Tag Archives: The Beatles

by

Song of the Day #2,132: ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ – The Beatles

beatles_loveHere’s one of my very favorite Beatles song given a sparkly makeover for the Cirque du Soleil Love show.

George and Giles Martin blended many different Beatles songs into each track in the Love performance, but somehow kept the sound and spirit of the originals intact.

For ‘Strawberry Fields Forever,’ they made use of “the orchestral section from ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’, the piano solo from ‘In My Life,’ the brass included in ‘Penny Lane,’ the cello and harpsichord arrangement from ‘Piggies’ and the coda of ‘Hello, Goodbye,'” (according to Wikipedia).

Continue reading →

by

Song of the Day #2,120: ‘If I Fell (Live)’ – The Beatles

beatles_reallyI enjoyed last week’s desert island song theme so much that I’m extending it for another two weeks.

The five songs featured this week will round out my top ten, and next week’s selections will earn honorable mentions.

This is a strong batch of songs. Any one of these — hell, all of them — could have been in the top five.

Continue reading →

by

Song of the Day #2,010: ‘Because’ – The Beatles

abbeyroadIt’s weird to hear any song from Side Two of Abbey Road on its own (with the exception of ‘Here Comes the Sun’). ‘Because’ isn’t an official segment of the 16-minute medley that makes up most of Side Two, but it may as well be.

John Lennon said that the inspiration for this track came to him when he heard Yoko playing Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight Sonata’ on the piano. He ask her to play the chords backward and built the song around that progression.

Continue reading →

by

Song of the Day #1,996: ‘I Am the Walrus (from Love)’ – The Beatles

41_birthdayToday is my wife’s birthday. Only every seven years or so (not sure how Leap Years affect this) will both her birthday and mine fall on a weekend, so this might be my only opportunity to play the ‘Random Weekend (Birthday Edition)’ game for both of us in the same year.

So let’s spin the wheel and see what Alexandra’s 41st year has in store.

Continue reading →

by

Song of the Day #1,918: ‘If I Fell’ – Melissa Greener

melissa_greenerI was singing my youngest daughter to sleep tonight, treating her to my usual lineup of ‘Blackbird,’ ‘In My Life’ and ‘It’s a Small World,’ when I decided to throw in a special bonus track — The Beatles’ ‘If I Fell.’

This is a song so good that even my tuneless croak made it sound something close to beautiful. Halfway through I decided I had to get it on the blog this week, in some form, knowing I’d already posted the original.

Continue reading →