The Beatles Released “Something” 50 years ago today – Here are cover versions by Bob Dylan, Springsteen, Sinatra, Elvis and more

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]Something in the way she moves
Attracts me like no other lover
Something in the way she woos me
I don’t want to leave her now
You know I believe and how[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]At the time I wasn’t particularly thrilled that Frank Sinatra did “Something” … I was more interested when Smokey Robinson did it and when James Brown did it. But I’m very pleased now, whoever’s done it. I realise that the sign of a good song is when it has lots of cover versions.
– George Harrison, 2000[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Something” is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1969 album Abbey Road. It was written by George Harrison, the band’s lead guitarist. Soon after the album’s release, the song was issued as a single, coupled with “Come Together”, making it the first Harrison composition to become a Beatles A-side.

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August 23: The Beatles released “She Loves You” in 1963

Beatles_-_She_Loves_You

She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

“John and I wrote She Loves You together. There was a Bobby Rydell song (Forget Him) out at the time and, as often happens, you think of one song when you write another.

We were in a van up in Newcastle. I’d planned an ‘answering song’ where a couple of us would sing ‘She loves you…’ and the other one answers, ‘Yeah, yeah.’ We decided that that was a crummy idea as it was, but at least we then had the idea for a song called She Loves You. So we sat in the hotel bedroom for a few hours and wrote it.”
– Paul McCartney (Anthology)

“She Loves You” is a song written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and recorded by English rock group the Beatles for release as a single in 1963. The single set and surpassed several records in the United Kingdom charts, and set a record in the United States as one of the five Beatles songs that held the top five positions in the American charts simultaneously on 4 April 1964. It is their best-selling single in the United Kingdom, and was the best selling single there in 1963.In November 2004, Rolling Stone ranked “She Loves You” number 64 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. In August 2009, at the end of its “Beatles Weekend”, BBC Radio 2 announced that “She Loves You” was the Beatles’ all-time best-selling single in the UK based on information compiled by The Official Charts Company.

The single was released on August 23, 1963.

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July 10: The Beatles released A Hard Day’s Night in 1964

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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]We were different. We were older. We knew each other on all kinds of levels that we didn’t when we were teenagers. The early stuff – the Hard Day’s Night period, I call it – was the sexual equivalent of the beginning hysteria of a relationship. And the Sgt Pepper-Abbey Road period was the mature part of the relationship.”
– John Lennon (1980)[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

A Hard Day’s Night is the third album by The Beatles; it was released on July 10, 1964. The album is a soundtrack to the A Hard Day’s Night film, starring the Beatles. The American version of the album was released two weeks earlier, on 26 June 1964 by United Artists Records, with a different track listing. This is the first Beatles album to be recorded entirely on four-track tape, allowing for good stereo mixes.

HDN

In 2000, Q placed A Hard Day’s Night at number 5 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. In 2003, the album was ranked number 388 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

The soundtrack songs were recorded in late February, and the non-soundtrack songs were recorded in June. The title song itself was recorded on April 16.

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]…but A Hard Day’s Night is perhaps the band’s most straightforward album: You notice the catchiness first, and you can wonder how they got it later.

The best example of this is the title track– the clang of that opening chord to put everyone on notice, two burning minutes thick with percussion (including a hammering cowbell!) thanks to the new four-track machines George Martin was using, and then the song spiraling out with a guitar figure as abstractedly lovely as anything the group had recorded.”
– Tom Ewing, Pitchfork[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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July 7: Happy 79th Birthday Ringo Starr

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]Ringo was a star in his own right in Liverpool before we even met. Ringo was a professional drummer who sang and performed and was in one of the top groups in Britain, but especially in Liverpool. So Ringo’s talent would have come out one way or the other … whatever that spark is in Ringo, we all know it but can’t put our finger on it. Whether it’s acting, drumming, or singing, I don’t know. There’s something in him that is projectable and he would have surfaced as an individual … Ringo is a damn good drummer.
~John Lennon (Sept 1980)[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Beatles accept award Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions 1988:

Nice tribute video from youtube:

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December 4: The Beatles released Beatles For Sale in 1964

Beatles for Sale is the fourth studio album by the Beatles, it was released on 4 December 1964 and produced by George Martin. The album marked a minor turning point in the evolution of the Lennon -McCartney  partnership, John Lennon particularly now showing interest in composing songs of a more autobiographical nature. I’m a Loser shows Lennon for the first time coming under the influence of Bob Dylan, whom he met in New York while on tour, on 28 August 1964.

John, when you were in New York, what did you like best about it?

 I just like cities, you see, and preferably big ones. That’s why I liked it. And we met some good people like Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, you know, and I enjoy meeting people I admire.

(Sept 13, 1964 via In The Life Of…The Beatles)

Beatles for Sale didn’t  produce a single for the UK – the non-album tracks I Feel Fine and She’s a Woman performed that role. Nevertheless, that coupling was followed up in the United States by Eight Days a Week, which became their seventh number one.

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July 21: The Beatles Recorded “Come Together” in 1969

beatles-come-together

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_message message_box_color=”mulled_wine” icon_fontawesome=”fa fa-quote-left”]“It was a funky record – it’s one of my favorite Beatle tracks, or, one of my favourite Lennon tracks, let’s say that. It’s funky, it’s bluesy, and I’m singing it pretty well. I like the sound of the record. You can dance to it. I’d buy it!”

“The thing was created in the studio. It’s gobbledygook, Come Together was an expression that Leary had come up with for his attempt at being president or whatever he wanted to be, and he asked me to write a campaign song. I tried and tried, but I couldn’t come up with one. But I came up with this, Come Together, which would’ve been no good to him, you couldn’t have a campaign song like that, right?”
– John Lennon (Playboy, 1980)
[/vc_message][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Come Together” is a song by The Beatles written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. The song is the opening track on the album Abbey Road, and was released as a double A-sided single with “Something”, their twenty-first single in the United Kingdom and twenty-sixth in the United States. The song reached the top of the charts in the US, and peaked at number four in the UK.

I really love the song, one of John’s masterpieces!

John Lennon: vocals, rhythm guitar, handclaps and tambourine
Paul McCartney: harmony vocals,electric piano and bass
George Harrison: lead guitar
Ringo Starr: drums, maracas

 

uk_come-together

 

A-side Something
Released 6 October 1969 (US), 31 October 1969 (UK)
Format 7″
Recorded 21 July 1969,
EMI Studios, London
Genre Blues rock, hard rock
Length 4:18
Label Apple
Writer(s) Lennon–McCartney
Producer George Martin

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