Blue Jean Bop

A version of Gene Vincent’s ‘Blue Jean Bop’ opens Run Devil Run, Paul McCartney’s 11th solo album.

I remember hearing ‘Blue Jean Bop’ on an album that I think John had; going to a place near Penny Lane for the afternoon, having a ciggy, and just listening to records. ‘Blue Jean Bop’ was always one of my favourites. The first record I ever bought was ‘Be-Bop-A-Lula’. We loved Gene.

There were a couple of songs that, really, I just wanted to kind of be faithful to the originals. Just ’cause the memory was just so clear. ‘Blue Jean Bop’ was off an album that we had in Liverpool of Gene Vincent’s with the big hit, ‘Be-Bop-A-Lula’. ‘Blue Jean Bop’ wasn’t quite such a big hit but it was one we loved. And it’s got this nice intro which, you know, ‘Blue jean baby with your big blue eyes. Duh, duh, duh, du-whoah. I can’t keep still so baby let’s dance.’ And it’s got this echo wah, wah, wah, really popping.

In actual fact, having done a bit of that in the week, I realised that they actually used to write for the echo. Well it’s the bop, bop, bop, that’s bop, delay echo. So if you go, lovely day today, all languid things, it doesn’t work. You’ve got to pop the echo, you know, I’m a poppin’ you, beat, bop, boppin’ you, baby bop. So you realise that’s why all the songs were written like that, you know. It’s great just sort of rediscovering all this stuff kind of new. And on ‘Blue Jean Bop’ I thought, no, I just want that echo, over the top echo sound. So we used it there. But on a lot of the other songs there’s kind of a more modern sound on them. But the songs themselves are like old fashioned. We just, you know, messed them around.

I love the lyrics of this album. They’re really nice. ‘Blue Jean Bop”s got, you know, ‘I can’t keep still so baby let’s dance. Dip your hip, free your knee,’ you know. I like this stuff, it’s kind of good, good words, I think. Some of them are really brilliant, clever lyrics.

‘Blue Jean Bop’ was recorded at Abbey Road Studios on 5 March 1999, the same day as McCartney’s versions of ‘Brown Eyed Handsome Man’, ‘No Other Baby’, and ‘She Said Yeah’.