Average To Poor

With The Beatles Rock Band coming out on September the 9th, and the chances of it being insanely awesome being incredibly high, I thought I would cover a subject that has come up a few times in my life. Oh, and for those who doubt if the new Rock Band will be any good, go watch the trailer!

A couple of months ago my girlfriend and I were on one of our many cross-country car journeys and I think Wings may have been on the radio. So a conversation arose about how I have only recently begun to appreciate The Beatles on a whole new level, especially with the recent release of the new Easy-star Allatar cover album of Sgt. Pepper.

My girlfriend then claims that she has never heard The Beatles and probably doesn’t know any of their songs. I, of course, saw this as a challenge, and, much to her despair, spent the next four hours singing (Acapella) my way through the Fab Fours back catalogue. I came out with a good 15 songs that she had at least heard the Chorus to.

“Where is this all going?”, you may ask. Well, it occurred to me during my solo four-hour Beatles marathon, that I had heard a load of their songs years before I even knew who they were. I would even go as far as to ay that there are children born everyday with the lyrics already meshed into their genetic code.

I will get to the point…

Here are 7 Songs that I knew, and later found out were by The Beatles.

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

Where You Heard It:

When on extended trips to the West Country with the family, the choice of cassette tapes in the Volvo was rather limited. The soundtrack to “Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat”, ABBA Gold (of course) and The Best of Elton John. You liked “Crocodile Rock” and appreciated “I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues”, but the song that really stuck out was “Lucy in the Sky…”.

Your feelings when you found out it was by The Beatles:

Excitement, although, you’ve always thought “the great bald one’s” version was slightly better.

Come Together

Where you heard it:

You have always been a Jacko devotee. And as a young child, in the early nineties, he was hard to escape. (mikey giggles to himself.) You also had a fondness for Monkeys and Macaulay Culkin. When Michael Jackson’s album History hit the shelves you didn’t realise make the connection that it included some covers. Come Together is made all innocent by the Moonwalker, although remaining very similar to the original.

Your feelings when you found out it was by the Beatles:

The Beatles version is clearly awesome. It’s probably one of your favourite songs by them. They were on a lot of drugs and the lyrics are about an orgy, so it ticks all the boxes.

When I’m Sixty Four

Where You Heard It:

You first discovered it when Cherie Blair embarrassed herself and her husband by singing it on television.

Your feelings when you found out it was by the Beatles:

Meh. Its not that great a song. You can take it of leave it. You wouldn’t buy it. Maybe as a gift. For a Birthday maybe.

Ob-la-di Ob-la-da

Where you heard it:

Whilst on one of your family’s repetitive and tedious trips to Wales in the summer holidays this song was pummelled into your subconscious by the evening entertainment. You were always a bit uncomfortable at how easily the singer transitioned from Tom Jones “Sex Bomb”, into this Sixties hit, and then into a Bonnie Tyler/Meat Loaf duet.

Your feelings when you found out it was by the Beatles:

The thought that The Beatles may have been scraping the barrel with this song mixed with the desire to try chatting up a girl with the line “I like your face”. There is also the sheer joy of singing “Whooooooa” in the Chorus, or “Bra”, according to the Beatles songbook.

Yellow Submarine

Where you heard it:

When you hippy nursery-school teacher ran out of songs she knew how to play on the piano/guitar. As a four-year-old, the idea of living with your creepy teacher in a confined space underwater doesn’t seem so bad.

Your feelings when you found out it was by The Beatles:

Confusion. Having not studied the history of the Fab four, but having a general knowledge of the drug-use in the sixties, you determine that the two must be linked in some way. For years I missed the Simpsons reference to this song when Lisa is gassed at the dentist, and thought the Yellow Submarine video was an episode on Mr.Benn.

Drive My Car

Where you heard it:

When doing the lighting for a youth theatre group. For a modernisation of a Shakespeare play, you were always perplexed and rather annoyed by the director’s choice to randomly insert the chorus from this song into the text. She was a bit of a freak.

Your feelings when you found out it was by The Beatles:

You thought it was cool and never realised how riff-driven the Beatles were. It’s quite rocky for pre-Hendrix-era sixties.

Getting Better

Where you heard it:

During 2001 there was a Phillips advert on TV where the band Gomez played this song. It was at the end of the advert and was rather bloody catchy.

Your feelings when you found out it was by the Beatles:

Awesome! This is probably your most recent Beatles discovery. A great song, and you hope you keep making discoveries like this. Now you have the difficult decision whether to listen to your dad’s vinyl, by the albums you haven’t listened too, of just torrent the whole lot. Guess what I did.

Easy-Star Allstar Version

You also enjoy writing in the second person.

End.