The Analogues Perform The Beatles

Being a Beatles fan means appreciating the musical legacy of one of the most influential bands in history, often with a deep connection to their music and the cultural impact they had. It can often range from casual enjoyment of their most popular songs to in-depth exploration of their discography, documentaries and fan communities. 

THE ANALOGUES PERFORM "A DAY IN THE LIFE" (AMSTERDAM ZIGGO DOME)

'Surrealism had a great effect on me, because then I realised that the imagery inside my mind wasn't insanity. Surrealism to me is reality.' 

John Lennon

The signature track on the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album is John Lennon’s magisterial "A Day In The Life". Musically brilliant and structurally mind blowing, no one had heard anything like it before. Actually, it's a wonder anyone heard it at all because it presented a number of unique recording challenges according to Geoff Emerick, the lead sound engineer on Sgt. Pepper’s. The masterpiece track found The Beatles at the peak of their creative powers, an astonishing statement that saw them fearless, breaking boundaries and enthralling listeners with the timeless quality of their music.

Like many great songwriters, John Lennon looked outside himself for inspiration for "A Day In The Life". In his sections of the song, Lennon reads off headlines that range from the death of a close friend to other, less consequential stories. The tragedy in the opening lines is mirrored after the death of Tara Browne, the heir to the Guinness Family fortune. Lennon took some liberties, but the foundation of Browne’s story is in the song.

The BBC banned “A Day In The Life” because of the line 'I’d love to turn you on.' The corporation thought it was a reference to drugs and indeed, band members confirmed this later. The other clue, of course, are the lines, 'found my way upstairs / and had a smoke / and somebody spoke and I went into a dream.'

THE ANALOGUES PERFORM "SHE'S LEAVING HOME" (AMSTERDAM ZIGGO DOME)

'It’s almost like a little opera and it’s one of the best-constructed songs they ever did. The lyrics are particularly telling. I am amazed that they could do this at their age because they could see the conflict between the young and the old.'

Sir George Martin

Another signature track on the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album is Paul McCartney's brilliant, classic ballad "She's Leaving Home". When poet and playwright Alan Mitchell heard "She's Leaving Home", he loved it immediately: 'And then I loved it even more the more I listened to it, because it just has these beautiful layers. Nobody's laughing at anybody. You feel sympathy for the girl and you feel sympathy for the parents. You feel sympathy for everyone except possibly "the man from the motor trade"! That's one of those lines you can't forget. Its an amazing piece of work.'

Paul McCartney had imagined the circumstances behind a story he noticed in the Daily Mail newspaper published on February 27 1967. In an article headlined 'A-level girl dumps car and vanishes', the girl's father stated 'I cannot imagine why she should run away, she has everything here.' The incomprehension is echoed in the phrases 'What did we do that was wrong' and 'We gave her everything money could buy.'

The front page Daily Mail article was about Melanie Coe, who didn’t return home one day. Coe was only 17 at the time of her disappearance and Lennon and McCartney began inventing a song around the storyline. Indeed, Coe insists that most of the song is inaccurate. However, some of it was, as she explains: 'The amazing thing about the song was how much it got right about my life.'

THE ANALOGUES PERFORM "WHILE MY GUITAR GENTLY WEEPS" (THE PHILHARMONIC HALL LIVERPOOL)

'So I opened this book and I saw 'gently weeps', I shut the book and then I started the tune.'

George Harrison

"While My Guitar Gently Weeps" is a signature track from the double album "The Beatles", fondly known as The White Album. While some have assumed that because of its subject matter, it must be a song written in the tranquillity of Rishikesh, George Harrison remembered that he had written it in his mother's home in Warrington in the south of England. Harrison was thinking about things associated with the Chinese I Ching, The Book of Changes. 'They have a concept that whatever happens is all meant to be and that there's no such thing as coincidence.'

"While My Guitar Gently Weeps" was just a simple study based on the theory that everything has some purpose for being present at a given moment. 'I was thinking that anything I see when I open a book, I'm going to write a song about.' The song is a lament for the unrealised potential within mankind to imbue life with spirituality - 'the love that lies sleeping.' 

Not happy with the results of previous recordings, Harrison decided to abandon them and start again from scratch. At this stage, he still believed that other band members were being apathetic towards the song. However, on September 5 1969, the band members, including Eric Clapton, recorded another 28 takes of the basic track.

THE ANALOGUES PERFORM "SOMETHING" (ABBEY ROAD STUDIOS)

'I had a break while Paul was doing some overdubbing, so I went into an empty studio and began to write. That's really all there is to it, except the middle took some time to work out.' 

