Category: Blog

Another great challenge this week for Song Lyric Sunday. Jim Adams has asked us to find songs beginning with the letter M and/or the letter A. Just like last week we are spoilt for choice and I’m looking forward to hearing songs from all genres today. My choices are ‘Mandolin Rain’ from Bruce Hornsby and the Range and ‘And I Love Her’ from the Beatles. Two beautiful songs that I hope you enjoy.

Bruce Randall Hornsby (born November 23, 1954) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. He draws from classical, jazz, bluegrass, folk, Motown, gospel, rock, blues, and jam band musical traditions.

His recordings have been recognized with industry awards, including the 1987 Grammy Award for Best New Artist with Bruce Hornsby and the Range, the 1990 Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album, and the 1994 Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance.

Hornsby has worked with his touring band Bruce Hornsby and the Noisemakers, his bluegrass project with Ricky Skaggs, and as a session and guest musician. He was a touring member of the Grateful Dead from September 1990 to March 1992, playing over 100 shows during that period.

In 1984, he formed Bruce Hornsby and the Range, who were signed to RCA Records in 1985. Besides Hornsby, Range members were David Mansfield (guitar, mandolin, violin), George Marinelli (guitars and backing vocals), former Ambrosia member Joe Puerta (bass guitar and backing vocals), and John Molo (drums).

Hornsby’s recording career started with the biggest hit he has had to date, “The Way It Is”. It topped the American music charts in 1986.^[11] The song described aspects of homelessness, the American civil rights movement and institutional racism. It has since been sampled by at least six rap artists, including Tupac Shakur, E-40, and Mase.

With the success of the single, the album The Way It Is went multi-platinum and produced another top five hit with “Mandolin Rain” (co-written, as many of Hornsby’s early songs were, with his brother John). “Every Little Kiss” also did respectably well. Other tracks on the album helped establish what some labeled the “Virginia sound”, a mixture of rock, jazz, and bluegrass. Bruce Hornsby and the Range went on to win the Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 1987, beating out Glass Tiger, Nu Shooz, Simply Red, and Timbuk3.

Courtesy of Wiki

Lyrics - Mandolin Rain

The song came and went
Like the times that we spent
Hiding out from the rain under the carnival tent
I laughed and she'd smile
It would last for awhile
You don't know what you got till you lose it all again

Listen to the mandolin rain
Listen to the music on the lake
Listen to my heart break every time she runs away
Listen to the banjo wind
A sad song drifting low
Listen to the tears roll
Down my face as she turns to go

A cool evening dance
Listening to the bluegrass band takes the chill
From the air 'til they play the last song
I'll do my time
Keeping you off my mind but there's moments
That I find, I'm not feeling so strong

Listen to the mandolin rain
Listen to the music on the lake
Listen to my heart break every time she runs away
Listen to the banjo wind
A sad song drifting low
Listen to the tears roll
Down my face as she turns to go

Running down by the lake shore
She did love the sound of a summer storm
It played on the lake like a mandolin
Now it's washing her away again

Listen to the mandolin rain
Listen to the music on the lake
Listen to my heart break every time she runs away
Listen to the banjo wind
A sad song drifting low
Listen to the tears roll
Down my face as she turns to go

The boat's steaming in
I watch the side wheel spin and I
Think about her when I hear that whistle blow
I can't change my mind
I knew all the time that she'd go
But that's a choice I made long ago

Listen to the mandolin rain
Listen to the music on the lake
Listen to my heart break every time she runs away
Listen to the banjo wind
A sad song drifting low
Listen to the tears roll
Down my face as she turns to go

Writer/s: Bruce Hornsby, John Hornsby 
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, 
Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

For the letter A I have chosen one of the prettiest Beatles songs, “And I Love Her”. Paul McCartney’s beautiful voice is just perfect..

Paul McCartney wrote most of this song. In a 1984 interview with Playboy magazine, he stated, “It’s just a love song; no, it wasn’t for anyone.” That was probably the chivalrous thing to do, as by then he was 15 years into his marriage to Linda. When he wrote the song, he was dating an actress named Jane Asher. For a while, they were the most popular couple in England. After they broke up in 1968, McCartney married Linda Eastman and Asher became a proficient author. She later started her own business called “Jane Asher Party Cakes.”

McCartney did write “We Can Work It Out” and “Here, There And Everywhere” about Asher.

This was one of the first pop songs with a title that starts in mid-sentence. Paul was inspired by songs such as Perry Como’s “And I Love Her So.”

Most of the songs on the album A Hard Days Night are John Lennon compositions. Lennon helped out with the middle part of this song, but it’s mostly the work of McCartney. Structurally, the song is fairly conventional, with a clear melody in A+A+B+A system similar to popular music from the ’30s that Irving Berlin wrote.

Paul McCartney was the only Beatle to sing on this. Like “Yesterday,” it is one of just a few Beatle songs with only one vocalist.
George Harrison came up with the acoustic guitar intro that made the song instantly recognizable. “I think that song wouldn’t be anything without that,” McCartney told GQ in 2018. “He just made up that riff, and you think about that song without that riff, it wouldn’t be half as good.”

This is one of the most-covered Beatles songs, with well over 300 recorded versions Their most-covered track is “Yesterday.”
McCartney always intended this to be a ballad. He felt that all of their albums, regardless of how “rocky” they were, should have at least one ballad “to enrich the show.” It’s the reason he added “Till There Was You” to With The Beatles. The Beatles Anthology 1 album has a much faster version that includes both drums and George’s 12-string electric guitar, but that wasn’t the original intent.

The Beatles recorded this song at the end of February 1964, in the week after returning from the United States and before the start of filming their movie A Hard Day’s Night, where they perform the song. The take you hear on record is Take 21.

Ringo played the bongos on this track; George Harrison played the acoustic guitar solo.

The guitar duo Santo & Johnny recorded a mellow surf instrumental version of this song in 1965 which was a huge hit in Mexico. Santo & Johnny are known for their #1 hit “Sleep Walk.”

Despite the fact that he wrote 35% of this song (the middle eight), John Lennon called this “Paul’s first ‘Yesterday.'”

This was the first Beatles recording using purely acoustic instruments.
Paul once stated “This was the first song that I impressed myself with.”
When Paul McCartney was asked during a 2014 Twitter Q&A what he considers to be his favorite cover of one of his tracks, the former Beatle replied: “There are so many that I love it’s difficult to say, but Esther Phillips’ version of ‘And I love HIM’ comes to mind.”

Courtesy of Songfacts

I give her all my love
That’s all I do
And if you saw my love
You’d love her, too
I love her

She gives my everything
And tenderly
The kiss my lover brings
She brings to me
And I love her

A love like ours
Could never die
As long as I
Have you near me

Bright are the stars that shine
Dark is the sky
I know this love of mine
Will never die
And I love her

Bright are the stars that shine
Dark is the sky
I know this love of mine
Will never die
And I love her

Writer/s: John Lennon, Paul McCartney 
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC,

Tratore, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind