Tuesday, July 15, 2008

SHE'S LEAVING HOME


Listen to SHE'S LEAVING HOME by Syreeta.

Continuing with excellent covers of lesser-known Beatles songs we have She's Leaving Home by Syreeta. She's Leaving Home? Isn't that on "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"? Isn't that, like, the most famous album of all time?!?!

Well, yes. But I have a theory that nobody ever listens to "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" except maybe David Fricke and Cameron Crowe. Be honest, can you name the songs on it? People know the title track, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, When I'm 64, and A Day In The Life, but I submit that most people think of these more like the words to a Hail Mary, something you reel off semi-consciously, rather than actual pieces of music, much less part of a semi-cohesive album. (It doesn't help that a couple of these songs are kinda stinky.)

That brings us to She's Leaving Home (for the record, the sixth track on the album). Reviews are mixed among the cognoscenti. It's not usually included among McCartney's best ballads (Yesterday, Here, There and Everywhere, Let It Be), but some put it just below this top tier. Others think its an insipid mess. Still others (well, me at least) think of it as a very interesting failure.

Enough about that, let's talk about today's cover for a moment. Today's song features two great talents, one of whom did this blog's favorite Beatles cover. Even without Google, one should be able to identify this person almost immediately from listening to the song. The answer is not Syreeta (that would be TOO easy). But anyway, her debut album is a minor classic, and this song is a highlight therefrom.

Photo: Ft. Tilden (2).

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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

song ain't playing currently.

bill said...

Ugh, you are correct. Well, I'll fix it later. In the meantime, here's something completely different...

Corbett said...

Wouldn't the song be one of their best if it merely ommited the line "She's having fun...Fun is the one thing", etc. Not to irritate, but you're kind of underselling the record.

bill said...

I don't know, opinions vary. Are you talking about Pepper's or just She's Leaving Home? For the latter, I think John's "trademark caustic wit" doesn't really work, which kind of undermines the whole song. And Paul's "trademark eye for detail" ('wednesday morning,' etc) is too writerly here. But it's also one of the few Beatles songs that is really topical, and it is so without being didactic (one of my favorite demerits in a topical record!) I like it a lot, but don't love it.

bill said...

okay, everybody, it's fixed now! thanks for bearing with our technical problems today