THE BEATLES: Their songs that were inspired by songs of other groups..

Yes, that always annoys me as well.

It is true that Otis Redding did influence Drive My Car, but the song was actually Respect, not Dock Of The Bay.

When it comes to Dock Of The Bay it was actually the Beatles who influenced Otis. He loved Sgt. Pepper, and said that Dock Of The Bay was directly inspired by it.

 

I'd never noticed it before, but it is very like it, even down to the orchestra voicing! I love this forum- you spotted this 40 years ago and I only found out today!

 

It does sound fairly similar, because it also has a manic quality, but has Paul ever spoken about it? Do we even know that he has heard the Thunderbird theme song?

 

Paul has definitely heard it! In the 'Think for Yourself' tracking session he and John take delight in mimicking the plots of 'Stingray' (a Gerry Anderson show made between 'Supercar' and 'Thunderbirds') and singing the theme song. 'Thunderbirds' was first shown that same month in London. Paul, being a voracious TV viewer, is bound to have seen it. He's never mentioned it though. Maybe he was trying to get the same exciting action feel he remembered from the Thunderbirds opening montage- it's not exactly the same but it's very similar in feel and construction. I'll ask him.

 

Thanks, I had never heard that before.

You definitely should ask him; I bet that it is one of the few questions that he hasn't been asked before.

 

I'll say!

 

"So...do you, uh...know the theme from 'Thunderbirds'?"

 

Jimmy Scott released this single following the release of the White Album -

 

John Lennon always got dates and things mixed up. Even for his own work.

 

Was "Forget Him" a hit in Britain earlier than in America? In the US it made the top ten at exactly the time the Beatles hit, which was several months after "She Loves You" was recorded (and released, though it had flopped in the US on its initial release in mid-'63).

I don't doubt, though, that Paul McCartney thought he remembered it that way, regardless. It actually happens all the time: some musician says a particular song was inspired by another song that people like us know was actually released months or years later.

 

Buddy Holly's "Words of love" and the Beatles "Rain" have a similar vibe....

 

Swingin' School was released in 1960, Forget Him in April 1963 in the UK, and was a hit a week or so before John and Paul wrote She Loves You in mid June. So Forget Him is clearly the inspiration, as recounted by Paul McCartney, who specifically remembered it being the idea of third person rather than any call and response thing (which was likely an attempt at a continuation of The Beatles' then-current Twist and Shout/Please Please Me vibe, until they decided to go unison/harmony rather than call and response).

 

"She Loves You" does sound more like "Forget Him" than "Swingin' School."

But I just did some digging and realized I got the "Swingin' School" reference from Bob Spitz's 2005 book "The Beatles: A Biography," which is mentioned on Rydell's Wikipedia page.

I know Wikipedia isn't always accurate, but here it quotes "Anthology" and then Spitz's book. If the below interpretation of McCartney's quote is wrong (and/or if there's a conflicting quote out there by him) someone should inform the Rydell people on Wikipedia and/or Spitz. I'm glad I found this, though, because I knew I'd read about the "Swingin' School"/"She Loves You" idea somewhere.

"In 2000 in the book, The Beatles Anthology (pg. 96), Paul McCartney said: "John (Lennon) and I wrote "She Loves You" together. There was a Bobby Rydell song out at the time and, as often happens, you think of one song when you write another. We’d planned an 'answering song' where a couple of us would sing 'she loves you' and the other ones would answer 'yeah yeah.' We decided that was a crummy idea but at least we then had the idea of a song called "She Loves You." So we sat in the hotel bedroom for a few hours and wrote it— John and I, sitting on twin beds with guitars.”

