Written by Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller and Richard Barrett, ‘Some Other Guy’ was first released by Barrett as a single in 1962. Footage of The Beatles performing ‘Some Other Guy’ is the only known surviving film of the group at the Cavern Club.
Brian had had a policy at NEMS of buying at least one copy of every record that was released. If it sold, he’d order another one, or five or whatever. Consequently he had records that weren’t hits in Britain, weren’t even hits in America. Before going to a gig we’d meet in the record store, after it had shut, and we’d search the racks like ferrets to see what new ones were there. That’s where we found artists like Arthur Alexander and Ritchie Barrett – ‘Some Other Guy’ was a great song.
The Cavern Club footage was recorded on 22 August 1962 by a crew from Manchester-based Granada Television. They filmed the group’s lunchtime performance hoping to use it in their programme Know The North.
Various edits of the performance exist, some containing cutaways featuring general views from the club, audience members and shots of the band from different angles.
The Granada crew filmed ‘Some Other Guy’ from a single angle in the audience; it is likely that the added clips were filmed at other times that day. Granada also captured a performance of ‘Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!’
Ringo Starr had only joined The Beatles days before. The Granada recording captures a disgruntled fan shouting “We want Pete!” as ‘Some Other Guy’ draws to a close.
The grainy footage was not of broadcast quality, and was shelved until The Beatles became famous nationwide; it was finally transmitted on 6 November 1963 on Granada’s Scene At 6.30 programme.
I’d like to make a record like ‘Some Other Guy’. I haven’t done one that satisfies me as much as that satisfies me.
Rolling Stone, 17 September 1968
Acetates of The Beatles’ performance of ‘Some Other Guy’ from that day were later circulated in Liverpool, pressed up by Brian Epstein and sold from his NEMS store. The acetates featured a slightly different audio version, indicating that Granada captured The Beatles performed the song more than once that day.
BBC recordings
The Beatles recorded ‘Some Other Guy’ three times for BBC radio shows. The first was at the BBC Playhouse Theatre in London, for the Saturday Club programme. The group recorded the song along with four others on 22 January 1963, and the show was first broadcast four days later. This version was released in 2013 on the digital download album Bootleg Recordings 1963.
The second BBC version was also recorded on 22 January, this time at the BBC Paris Studio, London. They performed ‘Some Other Guy’, ‘Please Please Me’, and ‘Ask Me Why’.
The Beatles final BBC recording of the song was the one released on 1994’s Live At The BBC. It was performed for the Easy Beat programme on 19 June 1963, and was first broadcast four days later. The show was recorded before a live audience at the Playhouse Theatre, London.
Lyrics
Some other guy, now
Is taking my love away from me, oh now
Some other guy, now
Is taking away my sweet desire, oh now
Some other guy, now
Just threw water, hold my hand, oh now
I’m the lonely one, as lonely as I can feel, all right
Some other guy
Is tippin’ up behind me like a yellow dog, oh now
Some other guy, now
Has taken my love just like I’m gone, oh now
Some other guy, now
Has taken my love away from me, oh now
I’m the lonely one, as lonely as I can feel, all right
Oh oh oh oh
Some other guy
Is making me very, very mad, oh now
Some other guy, now
Is breaking my padlock off my pad, oh now
Some other guy, now
Took the first girl I’ve ever had, oh now
I’m the lonely one, as lonely as I can feel, all right now
Oh oh oh oh
I’m talking to you, right now
As usual, those are NOT the correct lyrics to the song. I dare someone to find the correct lyrics somewhere. The correct lyrics do not include any of the following phrases: “just don’t wanna hold my hand”, “sippin’ up the honey”, and “makin’ my past seem oh so bad”. Those are nonsense lyrics The Beatles made up, none of which Leiber and Stoller ever wrote, nor Richie Barrett ever sang. Thanks to the Fab Four’s inability to understand Barrett as he sang through his Ray Charles impersonation, hundreds of bands, thousands of websites, and millions of people worldwide are WRONG.
Hi Rev. Thanks for the comment. Wherever lyrics are published here (and I’ve only included lyrics to songs not written by The Beatles themselves, to avoid being sued/shut down), I’ve transcribed what they actually sang, rather than what was published when the songs were written.
