Today we have been given the prompts This, That and Other for his week’s Song Lyric Sunday challenge. Our host, Jim Adams, is giving a nod to our friend, Fandango, from the blog This, That and the Other. For the last three-plus years Fandango, not his real name, has given us a daily prompt word to tickle our muses and get us writing, along with Flash Fiction challenges, Provocative Questions and Who Won The Week? A big thank you from your fellow bloggers!
This SLS challenge was a little more difficult than I thought it would be. I found a few songs that fit but I wasn’t that thrilled with them. In the end I went with a very pretty song with great harmonies, This Boy, by the Beatles.
The second video is short and sweet. George Harrison is observing and commenting on another video of The Beatles singing this song. He pokes a little fun and it’s quite funny. I hope you enjoy it.
The Song
John Lennon wrote this song. One of his early compositions, it is seemingly simple, but very clever. The song contains only a few notes, but the space between the notes is filled by the arrangements. It’s the same technique you hear in Liszt’s “Liebestraum,” the piano piece in Schumann’s Davidsbündlertänze and in Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata.”
This was the first Beatles composition that was commented on by a music critic. William Mann wrote in The London Times December 27, 1963, that the song had “pendiatonic clusters.”
George Harrison: “It was John (Lennon) trying to do Smokey (Robinson).”
The vocals were a three part harmony sung by Harrison, Lennon and McCartney.
The Beatles performed this on their second Ed Sullivan Show appearance – Feb 16, 1964. They played six songs on the show that night, and this provided a slow change of pace from the uptempo songs like “She Loves You” and “I Want To Hold Your Hand.” The Beatles were just beginning their breakthrough in America and got a huge audience from the show.
This was used in Ringo’s big scene in The Beatles movie A Hard Day’s Night. The version used in the film is an instrumental renamed “Ringo’s Theme (This Boy),” and without any harmony singing.
This was one of the first songs on which The Beatles used a 4-track recorder.
Artists to cover this song include Tom Baxter, David Bowie, Sean Lennon, George Martin, Delbert McClinton and The Nylons.
The Lyrics
That boy
Took my love away
Though he'll regret it someday
But this boy wants you back again
That boy
Isn't good for you
Though he may want you, too
This boy wants you back again
Oh, and this boy would be happy
Just to love you, but oh my
That boy won't be happy
'Til he's seen you cry
This boy
Wouldn't mind the pain
Would always feel the same
If this boy gets you back again
This boy, this boy, this boy
Writer/s: John Lennon, Paul McCartney
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, BMG Rights Management,
Songtrust Ave, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind
Courtesy of Songfacts
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.
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.”
