Baby's in Black

Sorry for missing a post yesterday! I'll be doing two today to make up for it. :)

Yesterday's song was "Baby's in Black", a mournful tune co-written by John and Paul. It's about a girl grieving for her lost lover, making the singer sad for her. The guys had a real-life inspiration for this song; their friend and photographer Astrid Kirchherr was engaged to Stuart Sutcliffe, artist and original bass player for The Beatles (another fifth Beatle... I'll have to start keeping track). However, Sutcliffe died of an aneurysm before he and Kirchherr could marry, leaving her bereft and prompting the boys to write a song about her grief. Sutcliffe had been great friends with The Beatles, and later on, "Yoko Ono remembered that Lennon mentioned Sutcliffe's name very often, saying that he was '[My] alter ego ... a spirit in his world ... a guiding force'".

The guys often performed this song during their live shows, and Wikipedia gives us a little quote from Paul about it:

McCartney said they introduced the song by saying, "'And now for something different.' ... We used to put that in there, and think, 'Well, they won't know quite what to make of this, but it's cool.'"

As one of their most morose and depressing songs, I'm sure they were often concerned about an audience's reaction to it. However, the song clearly meant a lot to them, so they took that risk--I believe in order to honor their friends.

That's it for this song... now for today's! :)

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Heard It Tally: 6

Songs Completed: 55