Breakfast with Behka and The Beatles: Week of January 27

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. The Beatles are my favorite band and have been since I was a teenager. 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 their version of "Memphis, Tennessee".

The Beatles were huge fans of Chuck Berry.  They did several of his songs and put a few on their albums.  He was definitely a staple of their early live shows.  This version was done for one of their appearances on British Radio, and was put out on the Live At the BBC cd.  I particularly like this vocal by John because he doesn't quite let on about how sad the twist at the end is, and yet you know this isn't a straight and simple lovelorn teen song.

On Tuesday, I played "Everybody's Got Something to Hide (Except for Me and My Monkey)".

This song was  written by John Lennon. It was on their self titled 1968 album The Beatles, more commonly known as The White Album.  It was partially written about their experience with the Maharishi Makesh Yogi and their vacation time in India in 1968.  The Maharishi said many of the lines John uses in the song like "Come on, come on/It's such a joy", etc.  He then paired those lines with their disillusionment with the Maharishi, and his own disappointment with how he and his then girlfriend Yoko Ono were treated in the press. There were several accounts at the time that the Maharishi had made untoward moves and advances on some of the young ladies in the camp, and it went against everything that he had taught.  It went hand in hand with a particular a cartoon in one of the papers which  had an illustration of John and Yoko, with Yoko pictured as a monkey on John's back.  So it kind of makes sense when you hear the lyric - he felt like he and Yoko had nothing to hide, unlike the tabloid reporters and the Maharishi.

On Wednesday, I played "Get Back".

"Get Back"  was  originally released as a single on 11 April 1969 and credited to "The Beatles with Billy Preston". A different mix of the song later became the closing track of Let It Be, which was the Beatles' last album released just after the group split. The single version was later issued on CD on the second disc of the Past Masters compilation. It was the Beatles' only single that credited another artist at their request. "Get Back" was the Beatles' first single release in true stereo in the US. I played the version from Let it Be....Naked, without any talking before or afterward, like on the Let it Be album.  On the single version, the song fades back in at the end before ending.

On Thursday, I played "Taxman".

This is a song George Harrison wrote for the album Revolver.  It was written about the high tax bracket that the group was in, and how much of their touring and recording pay was going back to the government.  George was apparently shocked to find out that they were in the 95% tax bracket, and that their supposed riches were nowhere near what they'd anticipated.  It didn't help that Brian Epstein, the manager for The Beatles, had negotiated a poor royalty and publishing contract for the group.  They made something like one or two pennies for every record they sold, when the norm was more like twenty to thirty.  This was partially written by John Lennon, and he always felt like George should have acknowledged the fact in his book, I Me Mine.   George, meanwhile, felt like John's contribution was minor, and that John didn't deserve any credit since George's contributions were never credited or acknowledged on Lennon/McCartney compositions. Either way it's a great song and a very dramatic start to the Revolver album.

On Friday, I played "Another Girl".

This song was written and sung by Paul McCartney for the album "Help!".  It was their second movie, and it was a very silly affair.  I think it's a good movie, but The Beatles are not the stars of it by most opinions.  The song is featured in the film and is a fun montage of fun, with the group goofing off and miming.  One thing that's rare about this track is that the last bit of lead guitar is not played by George Harrison, but by Paul McCartney.

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

Beat-ley yours,

Behka