Because they were cover versions, as you point out, the recordings often differ quite significantly from what the original songwriters wrote. Therefore I thought it’d be odd if I included words that weren’t actually on The Beatles’ recordings (with all respect to the songwriters themselves). This is, after all, a Beatles site, not a Leiber/Stoller site.
Hi!
I have been trying for years to figure out what John is saying at 1:10. I am not good at lip reading. Do you or anybody you know have any idea what he is saying?
Thanks!
El
If you listen to Ritchie Barrett’s version (it’s available on YouTube), and then listen close to John on the Live at the BBC I think you will find that he was pretty close to the original. “Just don’t wanna hold my hand” is really “I just don’t want to hold my fire” (rhymes with sweet desire.) “sippin'” might be “tippin'” but “taken my love just like I’m gone,” should be “taken my love just like a hog” (rhymes with dog.) I don’t see “making my past seem oh so bad,” but rather the correct lyric is “breaking my padlock off my pad.” So, in conclusion, the Beatles did get it write, and they are great! And this is a great Beatles site!
This has actually been a point of contention of mine for some time now. Since leaving my last comment, I have finally confirmed the correct information from Mike Stoller’s son himself, through the Leiber-Stoller website. “Just don’t wanna hold my hand” is really “(A-)just threw water on my fire”. “Is sipping up the honey like a yellow dog” is actually “Is tippin’ up behind me like a yellow dog”. And the one usually-mangled lyric that was actually correct on this page was “Is breakin’ the padlock on my pad” (and not “Is makin’ my past seem oh so bad”, as often reported).
Had The Beatles been privy to the original lyrics, they certainly would have sung them. I’m sure that Lennon-McCartney (one of the world’s greatest songwriting teams) would agree that their ‘substitute’ lyrics are kinda silly and not really worthy of repeating. Those of you reading this information who care about preserving rock ‘n’ roll should feel privileged to have access to these undeservingly ignored original lyrics.
That’s very illuminating. Thanks for the info Reverend – I’ve amended the lyrics to “tippin’ up behind me”, but left the rest alone as I’m pretty sure that’s what Lennon was singing (I’m happy to be corrected though). It’s a shame The Beatles didn’t get the words exactly right – it would have made things a lot easier!
Again, you really don’t seem to understand this is a Beatles history site not a rock and roll song lyrics site. It doesn’t matter if the Beatles got them wrong the fact is the history is that they did sing them this way. The Beatles sang their own lyrics to covered songs all the time. The point is getting the lyrics as the Beatles sang them. Also, this isn’t some amazing song that needs preserving it’s only cool because the Beatles played it and whatever they said to it is magically better than whatever the sub par original composers wrote, that whole original song and lyrics could be lost forever and it really wouldn’t make a difference and nobody should care
Lieber-Stoller, who did most of the writing of Some Other guy, are quite a prolific rock and roll songwriting partnership. Their lyrics are clever and memorable, and many of their songs are iconic. They’re much more historically significant than you seem to realise.
Even with that aside, the Beatles themselves would have certainly disagreed with what you’re saying – you can say ‘it’s only cool because the Beatles played it’ all you want, but it won’t change the fact that the Beatles absolutely loved the rock and roll artists whom they were covering.
Lennon and McCartney would certainly have scoffed at your idea that their covers elevated what was previously just music by ‘sub par original composers’. Even many years later, the two of them expressed in interviews how much they admired the likes of Goffin-King, Smokey Robinson, Chuck Berry – the writers whose songs they’d covered.
‘You really don’t seem to understand that this is a Beatles history site’ – the importance of these early influence on the Beatles as songwriters, and as a rock and roll act, certainly shouldn’t be excluded from a Beatles history site, so I really don’t understand your point.
“….the Beatles themselves would have certainly disagreed with what you’re saying …”.
You haven’t a clue what the Beatles would have thought (or do think, in the case of Paul and Ringo). If you don’t have the courage of your convictions to simply speak for yourself, you really shouldn’t bother.
Let me add – great site, Joe. Personally, I appreciate the work you do and that you keep it “BEATLES”.
The Beatles used to play SOG live between august 62 and may 63, but they never recorded it for an album nor a B-side. Shame!
