Behka’s Breakfast with The Beatles Recap: Week of June 2

Every day at the beginning of the show I play a Beatles song and talk a little bit about it.  It's a great way to start your day - but some of you  might not be up that early.  So here's a rundown of all the songs I played this week! 

On Monday, I played "Blue Jay Way".

"Blue Jay Way" is a song written by George Harrison; it was first recorded and released by the Beatles on their Magical Mystery Tour album and EP in 1967. The name of the song comes from a street located high in the Hollywood Hills West, Los Angeles overlooking Sunset Strip where George Harrison rented a house at Blue Jay Way during August 1967. The has some crazy pretty views of Hollywood and much of the Los Angeles Basin. It's located on a hillside of narrow, winding roads, difficult to navigate on a foggy night.  It was where George was when he was trying to get the group's friend and publicist Derek Taylor to find the house.  So he wrote the song as a way to stay awake until Derek got there. At the end of the song, there is what might be perceived as a malfunction of the cello tape loop. It is in fact a cover-up of what had been planned to occur in the music video featured in the Magical Mystery Tour film; in the planned ending George was supposed to be hit by the Magical Mystery Tour bus. That ending was never filmed, and the revised repeated ending is shown instead. A session musician played the cello.

On Tuesday, I played "Hold Me Tight".

This one was was written principally by Paul McCartney in 1961, and was part of the Beatles' stage act until 1963. They attempted to record it for their début Please Please Me but the thirteen takes recorded weren't good enough for them and the tape was destroyed. Seven months later, they recorded a further nine takes, and the final version is an edit of the sixth and ninth takes from the second attempt. Both McCartney and John Lennon, at one time or another, shared their dislike of the song In Barry Miles' book Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now, the songwriter calls it "a failed attempt at a single which then became an acceptable album filler." It's crazy, though, how their "filler" songs are still better than a lot of other band's best work!

On Wednesday, I played "Doctor Robert".

"Doctor Robert" is a song by the Beatles released on the album Revolver in the United Kingdom and on Yesterday and Today in the United States. The song was written by John Lennon and seems to be about a doctor in the United States. The real Doctor Feelgood was most likely Dr. Robert Freymann, a German-born Manhattan physician known to New York's artists and well-to-do for his vitamin B-12 injections, which also featured liberal doses of amphetamine. Freymann, who signed jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker's death certificate in 1955, bragged that he could rattle off 100 names of his celebrity patients (reportedly included Jackie Kennedy) "in 10 minutes."

On Thursday, I played "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)".

Lennon started composing the song on his acoustic guitar in January 1965, while on holiday with his wife, Cynthia, in the Swiss Alps. Lennon later explained that the lyric was about an affair he had been having. A popular decorating fad at the time was to use a cheap pine known as wood from Norway. In the song, the narrator is meant to be lead on by the girl in question and upset about it. According to Paul McCartney, the line "I lit a fire" at the end of the song is indeed to imply that the protagonist of the song lit the apartment on fire. However, there is some speculation as well that the fire was lit in the fireplace, meaning that the main character is just sitting and reflecting on the night.

On Friday, I played "Some Other Guy".

"Some Other Guy" is a rhythm and blues song, written by Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller and Richard Barrett. It was first released by Barrett as a single in 1962, with a backing band featuring an electric piano, an unusual sound in pop music at the time. The song was part of The Beatles' live repertoire in 1962-63, and a recording was made on 19 June 1963 during a live BBC radio performance by the band at The Playhouse Theatre, London. This recording was first released for purchase by the public on the album Live at the BBC in 1994. The song has special significance in Beatles lore, as it is featured in the only known existing film with synchronized sound showing The Beatles performing live at the famous Cavern Club. The crude, grainy footage features John Lennon and Paul McCartney singing the song's melody in unison on Wednesday 22 August 1962. This is also the first film of Ringo Starr as the Beatles drummer, Pete Best having been discharged the week before. At the end of the song you can hear someone in the audience screaming "We want Pete!"

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

The Toppermost of the Poppermost,
Behka