Sunday, May 3, 2015

Can't Buy Me Love

It's not often I say this, but: the Beatles made a mistake.

Listening to this outtake, in fact, you can hear them make a number of mistakes. It's delightfully rough, and almost sounds like they could have been playing back in the Kaiserkeller. But beyond the lack of polish, John misses a vocal cue, Paul botches the lyrics and is reduced to ad-libbing "ba doobie doobie," and George fumbles his way through the solo. (Ringo, of course, is—no surprise—flawless.)

Still and all, three things leap out: 1) it's simply incomprehensible that the lead vocalist on this song was not the band's main vocalist, and yet it's true and 2) that the writer of this song was not the band's main songwriter, and yet that's also true.

But beyond that, the lads should've kept the Beach Boys/Motown backing vocals, perfecting them as required. Those things are sheer gold, and no other rock group ever could've just tossed them away and still walked off with their third consecutive #1 hit. This damn band is the very definition of embarrassment of riches. Can't buy them love? With their talent (and bank accounts), they could buy any damn thing they wanted.

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