Monday, September 4, 2023

Beatlesque Vol. 4 - "Between the Lines" (1978)

Well, the last post went down better than I'd anticipated! Fortunately for those of you who'd taken interest in the previous Beatlesque album All for Love, I've got several more lined up for publication. They'll be posted in a non-linear fashion as there are time periods that interest me more than others, but rest assured, there will be enough posts that'll keep this blog going up until at least autumn 2024.

I'm also going to establish some ground rules for this series, and they are as follows:
  1. No songs by solo Beatles or relatives like Mike McGear and the Lennon sons (Julian and Sean). They'd most likely overshadow the rest of the songs included on these fake Beatles albums, and that wouldn't be fair.
  2. No songs written by solo Beatles but recorded by other artists allowed; Badfinger's "Come and Get It" (written by Paul McCartney) and Gary Moore's "That Kind of Woman" (written by George Harrison) are prime examples of this.
  3. No intentional Beatle parodies like the Rutles and Deface the Music by Todd Rundgren's Utopia.
  4. No tracks written before 1970, the year the Beatles broke up; if you were expecting something like the Knickerbockers' "Lies" to show up at any point, sorry. I could end up doing a Vol. 0 at some point, creating a mid-1960s album that wasn't, but we'll see.
  5. Only one track per artist; otherwise, most of these lists would feature multiple songs by Badfinger, ELO, Oasis, etc., thereby making this exercise pointless. I may list some songs towards the end of these posts that didn't make the cut; maybe they could be hypothetical B-sides? Speaking of which...
  6. At least twelve songs per album must be included and the total length has to be below 50 minutes, per the limits of vinyl at the time. For the later albums, as shown with All for Love, that rule will not apply as much as those albums would have likely been released on CD anyway; however, for those who prefer vinyl, I'll list those as double albums.
  7. If the songs included are unable to fit on a single vinyl record, then a double album shall be made. Again, this only applies to albums pre-1990, but it will not be enforced as much.
Now that those rules have been established, here's the next entry in Beatlesque, Between the Lines, focusing on the period of 1976-1979, and named for the John Lennon solo album that wasn't. This album as a whole just screams late 1970s, or at least, the non-disco side of that era.



Side A
"Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft" (Klaatu) - Ah yes, the band that everyone thought was the Beatles reunited under a pseudonym. Their debut album, 3:47 EST, was said to pick the Beatles as amongst Klaatu's influences, which was both a blessing and a curse for the group, although they didn't take being compared to the Fabs that seriously despite being flattered by it. Guitarist Dee Long even met Paul McCartney himself, who recalled that he'd been asked if he was actually singing "Calling Occuptants", but said he'd never heard of the song. Now that makes for a great rock and roll story!

"Hand in Hand" (Elvis Costello) - This deep cut from This Year's Model has some opening guitar feedback that evokes "It's All Too Much", and the music provides a Merseybeat shuffle, juxtaposing the dark lyrics.

"Carbona Not Glue" (The Ramones) - This track was originally a part of Leave Home before being removed due to legal reasons. Music journalist Legs McNeil called it "such a great song, so radio-friendly—like a song the Beatles or the Rolling Stones would have written if they were just starting out in 1976, with great harmonies and catchy lyrics."

"Spread Your Wings" (Queen) - Queen is another band who have sourced the Beatles as an influence on their work, and like the Fab Four, they've covered a lot of musical ground the time they've been together. John Deacon's narrative songwriting recalls the likes of "Eleanor Rigby" and "Penny Lane".

Side B
"Love is Like Oxygen" (Sweet) - Well known for their 1973 hit "Ballroom Blitz", Sweet's nearly seven-minute song off of Level Headed has often been confused in the past for being one by Electric Light Orchestra (more on them later) due to their similar sound. The vocals do sound almost Lennon/McCartney-esque, which may have further fueled the confusion.

