Breakfast with Behka and The Beatles Recap: Week of January 20

As you probably know by now, I host the morning show now here on BOB-FM.  And when you’re the one who’s behind the mic, a good amount of the time you get to decide what plays on the radio.  Since I like the Beatles, I plays ‘em! Here’s the rundown of what I’ve been spinning this week.  I’ve been doing a segment at the beginning of the morning show to play some Beatles every day.  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.

On Monday, I played "I'll Get You."

This wasn't on an album at the time.  It was the b-side of "She Loves You."  Typical of the Beatles' vocal style of that period, John Lennon and Paul McCartney sing in unison for the majority of the track, allowing the few occasions when they do harmonize to stand out. But unlike most Beatles songs of the time there is no lead guitar break; the lead guitar is virtually reduced to a second rhythm guitar. In the bridge of the song, after the line, "Well, there's gonna be a time . . .," Paul sings, ". . . when I'm gonna change your mind." At the same time, John sings, ". . . when I'm gonna make you mine," resulting in a blend of the two lines. It's not known who was correct or why they didn't correct it.

On Tuesday, I played "The Inner Light."

"The Inner Light" is a song written by George Harrison that was first released by the Beatles as a B-side to "Lady Madonna." It was the first Harrison composition to be featured on a Beatles single. The lyrics are a rendering of the 47th chapter (sometimes titled "Viewing the Distant" in translations) of the Taoist Tao Te Ching.

On Wednesday, I played "For No One."

"For No One" is a song written by Paul McCartney (credited to Lennon–McCartney) that originally appeared on the Beatles' seventh album, Revolver. A baroque pop song about the end of a relationship, it was one of McCartney's most mature and poignant works upon its release. McCartney recalls writing "For No One" in the bathroom of a ski resort in the Swiss Alps while on holiday with his then girlfriend Jane Asher. He said, "I suspect it was about another argument." The lyrics end enigmatically with "...a love that should have lasted years..." The song's working title was "Why Did It Die?"

On Thursday, I played "Maxwell's Silver Hammer."

"Maxwell's Silver Hammer." McCartney's first song Abbey Road, was first performed by the Beatles during the Let It Be sessions (as can be seen in the Let It Be film). Paul wrote the song after his trip to India in 1968. He wanted to record it for The Beatles but it was turned down as "too complicated." According to Geoff Emerick's book, Here, There and Everywhere, Lennon said the song was "more of Paul's granny music," and refused to participate in the recording of the song. Harrison was also tired of the song. "We had to play it over and over again until Paul liked it. It was a real drag," said Harrison. Starr was more sympathetic to the song. "It was granny music" he said "but we needed stuff like that on our album so other people would listen to it".

On Friday, I played "It Won't Be Long."

"It Won't Be Long" is the opening track on With the Beatles, the Beatles' second UK album, and was the first original song recorded for it. The chorus is a play on the words "be long" and "belong." The song features early Beatles' trademarks such as call-and-response yeah-yeahs and scaling guitar riffs.Typical also of this phase of Beatles' song writing is the melodramatic ending (similar to "She Loves You", which had just been recorded and was about to be released) where the music stops, allowing Lennon a brief solo vocal improvisation before the song finishes. There is an unusual middle eight—for what is, essentially, a rock and roll song—that uses chromatically descending chords. That video is a nice bonus, it's a bit that was taken from The Beatles Anthology. They took a lot of home movies in the early days, and the song was set to some of those films.

Let me know if there's something you want to hear next week!

Beatle-ly yours,
Behka