollies right away gives us the opportunity to discuss the difference
between the English bands of 1964 and the American, who were completely
blind-sided by the Beatles arrival (Bobby Vees protestations
notwithstanding, as we'll see below). Naturally, it was a bit different for the Beatles
peers like the Hollies and the other English and Hamburg groups who
were part of the same scene and under the same influences at the same
time. But even among those bands the Beatles became the leaders once
they got their sound developed, and they set the pace for all others,
foreign and domestic. Still, tracing Beatles influences in bands
like the Hollies can be a bit of a dicier proposition.
Having said
that, check out the rhythmic foundation of "Little Lover"; it's a ringer for the 4/4 Merseybeat
groove (and circular "Sweet Little Sixteen" bassline) of "I Saw Her Standing There." Tellingly, its
also one of the few songs by Ransford (i.e Clarke-Hicks-Nash)
on the Hollies first album, which is otherwise almost entirely R&B covers. They hadnt gotten their own patented harmonies
developed at the time of this album -- quite a bit of shouting going on here. The
second album took even longer.
"Can't
You See That She's Mine" - The Dave Clark Five
The Dave Clark 5 Return!;
May 22, 1964
I'ts the
"Tottenham Sound!" "The Band That Beat The Beatles!"
Well, they did have a lot of great singles, anyway. If I recall correctly,
the DC5 were the first British band to hit in America after the Beatles;
not bad for a bunch of football hooligans. And one of the few bands
in the sixties to feature the saxophone in their arrangements; the "roaring"
sound that harks back to Little Richard, as opposed to Chuck Berry -- thus
delineating the two political parties of rock.
Dave Clark
was also one of the few rock and rollers who was a good businessman;
and smart enough to know whose songwriting to emulate, too. Not that
there's anything wrong with that. The musical similarities to "I
Saw Her Standing There" are pretty apparent in the verse, and Mike
Smith even sounds something like Paul when he did those shouters.
"Neutron
Dance" - The Del Rubio Triplets
Three Gals, Three Guitars; 1988; (The
Pointer Sisters - Break Out; 1983)
The bridge
here really wants to be “Well my heart went boom.” I cite the Del Rubio
Triplets’ version because it walks all over the Pointer Sisters.’ May
the best sisters win.
Misery:
"She
Has a Way" - The Byrds
Demo Recording, 1964;
Preflyte, 1969
The
similarity here is perhaps more general -- pace and feel -- but the
Byrds were one of the archetypical American bands from 1964 trying to
sound like the Beatles, and when you listen to it, 'Misery' seems a
likely model -- subconscious or otherwise -- for McGuinn and Clark to
have used in writing their song. Same loping tempo, driven by similar
sounding guitar parts, and capped by those "Aow yeah's" in
the choruses. (I'm tempted to make comparisons to Frankie Avalon's 'Potato Bug' from
Bikini Beach.)
Anna:
"Go
to Him" - Die Rattles
Single; 1966
No,
of course, "Die" doesn't mean "die"; it's German
for "the" (as Sideshow Bob could tell you). "Die"
Rattles were Germany's answer to the Beatles; and one of the
recent reissues on Bear Family has a terrific booklet, which contains lots of stills
from their (1966?) film "Hurra! Die Rattles Kommen!" -- apparently
their "Hard Day's Night." Showcasing the famous wacky German sense of humor.
Anyway,
all that aside, this song does not come from that Bear Family collection;
It's from a "Star-Club Records" LP of their greatest
hits. Among the (really hot, by the way) Merseybeat rockers,
there was this gem, which reworks the "If he loves you more"-themed
lyric from "Anna" and sets it to a similar piece of low-key music...and
adds that heavy, European "Tee Set" kind of sound for good
measure. Anyway, just looking at the title shows you the similarity
of the choruses of the two songs.
This
is also the first example of another interesting phenomenon that we'll
see quite a bit of as we go along: Copies of covers. "Anna" was an Arthur Alexander song, not Lennon-McCartney, but everything they did was considered such
gold that it all became worthy of imitation. Of course, whether a group
is copying the Beatles' version of a song they didn't even write
would seem to be an even harder case to make, but you might be surprised...
