This Is Love

George Harrison is the coolest Beatle, OK?

Jeff Lynne is completely responsible for keeping George musically productive in the 1980s, and his signature sound is marvelous, within proper context. In the case of some of the material on Cloud Nine, his production had a tendency to suck the life right out of the song.

"This Is Love" was just such a victim.
So, what did this song originally sound like, when George sat under a tree in his garden, strumming on a ukulele?

We stripped the song down to its (surely) simple origins, found the magic, and rebuilt it using classic All Things Must Pass sounds. And it goes like this:

Girl Don't Come

A cover of the Sandie Shaw song, remodeled with this starting inspiration:

What if Plastic Letters-era Blondie were to do this song?

And here's what we came up with:

Johnny & Mary

“Johnny & Mary,” despite the video, is a great single from Robert Palmer’s 1980 album Clues.

Robert Palmer…. le sigh. He was always an adventurous, sophisticated songwriter and musician who changed his look every time he changed his sound. Because he was so debonair and such a musical shape shifter, it feels like he never got the serious respect that he didn’t require from us. His sudden death in 2003 was a genuine shock, and a tragic end because he left too soon.

The song is a dialogue by 3 people: Johnny, his wife Mary, and a narrator in the chorus. Johnny is red, frantic and high strung. Mary is sardonic, resigned and blue.

Robert Palmer used incessant confinement as the key to his tale, and the Gary Numan-esque (it was the heart of the new wave era) electronic tone underscored the emotional detachment. But there was a sad humanity in the story needing to be pulled out.

The song is energetically colorful, like a Kandinsky painting: Johnny red, Mary blue, narrator green. Here's what we put onto a new canvas:

Love Is Alright Tonite

Once upon a time, Rick Springfield was a right good power-popper. Hitting soap opera, teeny bopper mega-success at the same time diminished his musical accomplishments in some eyes.

Working Class Dog still holds up as solid and exuberant professional power pop record. It's got the songs, it's got Neil Gerlado playing guitar and bringing along his wife's producer, Keith Olsen, for the big radio hits.

"Love Is Alright Tonight" is classic power pop, but how would it hold up if given a country swing arrangement? We tried it that way, and it was good, but too frantic. The arrangement changed to an Eagle's "Heartache Tonight" feel, and this is how it plays out:

What Makes You Think You're The One

Do you remember the packaging for the vinyl version of Fleetwood Mac's Tusk? It was the most perplexing thing. Blessed was the day it came out on CD because it was now - finally - easy to access.

Did you ever make a cassette compilation of just Lindsey's song from Tusk? We did, too. It's been stated best in 3 More Reasons Why Lindsey Buckingham is a Genius when he writes:

"In 1979, while the rest of the band were clinging to the 1970s like grim death, he cut off his hippy locks and put on make-up and women's suits and played his version of punk songs."

Family drama was a key component of the Fleetwood Mac magic, and there were several "Stevie, piss off!" songs on Tusk. Here's a less manic take on one of them:

When You Walk in the Room

Jackie DeShannon was a peer of Carole King, Ellie Greenwhich, and the other women songwriters who cranked out major hits for other artists. Even though she was not a shadow character in the film Grace of my Heart, some of her fabulous wardrobe seemed to have made the cut!

This lady dated Jimmy Page before the Zeppelin debauchery, wrote many amazing songs and sang so well that Burt Bacharach recruited her to sing some of their best material (hear a "Lifetime of Loneliness"). She is an all-arounder, in the best sense.

Uptempo and ready to kick unrequited love to the curb is how most people know "When You Walk in the Room," but change a few things and it becomes a sad song of love lost that goes something like this: