Young Blood
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Young Blood" is a song written by the acclaimed songwriting team Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, together with Doc Pomus, in 1957.
Musically, the song follows a minor blues structure, built mostly around three chords (im, ivm, V) except for the bridge (IV, VI, III, V). The lyrical theme is one typical of early rock and roll: boy meets girl, then meets girl's father, who does not approve of boy - so the boy departs, but cannot stop thinking about the girl, declaring: "She's the one, she's the one, she's the one".
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[edit] The Coasters' version
"Young Blood" was originally recorded by The Coasters, and released as a single together with "Searchin'" in May 1957 by Atco Records. Their version can also be heard on The Very Best of the Coasters album.
The Coasters' version is ranked #414 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, the group's only song on the list.[1] A sound bite, "Look a-there! Look a-there! Look a-there!", from The Coasters' version was used in a Dickie Goodman comedy song, "Flying Saucer the Second".
[edit] The Beatles' cover version and song comparison
The Beatles played "Young Blood" in their Cavern Club repertoire.[2] It is one of twelve songs recorded by them in July 1962 on a tape, which was purchased by Paul McCartney at a Sotheby's auction in 1985.[3][4]
A previously-unreleased version performed by The Beatles (for the BBC radio show Pop Go the Beatles broadcast on June 11, 1963) is included on their album Live at the BBC, released in 1994. It was recorded at the BBC Paris Studio, London on June 1, 1963, and George Harrison is the lead vocalist on this recording; the tempo is moderately fast, considerably faster than in the original.[5][6]
[edit] "Young Blood" in comparison to "I Saw Her Standing There"
When they wrote songs for The Beatles, John Lennon and Paul McCartney were sometimes influenced by other songs. The first line of the lyrics of "Young Blood" is "I saw her standing on the corner", and "oh looky there!" concludes the first verse. Collectively, this is similar to the repeated title lyric of the Lennon/McCartney song "I Saw Her Standing There".[7]
The structures of the two songs have several other similarities - including the "look", the impression the girl makes on the boy, and the resulting sleepless night:
- Young Blood: "Oh looky there ... I took one look and I was fractured"
- I Saw Her Standing There: "The way she looked was way beyond compare"
- Young Blood: "I can't get you out of my mind"
- I Saw Her Standing There: "Before too long I fell in love with her"
- Young Blood: "I couldn't sleep that night for trying / I saw the rising of the sun"
- I Saw Her Standing There: "Oh we danced through the night"
Rolling Stone magazine described "Young Blood" as "the hilarious jailbait ditty"; while "I Saw Her Standing There" commences with the line "Well she was just seventeen."[1]
[edit] Other cover versions
The song has been covered by several other artists, including a live version by Leon Russell at the 1971 Concert for Bangla Desh; a 1976 release by Bad Company which charted although described as a "terrible, hokey sendup ... that makes the band seem so foolish"[8]; a version by Bruce Willis in The Return of Bruno (1986); and The Grateful Dead are known to have "soundchecked" the song.[7]
[edit] References
- ^ a b Young Blood. Rolling Stone. Retrieved on November 3, 2006.
- ^ Cavern Timeline. Retrieved on November 3, 2006.
- ^ A Beatles' Recording Timeline: First and Best. Retrieved on November 3, 2006.
- ^ August 29. BeatleLinks - A Day In The Life. Retrieved on November 3, 2006.
- ^ Live at the BBC. JPGR. Retrieved on November 3, 2006.
- ^ Beatles Recording Variations. Retrieved on November 3, 2006.
- ^ a b Young Blood. Grateful Dead Lyric and Song Finder. Retrieved on November 3, 2006.
- ^ Free and Bad Company. Record Reviews. Retrieved on November 3, 2006.