Chains:
"Swingin'
Thames" (We Got Something Goin') - The Buggs
The Beetle
Beat; 1964
We
Love You Buggs! Stamp Out The Buggs! Like the Manchesters mentioned
earlier, the Liverpoools mentioned later and a bunch of others perhaps
better not mentioned at all, the Buggs were one of the many shameless
Beatles-exploitation bands which sprang up in America in 1964, trying
to cash in on Beatlemania. Or maybe more accurately, record labels who
were trying to cash in on Beatlemania. The bands themselves consisted
of real nobodies -- not even session musicians, I shouldn't think; heck,
that would mean paying someone, maybe even getting a quality product!
Not on Wyncote Records,
my friend. (Even if the music was "Recorded in England," as
the Buggs album purported to be.) My guess is they'd find some hopeless
bar band, get them to do a couple of Beatles songs, and then fill up
the rest of the record with...something, anything. And the rest of the
album may or may not bear any resemblance to the Beatles. Some of those
'originals' weren't half bad, (like the Liverpools' or Buggs' stuff)
but in other cases it was just unlistenable dreck. Create an album package
with a half-silhouette photo of the band, and hope that the kids (or
Grannies buying something for the grandkids) would pick it up, mistaking it for
the real thing. I guess that hasn't changed over the years; go
to any street vendor in New York.
Anyway,
I don't know how many satisfied customers there could have been for
these albums at the time, but nowadays they sound pretty great! It's
also interesting to listen to these bands and try to discern what kind
of music they were doing before they got their "big break."
The
Buggs pulled the shtick off pretty well; their orginals may have had
titles like "Big Ben Hop," "Mersey Mercy," and "Liverpool
Drag" but buried under those instrumental-sounding names are some
decent Beatles derivatives, like this one. And this is what I was talking
about in the previous song; pretty obviously a copy of a Beatles version
of a cover. Well, it is the Buggs, after all -- but that's partly the
point; knowing who's doing the song. That swingin' beat could only be
"Chains," although they manage to mix in a "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah"
hook, and the bridge threatens to wander off into "I Want To Hold
Your Hand..."
Swingin'
Thames.mp3
Boys:
"Anytime"
- Meteors
B-side to Make Me Happy; 1965
The Meteors,
from Copenhagen, and erstwhile backing band for Scotsman Jimmy Scott. This
frantic Merseybeat rocker uses a Bop-shoobop-shoobop-shoobop
backing vocal to put it right in Boys-town.
"Can't
Get Your Lovin'" - The Count Five
Psychotic Reaction; 1966
Were
these guys copying "Boys?" More specifically, the Beatles'
version of Boys? Obviously, with the Count Five the Yardbirds would come more to mind, but
this song sticks out from the rest of the Psychotic Reaction album
as being pretty Beatle-esque, especially in the chorus, with
its "Yeah yeah boys"-style group vocals.
"Hanky
Panky" - Tommy James and the Shondells
Hanky Panky; 1966
Hmmm,
have to re-assess. This seemed like it might be a deceptively good fit, both of these being 12-bar blues based songs with the same 3-note
melody. And this being the hit that started Tommy James' career in 1966,
it seemed reasonable to infer a Beatles effect. But he recorded
the song in 1964...which might still be okay, only this is a Barry-Greenwich
song, which they recorded with their group the Raindrops in 1963. Well...
maybe they heard the Please Please Me album before the Beatles hit in America...but this
is starting to get pretty hard to rationalize, especially since "Boys" wasn't
even a Lennon-McCartney tune. (Not "McCartney-Lennon," either,
Paul.) This would just seem to be from the same school as the original
"Boys" by the Shirelles. Guess we'd have to wait a while longer for the Beatles
to start showing up in Tommy James' work. Next.
Ask
Me Why:
"Never
Mind" - The Liverpools
Beatlemania!
In The U.S.A.; 1964
Here
we have another 'ripoff' band -- for my money, the best of the genre;
their album Beatlemania! In the U.S.A. has several good orginals,
although one of them, "Hey, Quiet Down There!" seems to owe
as much to teen movies like The Monkey's Uncle as to the
Beatles.
