With the Beatles

Weekend Assignment #33: You can have any person, past or present, sing any song for you that you want. What is the song, and who is singing it for you?

Extra credit: Name a singer you wish you could sing like, but can't. So that means even those of you with excellent voices have to pick someone you can't sing like.

Only one person, past or present? I'd like four of them: John, Paul, George and Ringo. They were pretty much the only music John and I had in common when we met in 1977.  Later we shared many favorites from the New Wave era - The Clash, Devo, Elvis Costello, the Specials and Madness - and still later we both got interested in "ultralounge" music of the 1950s and early 1960s, especially the exotica of Martin Denny and Les Baxter. But really, it's always been The Beatles for us. John's published several books about them, and I once made him a scrapbook of Beatles clippings from the 1960s and 1970s.

So, if I can have the whole band, let's fire up the old time machine and get back to 1962 or so. John's request - and I think it's a good one - is to have them perform "a Lennon-McCartney original that nobody's ever heard of, and nobody has on tape - or a medley of them." Needless to say, we'd soon rectify the lack of a decent recording! If we must choose a song we already know about, then let's have them play Thinking of Linking, an early song Paul McCartney has mentioned in interviews but never performed.

 If we have to cut the human want list to two, John wants Lennon and McCartney to perform You Know My Name (Look Up the Number) from 1969--live. Oh, yeah! Wild stuff. That B-side is pretty much the last recorded evidence of John and Paul really having fun together.

And if we follow the assignment and only get one Beatle, let's bring back John Lennon, and hear what he would have done with Free As a Bird.  Heck, let's just plain bring back John Lennon. If I really had access to a time machine, that night outside the Dakota is one change in history I'd make without hesitation. Real world alternative: how about recording Thinking of Linking for us, Sir Paul?

Extra Credit: again, you can't do better than the Beatles, but of course I'm female. It would be very strange if P McC's voice came out of my mouth! I guess I'll go with either Judy Collins (circa 1968) or Ella Fitzgerald (not the scat part, the straight singing). Or maybe Peggy Lee (1950s era).

Karen