Category Archives: Beatles Songs

Beatles covers: Acoustic cover songs – music videos by the songwriters of the Laptop Sessions video blog. Daily music blog with new indie rock acoustic songs.

“Eight Days A Week” (Beatles Cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

Welcome, everyone, to another Laptop Sessions acoustic cover song music video!  The plan is to hold another recording session with my fellow “Traveling Acai Berries” later this week, but for now, I bring you the second video from our last session two weeks ago.  Unfortunately, I still can’t bring myself to drop the $60 to get the Beatles Rock Band yet (that new mortgage looms large in the foreground) and the same goes for the remastered box set, which I’m just dying to hear.

Tonight, our video is “Eight Days A Week”, another addition to our collection of Beatles cover songs.  It’s funny how this one became a video- Steve (whose shoulder is shown in this video) said, “Hey Jim- play a whole bunch of D notes on your guitar rapidly and let me try something.”  Sure enough, within a few seconds, we started the song.  Fast-forward a couple minutes (and a little discussion on harmony parts) and you had our fellow band member Chris C. sight-reading sheet music and playing the melody on his mandolin.  That’s him there in the center of the video, transposing notes on the fly.

I love the way the song songs with the two guitars and the mandolin.  You can really hear the mandolin part in the second half of this cover video and it adds such a cool dynamic.  We’ve got some great videos planned that will feature the mandolin, which I’m pretty excited about.  I will forever be a chord player (and improv. soloist) on the mandolin, so it’s cool to play with someone that can translate sheet music into a mandolin part.

Steve and I combined for some great singing in this video, if I do say so myself.  For some reason, I’m singing this with so much confidence and we had some nice parts together, especially on the “Eight days a week, I lo-uh-uh-uh-ove you” part.  And, I feel so much more easy-going when Steve’s playing guitar with me because I don’t have that feeling that I have to be the entire band.  I can strum, learn some licks, etc.  Very exciting stuff!

On a personal note, things are going well, but I don’t know how- we’re tearing the condo up, getting ready to sell things for some extra pre-house cash and working on getting the condo “rental-ready”.  That’s in addition to working and doing extra night and weekend work to ensure we’re okay financially when we move into our new place about a month and a half from now.  Thankfully, Becky is always one to look on the bright side with a sense of knowing- I’m not a fan of those who just see the rosy side of things for the sake of seeing it that way…

Anyway, I kind of wish I had eight days in a week so I could get all this stuff done.  Thankfully, some aspects of life (job, marriage, family) are stable now, so it makes dealing with the unstable things in life (like living your life by the whim of a mortgage company that doesn’t answer the phone) that much more bearable.

I’ll look forward to our next recording session on Friday and hopefully we’ll be back with new videos next Tuesday night.  Hey, maybe this time we can finally introduce the fourth Acai Berry…but we’ll all have to wait and see.  Until then, have a great week!

“Two Of Us” (The Beatles Cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

I swear we didn’t plan this… I’m sure by now, if you’re a rock music fan, you’ve heard about the Beatles Rock Band game that’s coming out tomorrow, Wednesday, 9/9/09.  Everyone in the gaming world is excited about this new release, and you better believe I am, too!  You see, it’s very rare we get an official Beatles release (any more “interview” discs floating around?), and it’s great to see the Beatles music brought to a whole new generation of youngsters that are sure to fall in love with it just like the rest of us did.  I’m excited about the new Rock Band video game for Playstation 3, but I’m especially excited about the entire Beatles catalog (including the collection of singles in Past Masters Volumes 1 and 2) being remastered and re-released.  I’ve wanted the Beatles albums remastered for as long as I remember hearing them.  The original tape transfers sound so tinny- the discs they were selling on shelves all the way up until today were made in 1986 and have just been duplicates.  Go ahead- check your CDs- they all say 1986 on them!  That’s back in the time where they had to tell you the “great sound quality and fidelity” you get with CDs…  Anyway, as I am happy that they’ve remastered the original two-track masters of the Beatles albums, I’m a bit disappointed in two things:

First, they’re not remixed.  Not to say that they weren’t mixed great for the time, especially because (next to Brian Wilson, in my personal opinion) George Martin was the best producer ever.  But, now you listen to these songs and many leave a lot to be desired.  Imagine if you heard some of the songs on “HELP!” without all the vocals to the right channel and the music in the left.  Imagine if the drums in the early records were panned more towards center so they don’t cut through the mix (especially the tambourine).  As tacky as the “Love” CD from Cirque de Soleil is, it’s still pretty cool to hear the songs in such lush stereo, as opposed to the duophonic sound that they achieved before the late 60s.

And second, there are no bonus tracks.  My father is quick to point out some key missing tracks that were left off the Anthologies (“The extended version of “Dig It”!”, he always yells) and we’re left with nothing more than the albums that we’ve already bought on LP, 8-track, cassette, and original CD.

So, there’s Beatlemania in the air and I love it.  It’s been WAY too long since the fervor of the Anthology series and it feels great to say, “Oh yeah, well I’m only 25 and I’ve been a fan ALL 25 years!”