No specific song title is given in The Beatles Anthology, but Bob Spitz writes in The Beatles: The Biography that McCartney originally modeled "She Loves You" on the Rydell "answering song" called "Swingin' School" (and not "Forget Him", as is commonly cited)."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Rydell

 

Interesting that Spitz thinks it was 'Swinging School', but he's misinterpreting what McCartney said, I think. There's a full stop between mention of a Bobby Rydell song 'out at the time' (summer 63) and the mention of an 'answering song'. It could be that thinking of the third person thing in 'Forget Him' made Lennon and McCartney remember an older song of Rydell's too. But as no title is mentioned and it is noted as 'out at the time' it must be mainly or solely 'Forget Him', which was on the chart at the end of 'From Me To You's run.
[I don't rate Spitz at all, too many assumptions and guesses and plain wrong stuff for my tastes. I can make my own guesses, I prefer a book to just 'give me the facts'. Call me Joe Friday.]

 

"Penny Lane" was clearly influenced by "Sweet Talkin' Guy".
If you've heard the outtakes from the flute overdubs, they're playing it verbatim.
Not a bad song to rip off. It's one of my favourites.

 

Thematically, "Forget Him" is certainly much closer to "She Loves You" than "Swingin' School" is. (It could be a friend of the protagonist in "Forget Him" talking him into trying to get his ex back.) Knowing what John and Paul thought of school in general, I can't imagine they'd have liked "Swingin' School" very much anyway.

 

That's quite a stretch.
I'm just not hearing it.

 

Yes, it was. According to 45cat it was released in April '63 in the UK, several months earlier than in the US. But more importantly, according to this UK record chart it was in the Top 20 when "From Me To You" topped the charts and the Beatles were just about getting around to composing "She Loves You."

http://www.officialcharts.com/archive-chart/_/1/1963-06-15/

 

Is it Yoko Ono making those irritating voices?

 

Thanks for the clarification; yes, John allegedly infringed on the Levy-published You Can't Catch Me (Berry) and as Chuckee points out, the agreement called for him to do three Levy-published songs; only one of which was Berry's.

 

it's little Heather. At some point in the sessions, Paul does compare her singing to Yoko actually!

 

And of course, Patti Page's "How Much Is That Doggie In The Window" was what the Monkees were singing about.

 

Not uncommon for artists, who are always thinking about the next project, not what was in the past. I couldn't believe it when I was reading an interview with George Harrison, in which Harrison asked the interviewer which came first between Rubber Soul and Revolver. For him, they were like two parts of the same album.

 

No, you're conflating two Beatles comments! It was Lennon who asked which came first, in Rolling STone, 1970, and George who saw Rubber Soul and Revolver as Part 1 and Part 2 of the same album in Anthology.

 

A long time ago I convinced myself that "12 Bar Original" was an attempt at recording "Help Me" by Sonny Boy Williamson.

I stumbled upon this when I discovered an old Wings bootleg from one of the early tours that had Paul singing "Help Me". The Wings bootleg mislabeled the song, and I was surprised because I wasn't aware Paul had ever played the song.

I sat there and listened to the Wings recording several times trying to name that tune, and eventually said "Oh, I have that on Van Morrison's double live LP 'Too Late To Stop Now'"

I can't remember how I also happened to then accidently throw a CD into my player about 10 minutes later that had the Sonny Boy Williamson sing the same song that both Van and Paul McCartney were singing....

But when the Sonny Boy recording started I was in shock - it sounded much more like "12 Bar Original" than the other 300 instrumentals I had listened to in search of a match.

It's not a perfect match - but its much closer than anything else I tried to compare.

Cool thing is none of the other songs ("Green Onions", "Plum Nellie", etc.) have a known recording of a Beatle playing them.

And it had never occured to me previously that "12 Bar Orignal" might not have been intended as an instrumental and could have been a session where they first recorded a backing track with the intent of then going back and adding vocals.

By the time, the Anthology series came out, my assumption is that the the musicians no longer remembered what they were tryinig to record - and were content to copyright it as an original tune.

I'd love to corner Paul and ask him why Wings played "Help Me" live (or why they STOPPED doing it - I don't think it was done often).