Given the
Liverpools' M.O., "Ask Me Why" seems the mostly likely model for "Mann-Straigis"
(the Lennon-McCartney of the group, presumably). I'd still rate
the Lennon-McCartney song a little more highly, though.
Never
Mind.mp3
Please
Please Me:
"She
Goes Out With Everybody" - The SpongeTones (www.spongetones.com)
Beat Music,
1982; Beat
& Torn CD
Hooray
for the SpongeTones! Here we get to a band of more recent vintage; South
Carolina's SpongeTones have been around since about 198...1? Anyway, they pulled off one of the best Beatles simulations
ever. These days they're not so much of a "Beatlemania" band,
but work in their influences in a more Raspberries-like way -- do check
'em out at their website listed above. Discovering the SpongeTones was
one of the events that put the whole idea for this thing into my head
in the first place.
"She
Goes Out With Everybody" utilizes the same descending melody as
"Please Please Me," and has that machine-gun drum riff, too.
Production-wise, this sounds a lot tougher than the original, but it's
probably the way the Beatles would have sounded if they'd recorded theirs
in 1982 instead of 1963.
"Any
Other Girl" - Bobby Vee
Bobby Vee Sings The New Sound From England!; 1964
"...New Sound From England" comes off as a rather odd album. It seems to be an overt bid by a once major artist whose time
is passing to keep from being left behind by the new wave. (Kind of
like those stories about silent picture stars who couldnt make
the transistion to talkies.) And the liner notes totally rationalize
the approach, making the case that it wasnt just new artists who
dug the new sound, but that Bobby had been developing his own version
of the style, so he was already doing it anyway. Mm hmm. Dont
get me wrong, though, I like a lot of Bobby Vees stuff. But this
album really makes you want to know more about the backstory -- how
much of this was Bobbys idea (the liner notes are unattributed)
and how much was Snuff Garretts, or the record companys.
The front cover just has your standard Bobby Vee headshot next to a
picture of the Thames, while the back has a picture of Bobby in silhouette,
wearing a black turtleneck and -- possibly -- with his hair brushed
down across the brow, in a pseudo-Beatle cut..?
The music
sounds to me like well played Buggs or Liverpools -- the recording and
performances sound great, but the songs have a real Mann-Straigis
feel to them. All the Beatle motifs are there, with the heavy guitars,
harmonies and lots of silly sounding, Whoooos and
melodically speaking are just shameless rips of Beatle tunes. (Not that
theres anything wrong with that as far as Im concerned!)
However, a few of the songs sound like they predate any Beatles influence,
and were just spruced up with a few Whooos to make
them fit the new style. For example, Take A Walk, Johnny
sounds like it was turned into a Beatl-y song simply by
plugging in a bit of I Want To Hold Your Hand, when it gets
to the end of the verse and repeats the Cause youre mad,
cause youre mad, cause youre maaaaaaad........ Overall,
very interesting, and very entertaining.
Anyway, Any
Other Girl takes the opening motif from Please Please Me
and uses it as the basis for the bulk of the song. No Whooos
on this one, though.
"Please
Please Girl" - The Flamin' Groovies
Shake Some Action; 1976
Another
take, from another time (1968) and another place
(San Francisco). Even by 1968 this was a "retro" sound --
which actually was the basis for the Groovies' entire approach. So many great
'60s rewrites from those guys, like their "Jumpin' in the Night"
album, or Teenage Head (their Beggar's Banquet.)
"Please
Please Girl" combines the "Please Please Me" lyric --
and title, obviously -- with the wild bongo sound of "A Hard Day's
Night."
"You
Came Walking" - The Golliwogs
Single, Recorded January 1965
The
Golliwogs (pre-Creedence Clearwater Revival) were just another hard
workin' American band trying to do what everybody else was trying to
do. Before they latched onto their "Bayou" style, John Fogerty
was working from a palette of R&B, soul, pop...and Beatles. They
did several Beatles cops; this one makes a chorus out of the verse melody
of Please Please Me. Plus, the guitar breaks in the verses give a nod
to the 'Yeah Yeah Yeahs' of "She Loves You." You can find this song
along with all the Golliwogs stuff on the Creedence Box Set. Or on the Golliwogs' LP, if you want to dig around for it.
