Sunday, May 16, 2021

Just when I think I've heard it all from the Beatles


I was recently playing a bunch of 1960s music and while listening to "A World Without Love" I recalled that this was a Lennon/McCartney tune, although to be strictly accurate, it was written by McCartney alone, when he was 16. 

You can really tell it's a song by McCartney because of the emphasis on loneliness. I've mentioned before that McCartney has a definite phobia about loneliness, such that he was able to write "Eleanor Rigby" while living the life of the least voluntarily lonely human being possible: a 24-year-old beloved international pop music star.

I wondered if the Beatles had ever recorded the song and while searching for the answer (no) found a Rolling Stone article that mentioned that Peter Asher, a member of the duo Peter and Gordon, who did record it, had a recording of McCartney playing it for him. Asher was the brother of McCartney's then-girlfriend, Jane Asher.

It was then but a quick trip to YouTube land and voila, here is the recording. 

You have to love Lennon, again, and his smart-aleck response to the opening lyric "please lock me away":
'Yes, okay.' End of song.