Songoftheday 2/20/20 - Whatever happened to the life that we once knew? Can we really live without each other?
from the album Anthology 1 (1995)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #6 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 4
Today's song of the day is from the biggest, best, and most influential band to have graced this planet, The Beatles. I could go through their history here, but I'd still be writing as of tomorrow. For sake of purposes here, any child needs the Beatles music in their educational upbringing. Even though the group split up in 1969, the volume of work they released remains timeless. But let get caught up to the modern-ish era of the 80's on.
Six years after their final "true" single "The Long And Winding Road" went to #1 in 1970, the release of the compilation Rock and Roll Music in 1976 spurred on the 1966 Revolver track "Got To Get You Into My Life" to become a top ten pop hit for the now-defunct band. In 1982, after the tragic death of John Lennon, another collection of old songs from movies, Reel Music, spun off a novelty "mashup" single in the style of Stars On 45 called "The Beatles Movie Medley", which almost reached the top ten in 1982. The Fab Four returned to the top-40 in the autumn of 1986 courtesy of the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off, which gave new exposure (and radio requests) for the 1963 hit "Twist And Shout".
In 1994, the double-CD release of Live At The BBC became a big success, demonstrating their still was a market and a hunger for music from the band. Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr came together the following year to collaborate on a history of the band that would end up as a TV miniseries, and set of videos, and most importantly, three double-disc volumes of material named as Anthology, which were released separately within a year's time. Included in the Anthology 1 set was an incentive to beat all incentives, a "new" recording from "The Beatles". Having approached John's widow Yoko Ono for recordings they could work with, they were given two demos of John's that were never released to the public. On Anthology 1, Paul, George, and Ringo took his sparse "Free As A Bird", flushed it out with production from Jeff Lynne, and added verses sung by Paul and George. With a nostalgic music video that harkened to their earlier work, it truly was a spectacle for the Christmas season of 1995, sending the album to the top of the charts, and the single into the top ten...
"Free As A Bird" returned the Beatles to the official pop top ten on Billboard's Hot 100 chart for one more time in January of 1996, though the single was quick on the chart, falling out of the top-40 after just a month. The song did a bit better on the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") format, climbing to #19 but staying on the list for two months. It even made the Mainstream Rock radio chart, reaching #8. Internationally, the single spent a week at #2 in their native UK, while reaching the top ten in Sweden (3), Ireland (#5), Italy (#5), Iceland (#5), Australia (#6), Canada (#7), Finland (#7), the Netherlands (#9), and Spain (#10). At the Grammy Awards in 1997, the single won the award for Best Duo/Group Pop Vocal Performance.
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
Here's the original demo that they had to work with...
Finally, here's Paul, George, and Jeff Lynne talking about the transformation of "Free As A Bird" as well as future SOTD "Real Love"...
Up tomorrow: New Jersey jam band sings about the earworm.
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