Love
Me Do:
"My
Sharona" - The Knack
Get The Knack, 1979
All right,
I'll bite the bullet here; this actually works, darn it. So that's where
that addictive bonehead beat comes from. "Love Me Do" had
such a boom-chick rhythm (straight out of Sandy Nelson's "Teen Beat"),
almost an "Oom-pah-pah," and "My Sharona" dumbs
it down still further, dispensing with the swing element, eliminating
the chord changes and basing the song on a one-note riff, alternating
between octaves. This being 1979, though, they get quite more elaborate
in the bridge than the Beatles did.
"Please
Don't Fight It" - The Knickerbockers
Lies; Feb. 1966
Takes
the main chorus hook of "Love Me Do" and turns it into the "Please-please-please-don't
fight it" of the verse. The
Knickerbockers, famed of course for "Lies," one of the most
famous Beatles imitations of all time, did pastiches of a bunch of other
people, too -- the Byrds, the Righteous Brothers, even a little Rolling
Stones. But
in 1966, nobody (except the Dave Clark Five) was using saxophones. That's
like, dead, man.
P.S.
I Love You:
"Please
Let Me Love You" - The Beefeaters (aka The Byrds)
Single; 1964
Another
from their "Preflyte" days. Similar to "P.S. I Love
You" in the rhythmic feel - that sidestick thing - and it's got more
of those "Aow Yeahs," too - which give it that Beatles stamp. (Then there's Gene Clark's "Please lut me..." and "when I kess you" pronunciation. You wouldn't have thought he was a Kiwi, would ya?)
"P.S. I Love You" was, according to Paul, the Beatles' attempt
to do "Soldier Boy," so there ya go -- everybody does "rewrites."
And George Harrison , in defense of "My Sweet Lord," said that every
Beatles song was a rewrite of something else. ("So how come John
and Paul aren't getting sued?" was his subtext, I presume.)
Side
note: At the time, there were many people (Bob Dylan, for one) who thought
that the line from "I Want To Hold Your Hand" went "It's
such a feeling that, my love, I get high, I get high." Interesting
to note that "Please Let Me Love You" makes a reference to
feeling "high" -- as did Stephen Stills' "Sit Down I
Think I Love You" -- which I suspect wouldn't have happened if
the Beatles hadn't "validated" it...which they hadn't, actually.
"She
Got Body, She Got Soul" - Split Enz
Frenzy; 1979
Check the
melody of the bridge, in the otherwise Kinks-ish, music-hall piano rocker.
Baby,
It's You:
"What'cha
Gonna Do About It" - The Hollies
The Hollies (EP); January 1964
Well,
bah. If this had actually been written by the Hollies, I'd have said
it was a likely matchup, since there's a strong resemblance between
the two songs. But it was written by Doris Troy (Payne) and Gregory
Carroll, who also wrote "Just One Look" at around the same time, in 1963. It certainly works as a
soundalike for "Baby It's You," and who knows, maybe it was influenced
by that song, but it's harder to infer a connection to the Beatles or
their version of it. Theirs came out in January of 1963; "Whatcha Gonna
Do 'Bout It" was recorded by Doris as a demo, along with "Just One Look"
in 1963; don't know the exact recording date at the moment, but "Just
One Look" was a hit in July of that year, and it would seem that both
it and "Whatcha Gonna Do" were probably recorded after the Please Please
Me album came out. But of course, that was in England, not America. And it just doesn't seem all that likely that Doris Troy would
have been influenced by a band who, though they may have been huge in
England in 1963, didn't mean bupkis to anybody in the U.S. at the time.
So, difficult to infer a Beatles connection. That's one of the problems with
finding matches for these pesky R&B covers the Beatles did.
