Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T13:20:49.468Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

For the Beatles: notes on their achievement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Extract

Rosie and the Originals released their only 45 rpm single in early 1960. ‘Angel Baby’, the A side, reached number five in America, but it never even saw the light of day on the British charts. The song is dismissable, a one-hit wonder from singer Rosie Hamlin that didn't deserve a follow-up. But the B side is something else entirely: for one thing, one of the Originals is hogging the mike, Rosie is nowhere to be heard – a mystery that the label doesn't explain. The record is much as Lennon describes: after a revved-up guitar intro, the drums vanish and leave everyone else playing straight off the top of their heads. The listener eavesdrops on a sloppy rhythm and blues concoction, with jealous lyrics sung to unrehearsed riffing – it's so sloppy, so incoherently diffuse that it's more laughable than it is danceable. To say ‘Give Me Love’ sounds spontaneous doesn't begin to suggest its strangeness; the musicians themselves don't seem to know where the next downbeat is going to land. The listener has trouble making sense of the music, but then again, so do the musicians. Far from backing up Rosie's wilful début, it sounds as though someone left the tape machine running during an early morning musical reverie – sounds that were completely random became crystallised on tape. It unveiled the would-be Originals as crudely inspired amateurs, who weren't even able to sustain their facade as a group from one side of a 45 rpm single to the other.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Davies, H. 1978. The Beatles: The Biography. (New York, revised edn)Google Scholar
Dundy, E. 1985. Elvis and Gladys (New York)Google Scholar
Lewisohn, . 1986. The Beatles Live! (London)Google Scholar
Marcus, G. 1975. Mystery Train (New York, Dutton)Google Scholar
Marcus, G. 1980. ‘The Beatles’ in Miller, J. (ed.) The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll (New York, Random House)Google Scholar
Riley, T. 1988. Tell Me Why: A Beatles Companion (New York: Knopf, London: Bodley Head)Google Scholar