In John’s defence, lyrics didn’t come with 45s and he certainly couldn’t google it. He has been quoted to have loved this song, so I’m guessing he did the best he could. Like any live singer, if he forgot the lyrics, he would just make something up. There isn’t a singer ever who didn’t forget lyrics live, even for songs they wrote themselves. As far as rock and roll blasphemy is concerned, should John by held accountable for singing, “She’d love to, yeah, yeah, yeah”?
Perhaps the Beatles got the words wrong because they were transcribed wrong by Cynthia. In her first book she describes how John would request by letter (from Hamburg) to mail him lyrics to songs that he requested. Cynthia would then play the record over and over (in Liverpool) and do her best to obtain the lyrics and then mail them to John in Hamburg.
Thanks for embedding the video as well.
This song is the prime example of the Beatles’ impeccable taste in obscure cover songs. It’s a shame they never did this in the studio.
Even so, no one else’s version touches The Beatles’ “Live At The BBC” Playhouse Theatre version, fudged lyrics or not. Everything else is perfect – the intro, the tempo, the vocals…
Does anyone know if this song ever came up when George Martin asked them to “run through their stage show” for the “Please Please Me” album? Did it get rejected…?
Totally agree Elsewhere Man, I love The Beatles version even though John Lennon said it was crap.
The Beatles were more about the excitement of playing live back then, Who cared what they were singing? I’d have given anything to have seen them in Hamburg.
My god you’ve got the patience of a saint Joe, I couldn’t do your job on here and put up with crap like some the comments above.
This is a brilliant site, by far the best Beatle site I’ve seen and I for one appreciate all the hard work and info you provide
Keep up the good work
Hey PaulRamon – thanks for the kind words. I really do appreciate it when people say they like the site (and it has been hard work!).
I don’t think the comments above were bad – I’ve had worse on here!
John Lennon meant the one filmed at cavern wasn’t a great version,he probably never heard the bbc versions that were better.
If I remember correctly, it was John’s murder that got the BBC and other broadcasters to unearth early appearances and recordings of the Beatles. “The Beatles at the Beeb” was first a radio series broadcast over several weeks, in 1982 or 1984.
The point being that John may have searched for such bootlegs, but the treasure trove we have now via the internet was not available to him while he was alive.
Lennon was famous for forgetting or fumbling lyrics – including his own! There is an error in ‘Please Please Me’ – listen towards the end. And he made are others…
And who can hear lyrics sung through cheap mics and lousy PAs anyway? And on the portable record players of the time, which had a speaker 6 inches in diameter, lyrics were almost impossible to decipher. My garage band sang very strange words to ‘Route 66’ because we got them from Jagger’s mumbling performance via our tiny HMV…
you mean i’m not the only one who has had problems understand Mick. glad now that there are sites on youtube that have lyrics with the song. will not tell you what i thought some of the lyrics to Get Off My Cloud were
especially his own
Love the song. Didn’t the Big 3 record a single of this song?
I’ve read that the group used to perform 2 versions of this song, the uptempo one that we all know, and a slower, bluesier version closer to the Ritchie Barrett original. Can anyone verify this? Also, for those interested, The Searchers’ version on “Meet The Searchers” is a great one too. Personally, I think that album & “Please Please Me” are the closest we’ll ever get to knowing what the “Mersey Beat” was really like.
I think the thing about pop/rock ‘n’ roll lyrics, pre-Dylan, is that they were secondary to the music to the extent that, generally, it didn’t really matter what was being sung. Hence stuff like this and The Beatles recordingthings like “Boys” [“Yeah, I talk about boys, now…”]. The important thing was (and arguably still is) the energy eminating from the music.
Well SmartMart I agree with your remarks but there were exceptions. There were songs such as Eddie Cochran’s Summertime Blues and Buddy Holly’s Well, Alright as well as Chuck Berry’s Too Much Monkey Business.
If we followed “Reverend Flash’s” logic, Ringo should have sung “Mama says, when you kiss my lips,
I’ll get a thrill through my fingertips.” on Boys instead of “My girl says when I kiss her lips
Gets a thrill through her fingertips”
No, “Loretta”. That’s not my logic.