Doris
Troy, by the way, would go on to find notable success in England, as a
featured backup singer on many '60s and '70s rock records (like "You Can't Always
Get What You Want" and "Dark Side of the Moon"), and was even signed
to Apple Records, under George Harrison's tutelage for awhile. But that
wouldn't come until much later than this.
"My Sin Is My Pride" - The Astronauts
Go...Go...Go.!!!; March 1965
This is more like it. An original song by an American group; a Colorado surf band who had been around since before the British invasion, now caught up in the popular changeover from surf to Beatles music, and reacting to it. Hey, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em...
Do
You Want To Know a Secret:
"All
I Want Is You" - The Swinging Blue Jeans
Blue Jeans a Swinging; October 1964
Okay, it's hard to put my finger on exactly what the musical similarities are here -- but something about this really feels right. The one specific thing I can point to is the little descending chord sequence ("Say you love me too") which recalls "Secret's" "Doo-dah-doo" pattern. But more generally, the midtempo rhythm and George-like vocals are what really bring this home for me. Haven't been able to determine very much about the writing of the song - it's credited to "Chilton-Ireland," about whom I know nowt. Not members of the band, and not Alex Chilton either, I'm thinking.
The Blue Jeans were true peers of the Beatles; formed as a skiffle band in Liverpool in 1959, hardened in the crucible of Hamburg in the early '60s, they were up at the top of the Liverpool heap until the Beatles left everybody behind in 1963. Not sure what their early look was (they say the jeans actually came later), but at the time of this album at least, they had the Brian Epstein-approved suits, and heel-tapping poses that accentuated the John-and-George good looks of Ray Ennis and Ralph Ellis, their two guitarists. Not a bad thing to flaunt if you've
got it.
A
Taste of Honey:
"Say
That You're Mine" - The Easybeats
Easy; 1965
Okay, no doubts as to what the Easybeats were about, either. Take "A
Taste of Honey," speed it up, add a bunch of punk attitude, and
this is what you get. Although nominally Australian, most of the Easybeats
were actually from England, where they'd gotten exposure to the real
stuff, so knew whereof they spoke.
There's
A Place:
"Whenever
I'm Feelin' Low" - The Liverpools Beatlemania!
In The U.S.A.; 1964 Right, back to the Liverpools. You know, they did some quite decent
stuff, considering -- and what is cool is that they did copies of the
album cuts, not just the big hits. This song fits in lots of ways, including
the lyric, although it's not quite as introspective as John's. (Actually,
maybe it is. I mean, they were trying...)
Whenever
I'm Feelin' Low.mp3
Twist
And Shout:
"No
Time To Lose" - The Dave Clark Five
Glad All Over; 1964
This is really a perfect match; too perfect, to tell the truth.
I prefer the ones where they put some effort into the rewriting -- the
music here is an exact lift, and even the vocals have the same call-and-response
motif, "feel so fine" lyrics, and the same "Ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh"
buildup.
"Oh
What A Night" - Billy Joe Royal
Down In The Boondocks; 1965
And then there are songs whose key feature is the big vocal climax of ‘Twist and Shout.’ That’s in the Isley Brothers’ original of course, but, also of course, after 1964 that’s more of an iconic Beatles moment, and it’s not coincidental that this this is post-Beatles.
Joe South
and Billy Joe were good buds; Joe was also Billy Joes producer.
And there are several Joe South songs and productions which will crop
up on this list. This song was actually an old Dells number from 1956,
but redone here in a Merseybeat style. Handclaps, 4/4 beat and the vocal
crescendo make it a combination of old doo-wop, "Twist and Shout" and
"I Want To Hold Your Hand." Smarty Alecks.
"Im
A Lucky Guy" - Bobby Fuller Four
KRLA King of the Wheels; 1965
This was one of the few covers on Bobby Fullers first album and
was written by Russell Brown, Raymond Bloodworth and Neval Nader, whose
collective credits would later include Tie A Yellow Ribbon
and Knock Three Times. So it gives creedence to the story that
Bobby hated having to do this song.