Which brings me to tonight’s Beatles cover song video.  Let me tell you, folks- prepare to be blown away.  Along with my mystery guest Steve and other off-camera guest Chris (not Moore) (from my new cover band, the Traveling Acai Berries, also featuring Bill, who couldn’t be at the session), we play a completely effortless version of “Two of Us” from the “Let It Be” album.  Chris appears on-camera in the video I’ll be posting next week, but Steve, by request of his college-age daughter who would commit social suicide if her friends found out her father was on YouTube singing Beatles songs with a 25 year old 🙂 , decided that he would just show his guitar skills on camera.  Actually, that’s Steve singing with me on this one, too.

And that way I described the performance: effortless.  That’s what makes it different from many of my past collaborations.  Whether it be getting the chords right, remembering the words, or remembering harmony parts, past duets have always been troublesome.  But Steve, Chris, and I play this like we’ve been playing for years, and that’s what I love about this video.  You can barely hear Chris in this video- he’s playing mandolin away from the microphone, but at times, especially late in the chorus, you can hear him plucking away.  His sight reading was impressive.  On next week’s video, you can definitely hear him, though.  Steve’s playing is great, as he took the time to learn all those parts I don’t on guitar, which is just so great knowing that I can just sing and play rhythm.  Steve reminds me a lot of my father- not only in his love for the Beatles music, but in how he can sing harmony parts without having to teach him every note.  Somehow, he just knows.  And that’s where this familiarity comes from- it really shows through in the video.

I sincerely hope you enjoy tonight’s performance- one’s that’s been in the works for months now.  It was a lot of fun and I hope they’ll want to do more, especially when they see all the good reviews we’ll get!  I’ll be back next week and hopefully I’ll be enjoying the new Beatles Rock Band game, too.  I’m going to wait until Christmas for the Beatles remastered albums, though- in stereo, of course.  And don’t even get me started on the new “mono” box set… 🙂  Until next week!!

“Can’t Buy Me Love” (The Beatles Cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

Well, another night and another one of our Beatles cover songs here on the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs video series!

Tonight, I bring you a big hit in “Can’t Buy Me Love”, one of my more energetic Laptop Sessions. Of course, I’ve known this song for probably all of my 24 years, and am very excited about this cover song video. I think I got in a pretty good groove. Plus, with a song this short (“watch it!“) it grabs the viewer’s interest and keeps it there without getting boring. That was a specialty of the Beatles in the early 60s. John Lennon and Paul McCartney were masters of creating short and catchy songs. This particular song, “Can’t Buy Me Love”, is a McCartney-penned tune, though it’s credited to both him and Lennon (as all of their songs were). I tend to lean towards John Lennon’s style of writing. I truly believe that he and Brian Wilson are the greatest rock songwriters of all time. But, every once in a while, Paul’s songs amaze me, like this one. His talent as a songwriter usually came out in the form of love songs and slower ballads. That’s why “Can’t Buy Me Love” is such a unique McCartney song, at least for early in his career. When I think of great Paul McCartney Beatles songs, I think of “I Will”, “Yesterday”, and “Golden Slumbers”. Those songs have a very different feels than the fast-paced pop feel of “Can’t Buy Me Love”.

One thing I didn’t realize about “Can’t Buy Me Love” is how high-pitched it is. I found it to be difficult to sing, especially when done acoustically. Paul had the luxury of double-tracking his lead vocals on the recorded version of this song. On my acoustic cover video, though, it’s just me and my guitar. For a faster-paced song like this one, I chose to go with my standard steel-stringed acoustic guitar instead of the nylon stringed guitar I normally use for “softer” music videos. One thing that surprises me is how Paul McCartney can still sing this song fairly well into his late 60s. I suppose practicing for 45 years helped him out a bit, but I can only hope to sound as good as he does when I’m his age!

I’m unfortunately running low (“oh, another one- giddy up Keckster!”) on my last glut of music videos, so I’ll be doing a new set very soon. But the good news is that I’ll be using my new setup, complete with a Zoom USB microphone and brighter, higher quality video. But of course, you know that the Laptop Sessions music video blog always brings you something new and improved!

Stay tuned here to the video blog, as Chris has been a posting machine lately- with new music reviews and posts about every WCJM Free Internet Radio show, amongst others. Plus, Jeff’s been cranking out solid Sessions, too. And me? Well, you KNOW I’ve been going crazy with the updates and enhancements here on the music blog. Until tomorrow’s Chris Moore Session, take care and enjoy “Can’t Buy Me Love” by the Beatles!

“A Hard Day’s Night” (The Beatles Cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

Welcome to my last contribution to “Title Track Week” here at The Laptop Sessions on https://guitarbucketlist.com !

Tonight, I bring you a CLASSIC Beatles cover song tune that everyone should be played as they’re coming out of the womb! 🙂 “A Hard Day’s Night” was reportedly a phrase coined by Ringo Starr. He kinda has that Yogi Berra thing going on where he says some great unique phrases and doesn’t even realize it.

This was a great Session for me because, again, I did it in one take. Actually, I recorded NINE videos last night, so I can finally focus on all the promotion we’ve been doing.

If you’re in the CT area, check out the Record-Journal newspaper on Sunday, June 1st for a feature article on The Laptop Sessions! It’s been rumored that we might even have a prestigious spot in the Sunday paper, but time will tell, I guess.

Come on back tomorrow for Chris’ final entry into “Title Track Week” and, as always, come to https://guitarbucketlist.com every single day in 2008 for a new video!