When Ringo tweaked the lyrics to ‘Boys’, he only changed them slightly, and they still made sense, pretty much expressing the same message as the original lyrics. In ‘Some Other Guy’, The Beatles had completely mangled several lyrics such that they no longer meant what the original lyrics intended. In fact, they are so nonsensical that they really don’t mean anything. In a trippy late sixties Carrollian track like the surreal ‘I Am The Walrus’, that might be acceptable. But in the context of an early sixties R&B tune, it just comes off as half-assed.
Huh. I always thought it was, “My girl says when I kiss her lips, she gets a thrill through her big hips, hey-hey!” I have been a fan since I was 7 in 1964. I fancy myself to know all their lyrics. Guess not.
Do I hear in the last seconds (from the adience): “we want Pete”?
Thanks for your great site. Dr. Robert
I never know what to make of Lennon’s remarks. The quotation in the article (“I’d like to make a record like Some Other Guy. I haven’t done one that satisfies me as much as that satisfies me.”) is a case in point. His own songs (or at least the ones he said weren’t crap) typically had deeply personal, at times philosophical, lyrics and inventive harmonies. Yet he seems to have genuinely loved old rockers with simple, superficial lyrics and basic chord progressions. Was he really ambivalent about what kind of a writer/performer he really wanted to be? Or is he being sarcastic here?
Stan, there does seem to be a contradiction there, given that he would typically disown songs of his own (or Paul’s) that didn’t have ‘meaning’. On the other hand he continued (even post Beatles) to stand by “All My Lovin” as a ‘great piece of work’, even though that isn’t personal or deep.
Lennon always continued to be excited by basic rock n roll, but the fact is that post ’68 (ish) he was anxious not to do anything that felt ‘false’, having come to feel like a fraud for writing songs about random things to fill space on albums. He came – rightly or wrongly – to regard soul-baring songwriting as the only type that was true to himself, so he just wouldn’t have allowed himself to write anything like ‘Some Other Guy’.
It’s called being a complex person. I can completely relate to this – I love the frenetic energy and excitement that only punk rock/old pure rock n roll can generate, yet I like to write more complex songs with original melodic ideas and serious subject material. It’s just like enjoying different genres of movies or anything else. I think a good melange for Lennon is “Don’t Let Me Down”, a very personal, soul-baring song with unusual song structure, but with plenty of screaming and shouting. And come on, the guy did write a lot of really rocking songs (“I Want You”, “Revolution”, “Day Tripper”, etc).
Hello. My two cents: “Some other guy now / Is sneakin’ up behind me like a yellow dog, oh now / Some other guy now / Has taken my love, the spiteful hog’
Lots of close listening to Richie Barrett has left me feeling pretty sure of this. I’m also in concord with the earlier poster re: “Just don’t wanna hold my fire”.
Good work everyone, although he mystery of unintelligible lyrics is one of the great pleasures of rock and roll really, isn’t it?
Glen, you can hear what you want to hear, but I was in direct communication with Peter Stoller, the son of Mike Stoller, one of the original writers of the song. Peter heads up the organization now, and maintains their copyrights. The lyrics he provided me are absolutely official.
Very interesting that Brian had a handful of copies of “Some Other Guy” made up on acetates & sold them at NEMS. I remember reading about this years ago, (possibly – it’s been awhile) in Philip Norman’s book. If these acetates were made up not long after the actual recording, that would mean that (technically) this would be the “first” (not counting Sheridan) Beatles record put out for public consumption, even though it was not a commercial pressing.
The Beatles performed “Some Other Guy” twice on August 22 for Grenada TV. Even though there are numerous film edits floating around everywhere, there are basically only 2 film clips. One shows the boys rather tidy, the other shows them slightly more unkempt & more sweaty. Also, the lighting is different on each clip (especially on George). All recordings from August 22 were made with only one microphone. Grenada came back to The Cavern at a slightly later date & recorded the song again (audio only-no video), using a multiple-microphone placement. I’m speculating that this latter recording was the one used for the acetates that Brian had made up.
Concerning the acetates themselves, were they 1-sided discs, or was there something on the flip-side? If so, what was it? “Kansas City”, maybe?
