Behka’s Breakfast with The Beatles Recap: Week of July 14

Here's a look at all the songs I played this week on our abbreviated version of Breakfast with Behka and the Beatles. Okay, so I was on vacation for about half the week, but that didn't mean the rest of the week didn't get a shot of The Beatles!

On Wednesday, I played "Dig a Pony".

John Lennon was the song's composer and singer but the song was credited to Lennon–McCartney. It was originally called "All I Want Is You". Lennon would later comment that he thought the song was "a piece of garbage," though he has shown similar scorn for many of his songs. It was written for his soon-to-be wife Yoko Ono, and featured a multitude of strange, seemingly nonsense phrases which were strung together in what Lennon refers to as a Bob Dylan style of lyric. The working title for the song, "All I want is you" was originally the title of another composition by Lennon for Yoko, from which the chorus was taken.

On Thursday, I played "Birthday".

The song was largely written during a recording session at Abbey Road Studios on 18 September 1968 by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. McCartney: "We thought, 'Why not make something up?' So we got a riff going and arranged it around this riff. So that is 50-50 John and me, made up on the spot and recorded all in the same evening." During the session, the Beatles and the recording crew made a short trip around the corner to McCartney's house to watch the 1956 rock & roll movie The Girl Can't Help It which was being shown for the first time on British television. After the movie they returned to record "Birthday". George Martin was away, so his assistant Chris Thomas produced the session. His memory is that the song was mostly Paul's: "Paul was the first one in, and he was playing the 'Birthday' riff. Eventually the others arrived, by which time Paul had literally written the song, right there in the studio." Everyone in the studio sang in the chorus and it was 5 am by the time the final mono mix was completed.

On Friday, I played "Ain't She Sweet".

"Ain't She Sweet" is a song composed by Milton Ager (music) and Jack Yellen (lyrics) and published in 1927 by Edwin H. Morris & Co., Inc./Warner Bros., Inc. It became popular in the first half of the 20th century, one of the hit songs that typified the Roaring Twenties. Like "Happy Days Are Here Again" (1929), it became a Tin Pan Alley standard. "Ain't She Sweet" was performed by the Beatles with John Lennon on lead vocals. It was recorded on June 22, 1961 at the Friedrich-Ebert-Halle, Hamburg, Germany with Pete Best on drums, produced by Bert Kaempfert. The recording was released as a single on May 29, 1964, on Polydor NH 52-317 (UK)., and included on the Anthology 1 album in 1995. A different rendition, recorded during a jam session in 1969 with Ringo Starr on drums, was released on the Beatles' Anthology 3 - it is the only song which appears on two of the Anthology records. A solo version of the song was also included in the John Lennon Anthology box set.

Let me know if there's something you'd like to hear next week! We'll start again promptly at 6:00 a.m. on Monday.

Diggingly yours,
Behka