Behka’s Breakfast with The Beatles Recap: Week of December 9

Well folks, one good thing about having your own radio show is being able to play music that you like.  That's definitely something I'm doing at the start of my morning show every weekday. I’m a huge fan of The Beatles, and I’ve found out that a lot of you guys are, too.  So I thought, why not start our day off right at the beginning of the show with a different Beatles song every day?  That’s exactly what I did!

However, I know some of you out there aren’t exactly early birds – 6:00 a.m. is pretty dang early, after all.  And some of you might have caught the end of a song or just missed it, and so I thought I’d post some audio and videos of the songs I used each day, and I’ll tell you what I know about em here, too.

Monday's song was "The Night Before."

This song was on the album/soundtrack to the movie "Help!" that they put out in 1965.  That movie is definitely something that I still have memorized to this day.  I'm sure I've seen it hundreds of times.  In this clip, which is from the movie, they're standing in the middle of a field being watched by tanks.  That's because they're being "protected" from some people trying to capture and kidnap Ringo.   You can see them giggling from time to time - that's partly because of the ridiculousness of the situation, partly because it was starting to rain, and partly because they were stoned off their rockers from the herbal jazz cigarettes.

Tuesday's song was "Komm Gib Mir Deine Hand."

Yes, it is a German language version of "I Wanna Hold Your Hand." It was done with this single and also "She Loves You" (Sie Liebt Dich) because the German arm of Capitol didn't believe that the group would have hits in Germany in English. They were wrong, and that was the last time it was done.

Wednesday's song was "We Can Work It Out."

It was released as a 'double A-sided' single with "Day Tripper", the first time both sides of a single were so designated in an initial release. Both songs were recorded during the Rubber Soul sessions. It's an example of how Paul McCartney would write one part of a song, and then get stuck - and John Lennon would fill in a part, and they'd put them together.

Thursday's song was "Across the Universe."

This is a different version than the one I played you a couple of weeks ago. This was recorded in the fateful Let it Be era, and as a consequence it was changed by Phil Spector. As I mentioned, Phil had been called in to try to "fix" the Let it Be Sessions, which John, George, and Ringo felt were inferior. So what he did was he created his "Wall of Sound" on their tracks - tons of singers, orchestras, overdubbing, etc.  When the album was remixed and reissued without the WOS for Let it Be, Naked - all of that was removed. The track was also played at its original speed. To me, it sounded ten times better. I'm playing you that version now, not the Spector version.

Friday's song was "Baby's in Black."

This song was off of the album, Beatles for Sale. The title and the cover of the album express the weariness they had felt with their success.  After all, they had been around the world and back non stop for the last three years.  I read somewhere that during this period, they were playing almost every day, often in different countries or continents, with maybe one day off for travel.  And, on this album they allowed themselves to stretch a bit, at least lyrically. This song was originally going to be more deliberately in waltz time, but they made it 4/4 to "normal" it up because the lyrics were considered to depressing.

If you've got a Beatle song you want to hear on our morning segment, let me know!

Behka