Were there custom labels made, or were they handwritten? If handwritten, by whom? Brian? Other NEMS employees? The boys themselves?
How many of these were made & sold? Does anyone here have one, or can provide a scan of one. I’m dying to know what they look like. I’m fascinated to know more about this Beatles “record” that many never knew existed.
It was common practice for old time blues musicians to change or alter lyrics to songs they were playing, which gave rise to many interesting variations of popular songs from that era. Muddy Waters “Mannish Boy” is a good example, being a variant of the original by Bo Diddley’s “I’m a Man”. Now you could say that the early Beatles were a rhythm & blues band, so occasionally altering lyrics to the way they liked them would been continuing a fine, time honoured tradition!
I’m all for reinterpreting songs to fit one’s own artistic desires, but that’s not what The Beatles did. As pointed out earlier, they probably had Cynthia copy the lyrics as best as she could off the radio. As a result, she got some of them wrong. The Beatles, working long performances and likely not caring too much about getting every word right, just sang them as they received them. They didn’t make an artistic choice to alter the original lyrics. They never even HAD all of the original lyrics. When I sang in a cover band in the 90s, I didn’t have lyrics sites on the internet to clarify the lyrics of the popular songs we performed. So, like Cynthia, I would just copy down the words to the best of my interpretation, knowing full well I was getting them wrong. Then when I performed them, I would sing them with the same lack of enunciation the original artists did (like Green day, for instance), and I’d just hope no one noticed.
If I’d HAD the correct lyrics, i gladly would have SUNG them.
Pot, meet kettle.
I don’t hear a pot/kettle association there, Teddy. He’s simply explaining why The Beatles sang the wrong lyrics by comparing it to his own similar experience. If you had read the earlier comments, you would have seen that some commenters were starting to offer the theory that The Beatles had willfully changed the song’s lyrics for artistic reasons which, under the circumstances we’ve learned from the group’s early history, doesn’t seem too likely.
Nobody cared about the song until The Beatles and The Big Three began performing that song. Some Other Guy would of disappeared if they hadn’t made Some Other Guy a Mersey Beat Club staple. So correct lyrics or not… who cares. Every time someone plays The Beatles version Peter Stoller gets paid. I don’t think he’s sweating the lyrics. Neither Richie Barrett’s original nor The Big Three’s cover have crystal clear lyrics, and this has led to mishearings. The Beatles altered the lyrics or sang misheard words that were not Richie’s original lyrics, and even though the Fab Four’s words make little or no sense, their amended lyrics have stuck and have been used in subsequent covers. Barrett’s original lyrics chime in with the bitter anger and sadness of a guy who has lost his girlfriend, whereas the incorrect lyrics miss the point altogether. So relax. We know the correct lyrics now. Re-record the song yourself With the correct and see what happens. It still won’t be as popular at The Beatles version.
There is quite a lot of film from this gig even if this particular song is only about two minutes long. There are many different edits of it, both “official” and “home-made”. The introductions and the endings have been used in various combinations over the years, so whichever version you may find somewhere may not necessarily use a correct corresponding audio recording. We know that Granada TV were not happy with the sound the first time and came back to record a proper audio of the song, without filming at the same time.
It is almost impossible to determine which audio comes from what occasion; August 22 or September 5, but there are three different audios that I can tell apart anyway. If it was done once or twice at the first occasion, I do not know.
But, logically, since they have two takes of the song on film from the same occasion it should be two audios to go with these. So, my theory is two film and audio takes from the 22nd, one audio only from the 5th.
As Bill wrote last year, there is clip with a tidy quartet and a clip with a sweaty one. These have been chopped up and mixed over the years, sometimes not even showing anybody singing while there is singing going on and vice versa.
Then there are other bits of film that show John singing something completely different than Some other guy. And we can see George singing alone at the mike as well. There are bits with George singing backup with John at Johns mike -like for Kansas City-, and even a couple of clips of Paul & George shouting away at Pauls mike. This setup fits many songs from the era so without seeing their lips we cannot tell which song they were doing at the time. Same with Ringos drumming.
All this suggests at least that a lot more than just one song was indeed filmed, perhaps a whole set. Many of the audience members are positioned more or less at the same place during these clips so I would like to think that only one set was filmed, but I can be wrong here. The lighting is slightly different, but I can´t tell the reason for it.
