Badfinger - Come And Get It

"Come And Get It" was part of the soundtrack to the Magic Christian, one of my favourite films. A cheat since Paul McCartney both wrote and produced the record, but Badfinger are wierd beatle puppets on this record, which was of course, a big hit and one of those records you wish the Beatles had actually recorded themselves. You wonder what it might have been if McCartney had become a producer after he left the Beatles.

Note that Jimmy Saville is ageless, looking like an excited gonk in a kaftan. What was he injesting in the late 1960s?



The Magic Christian is also worth a watch, for the sheer excess.

Electric Light Orchestra - Mr Blue Sky

One style of the Beatles seems almost uncopyable, which is the full on, perculiar pyschedelic stylings of "I Am Walrus".

The Electric Light Orchestra made a career out of copying that production style, of chugging strings and light vocals, with bombastic lyrics and vigorous attitude to overdubbing that might even caused George Martin to change his tie. You couldn't eat a whole ELO album but one song occasionally will do.

While John Lennon declared them once to being the closest thing to how his music sounded in his head (gad!), he wasn't to know how the ELO would come to influence their mentors, thirty years later with Jeff Lynne producing the Anthology project rather than Martin.



Still, they could have got Phil Spector in again, so be grateful.

The Monkees - Last Train To Clarksville

Beatleshills wouldn't be complete with the Monkees, the original, pre designed copyists. Plastic Beatles. Scream your corporate screams now, kids!

The Monkees became their own strange brew in time, even if they weren't exactly musical innovators at the start, and their movie "Head" proves that they were no slouches. If the Beatles hooked up with the Goons and Monty Python, then the Monkees hung out with the beacon of oddness that is Frank Zappa. That, and the LSD, plainly had an effect.

Here they are being cute, doing their best rip of "Ticket to Ride".

Elliott Smith - Somebody That I Used to Know

A sad one this.

I have a lot of Elliott Smith records, and his elegant guitar and charming voice made for a good weekend. His light voice and McCartneyesque stylings on the guitar were a treat. That this sounds a little like later period Lennon and McCartney at the same time is delightful.

If you like this, you'll enjoy his album "Figure Eight", which is as Beatlesque as he ever was.

Cheap Trick - I Want You To Want Me

Cheap Trick live up to their name pretty well. This has its fair chunk of Beatles stylings. But they've often admitted it, and they are so good at taking the piss that they are forgiven.

The Raspberries - Let's Pretend

The Beatles are remembered as being musical revolutionaries. Really, their initial offerings were probably mushier and lovelier than later.

In the early 1970s, America produced a series of power pop bands which aped Beatles music so heavily that it was hard to tell the difference in production.
The Raspberries took this McCartney style mushiness and ran with it.

Anyway, this is a nice, slightly mushy song from men with beards and tight t shirts. Enjoy.