This Boy

As I hopped on Wikipedia today to find out today's song, I realized I'll have to skip two albums (Beatlemania! With The Beatles (1963) and Introducing... The Beatles (1964)) because they're just rearrangements of songs I've already covered (mostly U.S. releases of their first UK albums). The song for today, "This Boy", is the only song from Meet The Beatles that I haven't heard, so I'll just do the song today, and skip an album summary. :)

"This Boy" was another attempt by John to write a Smokey-inspired song; he used "circular doo-wop chord changes" and various other techniques. John, Paul and George band together for the three-part harmonies. I really like this one--it's slower than a lot of their other songs so far, and a little bittersweet and plaintive.

Well, that's all I have for today. I wanted to find a little more history for the song, but BeatlesEBooks.com is down right now. I might revisit this post tomorrow if the site is back up, to add any interesting info I learn. :)

EDIT: Here's what I found on BeatlesEBooks.com about "This Boy". 

The Beatles were simply versatile.  They could rock and roll themselves right off the stage, but that was only a portion of their intention.  They naturally had a love for many different styles of music, including the softer side.  Lennon himself stated that the Beatles “never stuck to one style; They never just did blues, or just rock.  We loved all music,” even the “sentimental things” as John called them... Upon recollecting his personal songwriting abilities during the Beatle years, Lennon recalls “This Boy” and states, “I was writing melody with the best of them.”

Basically, The Beatles didn't just toss in "This Boy" to soften up the album; it was genuinely part of them as musicians and artists. Their soft and mushy side pops up a lot more often as they move out of their early period, but we'll talk about that later on. :)

See you tomorrow!

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Heard It Tally: 1

Songs Completed: 29