Most likely, Some other guy was the opening song in the set, probably the version introudced: “At this mid-day session at The Cavern, we proudly present: The Beatles!”.
One ending has John saying “We probably have to do it again!”, suggesting they need to do a remake later on. These two bits could well be from the same performance, using my reasoning.
Then we have a version introduced: “Okay, this is it: The Beatles sing Some other guy”. This, to me, suggest the re-make version: like, “This is it -let´s do it good now”.
Another ending is where we hear somebody shout “We want Pete!”, to which John replies “Yes.”
Another version starts with the briefest of intros: “It´s The Beatles!” Could be from any of the recordings. This could also be the last part of a longer intro that is not saved anywhere.
Third ending is just audience cheering and applause. Three intros, three endings. Combinations are free to interpret.
And of course we have half of Kansas City to listen to as well.
Anyone have a good reason as to why this didn’t appear on “Please Please Me”? They had so many great, energetic rock ‘n’ roll covers like this one, Clarabella, “Hippy Hippy Shake”, etc that would have made Please Please Me a far superior record with their inclusion, make their first record an actual reflection of what they had been playing in Hamburg and then in Liverpool. Ah, what could have been…the “pure rock” record that John always wanted. Maybe he would have picked their first record as his favorite! Interesting to contemplate
Good point. I actually think the first record is one of their weakest. There’s some real clunkers on that like Anna,Taste of Honey, Baby it’s You. My guess is someone (Epstein or Martin?) decided on a more broad based song selection to appeal to more listeners.
August of 1962 was not the first time that John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison performed the song. They first did in 1959 at the Casbah Coffee Club with guitarist Ken Brown taking the lead vocal. At the time, of course, they were without a drummer and still calling themselves, the Quarrymen.
The song had not yet been written or recorded in 1959…
IN 1959, when John, Paul & George were playing with Ken Brown, they were actually the Les Stewart Quartet, and not the Quarrymen.
Does anyone know the words John was mouthing in the middle of the song when he appears to be speaking to an audience member?
If there were one further cover tune from their early live shows that I’d have them put on an album, this would be it. Just great straight-between-the-eyes rock. So fortunate we have that Cavern clip.
QUESTION: If The Beatles performing this in 1962 is the only surviving footage of them performing live at the Cavern Club as you say is the case; then how come I have seen footage of them performing their own ‘Like Dreamers Do’ what looks like live at the Cavern Club in these days also (I don’t have the exact year, I’m afriad). And, come to that, I’m pretty sure I’ve also seen, similalry, them performing ‘I call Your Name’, ‘Hello Little Girl’ , ‘Tip of My Tongue’ and ‘I’m In Love’ – ditto. Is what I saw – on youtube – then either all fake (unlikely!) or else they are not peforming at the Cavern Club – but it sure looks like it! And, if not; then I can’t think where else! Woud you like me to give you the links?
QUESTION: WTF alternate universe are you living in?
Does anyone know why they never cut this in the studio and put it on one of their early albums. These early albums included representative covers from their live shows, and they were under so much pressure to release records that they often were somewhat desperate for material to fill out the album, so why not cut this highlight from their early live act?
@Steve. Good point. But they couldn’t include EVERYTHING – i. e. all their ‘standard act’ covers as these were then, on their first two albums (of 1963). The Beatles themselves later admitted that, when George Martin asked them what material they had to put out out on their first album (‘Please Please Me’); I think it was Paul who later admitted “Well, only what we have done in our act”. It took just one afternoon for them to record the entire album ‘Please Please Me’.
As regards covers: Most of the numbers on it were a well-rehearsed part of what was then their standard repertoire. However; with regard to their own compostitons, by contrast – they were already still evolving then. Geroge Martin later said in interview that, in those early days; he still worried very much about how to get them ‘decent’ songwriters. But, as we know, Lennon in particular was not having that.
George Martin later said – and I think one can see his point – that he was not at all convinced then (as he later became for sure!) that they were among the greatest modern songwriters in the world. He says that, at that time, they had shown little evidence of that. In these very early days, the handful of songs that they had then written were hardly ‘earth-shattering’ masterpeices. Granted; they were enjoying an unbroken run, all through 1963, of number one hits… with their own material – and, in the end, Martin could harldy gainsay that.
