Behka’s Breakfast with The Beatles Recap: Week of February 10

I play something from The Beatles every day to kick off the morning show at 6:00 a.m.  They're my favorite band, it's my show, and I get to indulge a little.  Here's a look at all the songs I've played this week if you missed em. 

On Monday, I played "Magical Mystery Tour".

This song was basically the theme tune to their tv special in 1967 of the same name. It was meant to be a fun romp with wacky stuff happening but turned out to be pretty boring - and it didn't help that it was shown in black and white. Recording for the song began on 25 April 1967, less than a week after the final sessions for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The song was not complete when the session began and much of the evening was spent in rehearsals, but by the end of the evening the basic rhythm track was complete. Bass guitar and vocal were added by the Beatles on 26 and 27 April. On 3 May, the brass fanfare and other parts were added in a disorganized session where the trumpet players began the evening without a score. According to Philip Jones, a friend of one of the players who was present, one of those players, Elgar Howarth, eventually took matters into his own hands and wrote a score out for them.

On Tuesday, I played "You're Going to Lose That Girl".

Thus one is a song from the album and film Help!, written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Capitol Records originally titled the song "You're Gonna Lose That Girl" in the United States. The last song recorded before breaking off to make the film, the song was composed at Lennon's house in Weybridge. In the lyrics the singer tells his "friend" that, if he does not value his girl, the singer will "make a point of taking her away" from him. To the Beatles' familiar twist beat and using variations of familiar doo-wop chords, Lennon's lead singing is set in a call-and-response with the enthusiastic answering harmonies of McCartney and George Harrison, offering a last glimpse of the early Beatles' musical home turf.

On Wednesday, I played "Yes It Is"

John Lennon described it as an attempt to rewrite "This Boy" (the style of the song) that "didn't quite work". Paul McCartney on the other hand described it as "a very fine song of John's", and said he was present when Lennon wrote it. I think this is another example of the songwriters maybe being a little to hard on themselves. Over the course of a five-hour recording session, the Beatles attempted 14 takes of the basic track before perfecting it, more than any other song they recorded in 1965. It was recorded on 16 February, the same day that they completed Harrison's "I Need You". After completing the rhythm track, Lennon, McCartney and Harrison recorded their vocal harmonies in three hours, singing live together.

On Thursday, I played "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds".

Lennon's son, Julian, inspired the song with a nursery school drawing he called "Lucy — in the sky with diamonds". Shortly after the song's release, speculation arose that the first letter of each of the title nouns intentionally spelled LSD. Although Lennon denied it, the BBC banned the song. Lennon's inspiration for the song came when his son, Julian, showed him a nursery school drawing he called "Lucy — in the Sky with Diamonds", depicting his classmate, Lucy O'Donnell (later Lucy Vodden), who died in 2009. Lennon had read and admired the works of Lewis Carroll, and the title of Julian's drawing reminded him of a passage in Through the Looking Glass in which Alice floats in a "boat beneath a sunny sky." Lennon drew on some of the images in Carroll's Through the Looking Glass and Alice in Wonderland when he wrote the lyrics for "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds".

On Friday, I played "Octopus's Garden".

This is one of the rare Beatles songs that was written by Ringo Starr for the Abbey Road album. He only wrote about a handful for their albums because he felt intimidated by how good the others were. The idea for the song came about when Starr was on a boat belonging to comedian Peter Sellers in Sardinia in 1968. He ordered fish and chips for lunch, but instead of fish he got squid (it was the first time he'd eaten squid). Then the boat's captain told Starr about how octopuses travel along the sea bed picking up stones and shiny objects with which to build gardens. The Let It Be film included a scene in which Harrison is shown helping Starr work the song out on piano.
Let me know if there's something you want to hear next week.  Tune in on Monday at 6:00 a.m. for the next installment.

Fab-ly yours,
Behka