In 1965 the Zombies first released “I Love You” as a B-side to A-side “Whenever You’re Ready” (which peaked at #110 in the UK and not at all in the US, which is why you’ve probably never heard either one).
It was released again, this time as an A-side, in ’68. But it came a little late–the group had already disbanded. That same year a California band called People released a version that, while also intended as a B-side, became their only Top 40 hit when it went to #14.
The Zombies’ version features some cool staccato acoustic guitar strumming and a jazzy Rod Argent keyboard solo very similar to the one on their massive 1964 hit “She’s Not There”. I believe it would have been a hit had they released it as an A-side in the first place. Instead it’s a real lost gem.
People’s version isn’t a bad effort either–it lacks Colin Blunstone’s breathy vocals but does have a similar jazzy break and a long, strange, trippy intro.
“When you’re drowning,” John Lennon told Rolling Stone in 1970, “you don’t say, ‘I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me.’ You just scream.”
“Don’t Let Me Down” is Lennon’s anguished scream to his lover, Yoko Ono. When he and the Beatles recorded the song during the Let It Be sessions in late January of 1969, Lennon asked Ringo Starr to hit the cymbal very hard at the beginning, to “give me the courage to come screaming in.”
The Beatles were in the process of breaking apart when Lennon wrote the song. It was a dark time in my ways, and he was becoming more and more dependent upon Ono for personal and creative support. As Paul McCartney told writer Barry Miles in Many Years From Now:
It was a very tense period: John was with Yoko and had escalated to heroin and all the accompanying paranoias and he was putting himself out on a limb. I think that as much as it excited and amused him, at the same time it secretly terrified him. So ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ was a genuine plea, ‘Don’t let me down, please, whatever you do. I’m out on this limb, I know I’m doing all this stuff, just don’t let me down.’ It was saying to Yoko, ‘I’m really stepping out of line on this one. I’m really letting my vulnerability be seen, so you must not let me down.’ I think it was a genuine cry for help.
You can get a strong sense of Lennon’s anguish and vulnerability when you listen to the isolated vocal track above. And for the full arrangement, including Starr’s cymbal-crash near the beginning and Billy Preston’s brilliant electric piano playing, see below.
Infectious but hard to categorize, Flyte certainly have a bit of 80’s New Wave in them–but the good kind. A little Cars mixed with a little Talking Heads perhaps.
Still unsigned, the London band’s self-released debut EP is due September 16.
Stockholm, Sweden’s Sonoride have digested the sounds of ELO and the Beatles circa 1967 and what they’ve regurgitated in the form of the semi-psychedelic Multi Colour Dream mostly sounds like a synthesis of the two.
All except “A Little Green Park”, which is more of a straight-ahead pop song than most of the album, a celebration of the simple joys of a trip to a favorite park–a place where “the sun never seems to be off duty…and some soothing scent is always somehow present.”
When I tell people what a great album William Shatner’s Has Been is I’m consistently misunderstood. I know I have a snarky sense of humor at times. I know I often tend to communicate by saying the opposite of what I actually mean. But as unlikely a scenario as you might find it to be, I’m dead serious when I tell you this is a very, very good pop album.
And no, I don’t “like it ironically”. Albeit elements of novelty abound, this record is not in the category of Shatner’s 1960’s cheese-fest The Transformed Man, which can only be appreciated in the ironic sense. Rather than spotlight Bill Shatner the untalented singer as that spectacularly bad album did, producer Ben Folds plays to Shatner’s strengths here–namely, his ability to deliver dramatic spoken lyric. It works.
When Folds signed on to produce and arrange this record (he and Shatner had worked together before, on Folds’ Fear of Pop project) he didn’t check his keen pop sensibilities at the door. The music here is top-notch, not to mention quite diverse.
And the guest performances are inspired. Listen for Joe Jackson’s impassioned take on the cover of Pulp’s “Common People”, the well-cast Henry Rollins on the duet/litany of general complaints “I Can’t Get Behind That”, or Brad Paisley taking a heartfelt turn on the chorus of “Real”. Folds himself takes vocals and piano on the tale of father/daughter estrangement “That’s Me Trying”. Folds’ plaintive melody and vocal delivery complement Shatner’s lamentation here perfectly.
Interlaced among all that is the astonishingly broadly-talented Mr. Shatner delivering what are at times shockingly honest and confessional-sounding self-penned lyrics. Most extreme example (not featured here) is “What Have You Done”, an unblinking account of Shatner’s discovery of his wife, dead in the couple’s swimming pool.
The guy has stones, or happens to be at the station in life when he just doesn’t give a shit anymore what people think. Probably both.
The album’s title track is possibly its highlight. Not only is it a brilliant musical lampoon of a now-obscure 60’s pop sub-genre typified by Lorne Greene’s “Ringo”, but it serves perfectly as a (hilarious) raised middle finger to Shat’s critics. Good for him.
Of course he’s Captain James T. Kirk to most. But the list of William Shatner’s accomplishments–best-selling author, successful horse breeder, Priceline commercial icon, Emmy-winning Denny Crane, and of course, a singer of sorts–is admirable. As he says in the album’s final track, “Real”:
And while there’s a part of me
In that guy you’ve seen up there on that screen
I am so much more
While I’m dead serious about how good an album this is, the chief reason to listen is that It’s good fun.
Every Moment Has A Song 