Another memory of the shared house.
Evenings wasted instead of working for exams. To the beer-off for a big bottle of Woodpecker or Strongbow cider each (were they 3 pints i.e. 1.5l?), then out with the songbooks and guitars? What a good thing the walls were solid. We never heard a squeak from the neighbours.
Brendon had the Simon and Garfunkel book, but that became too difficult as the cider went down. So, we would switch to songs made up ourselves, mainly about the chap who owned the house, known as “Pete may I trouble you gentlemen for some rent please.”
There was the song to the tune of The Ball of Kirriemuir: “Pete does all the cleaning, and that’s a job he hates, and so to appease him we have to wash the plates.” Or the one to the tune of The Tavern In The Town about what he liked to do with sheep. Delightfully juvenile.
Best of all was The Beatles Complete song book. My guitar playing improved no end through that. I still have it, its tattered and patched-up pages showing the use it had. We played it beginning to end, through all the old favourites from “Across The Universe” to “You’re Going To Lose That Girl” and “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away”. We never seemed to get “Across the Universe” right, especially the “Jai guru deva, om” bit. One of Brendan’s friends could do all the harmonies to “Because”, which was pretty impressive.
Later, I used the Beatles book for [tautology warning] improvisation practice, making double and treble backing tracks with my Akai 4000DS tape deck. Of course, you can do this kind of thing today with digital mixing desks, or even free software such as Audacity on a laptop. It was not so easy then.
Here, from 1978, is “Yesterday” with an improvides middle eight. After 45 years, I now tend to hear the snatched notes, clumsy phrasing and track synchronisation problems, which might mean I’m a better musician now, but I still find it has something. The held note in bar 5 of the last verse, followed by slowing down at the end, releases tension.
I have only just noticed that the song has 7 bars per verse rather than the usual 8.
https://youtu.be/8lgucFMNC1o