"Number
One" - The Rutles
The Rutles; 1978
God Bless the Rutles! (And God Save Neil Innes!) This whole project might
well not exist if not for the Rutles. And how many "Let's Be The Rutles"
bands might there be out there? (Now, there's an idea...) I had the great pleasure of meeting Neil himself recently, if briefly, and we agreed that "Rutlization" should be a word in the dictionary. (Well, Neil said it. I agreed.)
Anyway, this song, like the group itself, requires no explanation. That's my "rutionale."
Singles:
From
Me To You:
"That's
The Way It Goes" - The Shadows
Dance With The Shadows; April 1964
Like the Astronauts, here's a guitar band (the guitar band, if you were English -- for Americans, it was the Ventures) reacting to the Beatles onslaught. The chords and melody are a take on Buddy Holly's "It's So Easy," but with very Beatl-esque group vocals, including a reworking of the "Da-da-dum-da-da-dum-dum-dum" intro. Also includes the obligatory
falsetto in the bridge.
"Ill
Make You Mine" - Bobby Vee
Bobby Vee Sings The New Sound From England!; 1964
Another variation on the Da-da-dum..."
vocal intro. Mix in some archetypical Bobby Vee
self-harmonies, add Whooos to taste.
Thank
You Girl:
"Thinking"
- Los Shakers
Los Shakers; June 1965
Long Live the Shakers! If you don't have it already, drop whatever you're
doing and buy "Por Favor!" this very minute. (It's on Big
Beat/Ace Records.) Now, Uruguay is not the first place you'd think to
look for Beatles soundalikes, but in many cases, the further you get
geograhically from the source, the richer the rewards. The Shakers were
another band who sprang up in 1964 or '65 and closely mirrored the Beatles'
stuff almost as soon as it came out. And they recycled the Beatles more
effectively and accurately than anybody else. Period. (They even had
some "rivals" in Los Mockers, who played Rolling Stones to
the Shakers' Beatles.)
Discovering
the Shakers really is like finding "lost" Beatles songs from
the 1964-66 period. And they looked like the Beatles, too -- only they
all look like Ringo. And their heavy accents and fractured English ("No
left hope for you and me") only enhance the effect, somehow. As
with the Rutles and SpongeTones, this collection may well not have come
about without the Shakers.
"Thinking"
likes somewhere in between "Thank You Girl" (the rhythmic
flow) and "Not a Second Time" (the heavy George Martin-piano
solo.) Come to think of it, the lyric splits it right down the middle,
too: No longer at the stage of wanting to thank the girl ("I thought
that your love was true"), but not at the point of dumping her,
either ("I don't want to think [on that] again" - something
like that, anyway. It can be a little hard to tell with the Shakers.)
She
Loves You:
"Yeah
Yeah Yeah" - The Minders (www.theminders.com)
Hooray For Tuesday; 1998
Now we go to a very different part of the spectrum -- the Minders are
a present day group of course, so what with being 35 years away from
"She Loves You," you're going to wind up with a very different animal
than something created in 1964. Which is the whole style of the Minders
and bands like them, naturally; obviously there are other musical and
sonic influences in there besides the Beatles -- but just wait 'til
it it gets to the chorus! The "Yeah Yeah Yeah" chorus of "She
Loves You" completely defined rock and roll music (and youth culture)
back in those days, and that descending 3-note line got a lot of mileage,
too; it's lifted here with great flair. "Yeah Yeah Yeah" also
has one of those upfront, chunky George Harrison guitar solos, too.
"All
of My Life" - The Bee Gees
B-side to Monday's Rain; May 1966
This is really a mix of several Beatles songs from this era -- but it's
got that same distincitve guitar hook from "She Loves You" in its chorus,
too, plus it ends on the same extended vocal chord (vocal chord?) I
mean, the chord the voices make here ("All of My Liiiiiiiife")
is basically the same thing musically as the "Yeah Yeah Yeah, Yeaaaaaaaaaaaah"
at the end of "She Loves You." Be sure to pick up the complete collection
of the Bee Gees' early stuff, Brilliant From Birth on (Australia's)
Festival Records label.