But there had been rock ‘n’ roll artistes before them who had written SOME of thier own material. This may have been fine for commercial sIngles. But to ‘showcase’ their talents on a whole lbum? It is now known that, in point of fact, The Bealtes at this time were actually finding it easier to write new stuff, than to work over existing compositions. And they were quite deliberately writing songs with easy musical and lyrical ‘hooks’ – that their young fans could easily relate to.
As we know, some songs they even ‘gave away’ at this time (cf. my own contributions to the thread ‘From A Window’ on the main forum). In fact, other artistes wer even having top ten hits with some of these ‘discarded’ Lennon, Mc.Cartney compositions as well! Clearly, it WAS working – at least for their steady stream of number one hit singles, here in UK, all through 1963. And George Martin could not dispute that!
My own view is that what became establshshed album format for them – at any rate through ‘Please Please Me’ (album), ‘With The Beatles’ and ‘Beatles For Sale’ ( right at the end of 1964) – ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ (of early 1964, and the movie and so on) being a precendnt setter that would ‘lay down a marker’ of achievement for them that they would then stick to, for all **subsquent** albums from 1965 onward (of all self-written maerial)): –
But; well, the first three albums (apart from that) all consisted of similar format :- roughly half and half:- half self-written material and roughly half a mix of other kinds of material that were still, in these early days, part of their stage set, and had their origins in their, pre-recording, Cavern/Hamburg days act. I think this was a kind of ‘compromise’ with Geroge Martin; as they were NOT having him commission ‘professional’ (outside) songwriters to provide album – or indeed singles – material for them – as would have ben farily normal with most early 60s pop/beat groups then.
The result was this mixture – around 50% of which was a kind of ‘representative’ ‘sprinkling’ of, in poiint of fact, material from which they had derived some of their early influences – real 1950s rock ‘n’ rollers (like ‘Kansas City’, ‘Everybody’s Trying to Be My Baby’, ‘Rock ‘N’ Roll Music’); Tamla and soulful/r ‘n’ b numbers (many of them not at all well-known at that time on this side of the Atlantic) – like ‘Please Mr. Postman’, ‘Baby it’s You’, ‘Devil In Her Heart’, You Really Got A Hold On Me’, and even that old Isley Brothers number that they made so much their own; ‘Twist and Shout’; reworked ballads of another generation era really: – like ‘Till There Was You’ and ‘A Taste of Honey’, ‘Mr. Moonlight”… and even one or two ‘gentler’ rather ‘early pop’ offerings – like Buddy Holly and the Crickets’ ‘Words of Love’; and rarer romantic offerings still like ‘Anna (Go To Him)’ – and so on.
And, in fact, the albums were generous. 10 tracks was pretty much the usual max in those days. The Beatles gave you 13 or 14! Clearly they couldn’t ‘throw in’ EVERYTHING that had been of their pre-recording days’ sets. So; they gave us a ‘sprinkling’, as I say. And it seems, Geogre Martin was happy, and so were they – AND SO WERE THE FANS! Luckily, however; the BBC kept (though they almost scrapped at one point!) recodings of The Beatles performing live a whole representative **swathe** of these kinds of numbers, on regular radio braodcasts throughout 1963/early 1964.
And thse are now avaliable as various colletions. – for those who are interested. I’m not sure if ‘Some Other Guy’ is included on any of these (as genuine, I mean… rather than a bootleg?)… but I’m pretty sure they did perform it for the BBC. I guess it must be around somewhere?
“10 tracks was pretty much the usual max in those days”?? Hardly. Standard UK LPs had 14 tracks, standard US LPs had 12.
10 tracks per LP didn’t become the norm until the ‘70s, mainly because the songs were longer.
It’s a shame that the studio version of this song was only released as a digital download and not on the second volume of BBC recordings, even though the sound is sub-par.
I’ve heard the Big Three’s version and, in my opinion, it’s pretty lame. In the days before any Beatles version of this was available, I used to play the version off of the US pressing of “Meet The Searchers”, and it’s very good.