George Harrison

"Something" is the second track on the Abbey Road album. During The White Album sessions, George Harrison started writing what would become one of the most covered Beatle songs. Harrison recalled that ‘When I was writing “Something”, in my mind I was thinking of Ray Charles.' Eventually, Ray Charles covered the song for his album “Volcanic Action Of My Soul”. Frank Sinatra also recognised the quality of the ballad, introducing it in concerts as ‘maybe one of the best love songs ever written and it never says “I love you” in the lyric.’

“Something” had a stately confidence about it and immediately galvanised the attention of every singer on the planet who considered themselves a balladeer, attracting covers from Shirley Bassey, Johnny Mathis, Jack Jones, Dionne Warwick and scores of others in its first year to, in 1971, Frank Sinatra. 

“Something” stepped things up a gear. In October 1969, Paul McCartney stated that 'this, to my mind, is the best song that George has ever written' and over many years since then, he has performed "Something" in solo concerts. Having been a late bloomer as a songwriter, Harrison was now peaking with "Something" and "Here Comes The Sun", both of which would become Harrison classics.  

THE ANALOGUES PERFORM "HERE COMES THE SUN" (ABBEY ROAD STUDIOS)

"We had meetings and meetings and with all this, you know, bankers, lawyers, contracts and shares, it was really awful." 

George Harrison

“Here Comes The Sun” is the seventh track on the Abbey Road album. The song reflects George Harrison’s mood when he composed it. On a beautiful spring day in April 1969, he decided not to attend business meetings in the Apple offices. ‘The relief of not having to go and see all these dopey accountants was wonderful.’ Instead of driving north-east from Esher to London, Harrison drove 20 miles south to Eric Clapton’s house in Ewhurst, Surrey.

Relaxing in the garden with one of Clapton’s acoustic guitars, “Here Comes The Sun” popped into his head. ’It was just the release of that tension that had been building up on me. It was the first time I’d played the guitar for a couple of weeks, because I’d been so busy. It just came and I finished it later when I was on holiday in Sardinia.’

“Here Comes The Sun”, is now in the top three of the most-streamed Beatle songs, a mandatory inclusion in anyone’s summer playlist. Since the data indicates that the users who favour it most are in their teens and early twenties, this presumably has little to do with nostalgia.

THE ANALOGUES PERFORM "LET IT BE" (AMSTERDAM ZIGGO DOME)

'I felt very blessed to have that dream. So that got me writing the song “Let It Be”. I literally started off ‘Mother Mary’, which was her name, ‘When I find myself in times of trouble’, which I certainly found myself in. The song was based on that dream.'

Sir Paul McCartney

Let It Be is the twelfth and final studio album by the Beatles. It was released on May 8 1970, nearly a month after the official announcement of the group's public break-up, in tandem with the documentary of the same name. The Beatles released “Let It Be” as their last single together as a band in 1970. 

The group recorded two versions of “Let It Be”. Obviously, there were many takes over the turbulent period prior to The Beatles breaking up. The various tracks also had many vocals, guitar solos, piano pieces and a mixture of other instruments. With all this to choose from, the production teams had plenty of material to work with. 

The single version was completed on January 4 1970, with the overdubbing of orchestration and backing vocals. George Martin produced the single version and the mix has a deliberately lower-sounding orchestration. 

The difference in the album version came about when Phil Spector became involved with producing the Let It Be album. While George Martin lowered the orchestration for the single, Phil Spector raised this sound. It also features George Harrison’s second guitar solo overdub, fewer backing vocals and a delay effect on Ringo Starr’s hi-hats. The final chorus differs as well, with ‘there will be an answer’ being repeated twice in contrast to once only on the single.

ABOUT THE ANALOGUES

'The Beatles: to us, it's modern classical music. We think that you simply can't achieve a real, authentic sound with digital short cuts. We use the same instruments that The Beatles used in 1967. Its just different and better. We're obsessed with creating the perfect sound - but the story behind it is just as important for us.' 

The Analogues

The Analogues are a whole different animal. If you're looking for matching suits, wigs and phony Liverpool accents, look elsewhere. None of that with The Analogues. Instead, fans get a bunch of talented 'more senior' musicians, singing in their own voices and managing to include, with incredible accuracy, every note heard on the greatest records ever made. Their performances are meticulous, yet fun. 

The Analogues focus on the '66-'70 Beatle era and they live up to their name; everything is done on real instruments. And the stage is always full of the same kinds of keyboards, guitars and amps The Beatles used. Strings, harp, horns, Indian instruments, Moog synthesiser.... all the real stuff. No digital samples.