"It's
Too Bad" - The Jam
All Mod Cons; 1978
Similar to the Minders in the sense that it came way after the fact
-- 20 years as opposed to 35 -- and so is informed by a lot of other
influences, but Paul Weller had a whole different set of axes to grind
(mostly from Pete Townshend's closet) and the Beatles reference is somewhat
out of character from the rest of their catalog...obviously, they'd
be a prime candidate for a "Let's Be The Who" collection.
Anyway, just listen to the chorus, where you've got your "Yeah
Yeah Yeah" hook as a guitar lick. (Did I mention the mileage that
people have gotten out of those 3 notes?)
"Big
Ben Hop" (Sassy Sue) - The Buggs
The Beetle Beat; 1964
"Sassy Sue, yeah yeah yeah, I Love You, yeah yeah yeah, Sassy Sue,
yeah yeah yeah -- I know you really love me too-OOOH!"
Big
Ben Hop.mp3
I'll
Get You:
"Back
To You" - Bartock & Lansky
Demo Recording; 1982 This
was a real find; taped from Rodney Bingenheimer's KROQ show back in about
1986, at the height of the Paisley revolution. For years all I knew about
these guys was that they were from San Diego -- or so said Rodney, but
he also identified them as "Bartok Lanski," which just seemed baffling.
But recently it was pointed out to me the likely correct name for
the band, and that led me to the name Craig Bartock, who nowadays
produces and plays lead guitar with the latest incarnation of Heart. Apparently
he's also recording a solo album (see www.craigbartock.com)
so it seems there may be some more Beatle-ish music for us to check out
before long.
In addition to having the same Mashed Potato rhythm (Mashed Potato rhythm, it's driving me mad...) and handclaps of
"I'll Get You," "Back To You" also gives something of a nod to it just
with its title. And for enhanced Beatle effect, there's a Lennon-esque
harmonica solo, a "Twist and Shout" drum-fill ending and a "Hard Day's
Night" opening chord.
It was such blind luck that I would have heard it (it was their demo
tape that Rodney played just one time, as far as I know) and it can't
help but make me rue all those other little lost gems out there that
I'll never even know about. This is why it's extremely important for
me to hear every record ever recorded...
I
Want To Hold Your Hand:
"Ride
The Wild Surf" - Jan & Dean
Ride The Wild Surf; Recorded Feb. 16,
1964
“Hold Your Hand’s” piledriver ending and the bridge, too, linked with the “Twist and Shout” vocal climax. This Jan Berry-Roger Christian-Brian Wilson number was written and recorded before the Beatles had even left the country on their first U.S. visit.
"Why
Don't You Set Me Free" - The Liverpool Kids
Beattle Mash; 1964
Okay, this is pretty much just a straight rip. Different lyrics, but
musically everything is virtually identical. Still, it's a larf, although
the Liverpool Kids were just godawful. (Only The Beats were
worse.) Incidentally, the album cover says "Liverpool Kids,"
while the disc says "The Schoolboys." Maybe all these bands
really were just the same bunch of guys.
Why
Don't You Set Me Free.mp3
"Kiss Me
Now" - The Rajahs
Single; March 1964
Australian
band, whose lead singer Nosmo King was supposedly named after a sign
in a railway car. Not hard to find the chorus melody of "Hold
Your Hand" here.
"I
Just Want To Touch You" - Utopia
Deface The Music; 1979
Back in Rutl-esque territory here, in terms of approach. In fact, this
album came out only a couple of years after the Rutles, but it suffered
from some bad timing in that shortly its release, John Lennon was shot...not
the best time to market a Beatles-parody album. But that's baseball.
Anyway, there's a great video they did for this song -- they turn the
Beatles phenomenon on its head by portraying themselves as a band on
an English pop music show where they're introduced by the host (it looks
like...Andy Gibb?) as, "The band who started the American Invasion." That Todd Rundgren is a card.
This
Boy:
"I
Miss You" - The Dave Clark Five
B-side to At The Scene; January 7, 1966
This is another one that might escape notice and seem like just one
more typical ballad from the era, just like everybody else did -- waltz
beat, diminshed chords, "lost love" lyric; but wait! That
guitar hook! It's straight from "This Boy." Busted.
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