"The Things We Do for Love" (10cc) - The subject matter in the lyrics is as Beatle-ish as it gets; a guy braves bad weather just to see his girlfriend when the phone lines are down. It's very much the "We Can Work It Out" of the 1970s. Co-writer Eric Stewart would later go on to collaborate with Paul McCartney for a few albums in the 1980s with rather interesting results.

"The Killing of Georgie (Part I and II)" (Rod Stewart) - Part II's melody was based upon that of "Don't Let Me Down". Apparently, John Lennon seemed to be cool with it, according to one of his final interviews in 1980.

Side C
"Voices" (Cheap Trick) - One of Cheap Trick's most well-beloved songs, this is definitely a song of theirs that sounds very close to what the Beatles might have recorded. Rick Nielson's guitar emulates that of George Harrison, and Robin Zander sings much like Paul McCartney does.

"This is Pop" (XTC) - Yet another band who wears their Beatles influence on their sleeves. According to Andy Partridge, the opening F chord was based upon that of "A Hard Day's Night".

"Julie's Been Working for the Drug Squad" (The Clash) - "It's Lucy in the sky and all kinds of apple pie."

"Mr. Blue Sky" (Electric Light Orchestra) - Why wouldn't "Mr. Blue Sky" be on a Beatles-inspired compilation? This is unquestionably the most Beatlesque song that wasn't recorded by the Beatles, so what can I say about this that hasn't been said already?

Side D
"Give a Little Bit" (Supertramp) - According to songwriter Roger Hodgson, the song took inspiration from "All You Need is Love". He would also preform it live with Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band in 2001.

"See You Tonite" (Gene Simmons) - This was the Kiss lead singer's attempt at making a Beatlesque pop song. What helps that he got two of the performers from Beatlemania (Mitch Weissman, Joe Pecorino) to perform backing vocals on it.

"American Girl" (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) - I saw a Spotify playlist that listed this song as sounding like the Beatles. I looked around on the internet to see if there was merit to that, but my guess is that it's the imagery of the lyrics that's reminiscent of Lennon/McCartney. Some listeners upon release have compared the Heartbreakers to the Byrds, who, in turn, were once regarded as the American Beatles.

"Scenes from an Italian Restaurant" (Billy Joel) - Between the Lines opens and closes with a seven-minute epic! I think that makes for some interesting symmetry there. Billy Joel cited the Abbey Road medley as one of the influences for "Italian Restaurant", in which song fragments are stitched together to form a cohesive medley. Another track off of The Stranger, "Just the Way You Are", was listed by Paul McCartney as being one of the few songs he wished he'd written. I'd include it if I could, but perhaps in this scenario, it could be a B-side.

Final Thoughts
This is a pretty lengthy album overall, running at 63 minutes total. In fact, there's four songs that run for well over six minutes, with the first and final tracks running at over seven minutes! Even if I used single edits, that obviously wouldn't be enough to squeeze everything into a single disc, so you may as well make it a double album. I've compiled a shortened version of Between the Lines that mainly features the epic rockers, with the shortest track "Give a Little Bit" running at a little over four minutes:

Side A: Calling Occupants / Give a Little Bit / The Killing of Georgie / Mr. Blue Sky
Side B: Voices / Love is Like Oxygen / Spread Your Wings / Scenes from an Italian Restaurant

But overall, regardless of length, I enjoy this compilation. In fact, I'd dare say I prefer it to All for Love! Half of the time, I can almost picture the Beatles making an album like this, going for more of a space rock sound in their music, and it would've been very timely with the release of the first Star Wars film.

Beatlesque Songs That Didn't Make the Cut
As I mentioned in my rules above, I'll be listing songs that were excluded either due to space or because I preferred another song by a certain artist. First off, the songs that didn't make All for Love:

"Why Don't You Get a Job?" (The Offspring) - I'll get to it, just not there.

"All Around the World" (Oasis) - Sorry, folks; not gonna do it. Why? Let this take on this song by a certain shadowed music critic provide the answer.

And now, the song that didn't make Between the Lines:

"Just the Way You Are" (Billy Joel) - As I mentioned above, I can only go for one track per artist, and in Billy Joel's case, I ended up sticking with "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant".

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