Hello everyone and welcome to my first installment of “Title Track Week” here at The Laptop Sessions! Chris and Jeff have already put forth two strong efforts, so I had to follow suit. I have such a list of songs to add to the Sessions, but I can’t seem to sit myself down to do a few lately. Don’t have much choice come Friday!
Tonight, I bring you the title track of the most successful post-Beatles solo album from one of the group’s members: “All Things Must Pass”. This is a great album, of course, and expect to hear many songs from this one in the future.
This is a great song that has a very insightful message, especially considering that George is now passed. We actually played this song in tribute to him on one of our radio shows over at WCJM.com Free Internet Radio.
This video was done a bit differently- I used my new ZOOM H2 microphone, which is really awesome, to record the audio. It came out great, but unfortunately became kind of a big project because the H2 wouldn’t properly connect to my Macbook. I hoped to do all of my Sessions with this microphone from now on, but the Mac doesn’t give the option to use the internal camera’s video and the ZOOM’s audio. Of course, you know I’ll keep trying to find a solution…
I hope you enjoy today’s Session and come back to https://guitarbucketlist.com tomorrow for another great “Original Wednesday” video from Chris Moore!
Welcome to your Thursday edition of The Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs music video blog with me, Jim Fusco! I just reached 100 subscribers and I know it’ll only grow faster from here! I hope you’ll tell your friends about the music blog, too.
Anyway, now to today’s cover song video. Today, I give you another in our series of Beatles cover songs that I’ve loved for a long time, “Things We Said Today”.
Paul McCartney said that this song was about a girlfriend of his he met while in another country. They had such a great time together and made all those crazy young promises of “always waiting for you”, etc. So, he’s singing about remembering the things they said to each other while feeling alone and far away. What a great, heartfelt idea for a song!
One of the things I’ve always liked about “Things We Said Today” is the cool strumming pattern of the A-minor chord that starts the song. For a song about such a melancholy feeling, the opening chords are so harsh. Of course, that harsh feeling comes up again in the bridge of the song, where Paul gets a bit rougher with his singing style. I think the middle-8 is one of the best that Paul McCartney ever wrote. He flawlessly transitions his voice from sweet and mellow to biting. It’s very impressive.
I guess the duality in “Things We Said Today” between the verses and middle sections is reflected in the lyrics of the song. On the surface, you’ll notice that Paul is first saying how they’ve promised to “be the only one” for each other. But, if you read into it a little bit, you’ll hear what he really means. He knew, because of the distance between him and the girl he’s talking about, that the promises of “being the only one” were empty and could never be true. He knew it was only a passing fling. In the middle section, he says, “And though we may be blind, love is here to stay.” He’s saying that in a new relationship like that, people tend to overlook obvious challenges like, you know, living thousands of miles away from each other. And, in the minds of these naive folks that are newly in love, it’ll stay great forever! Those of us who have been through that situation know the real eventual outcome.
On a funnier note, I had to relocate to my room for this song (good thing I have a Laptop!) because my parakeets would not stop chattering downstairs! But, I’m glad they’re getting along, even if it is to the detriment of my acoustic cover song videos.
I hope you enjoy today’s Beatles acoustic video- I’ll catch you on Sunday with an all-new Beach Boys song!
We have a NEW album out called Homestead’s Revenge (by Masters of the Universe- the band I’m in). You can buy the high quality mp3s or the CD version. Here’s the web address: http://jimfusco.com/albums.html. PLEASE check it out and let me know what you think! I hope you all enjoy today’s Session, and REALLY enjoy the new album- it’s two years in the making!
Welcome to your Sunday edition of the Laptop Sessions!
Today, I bring you a tune that I covered on my album “That’s All Folks” called “Great Day” by Paul McCartney. It closes out his 1997 album “Flaming Pie”, one of my all-time favorites. That album, “That’s All Folks”, came about because I had purchased my first good acoustic guitar. That guitar meant everything to me- it sounded great, played great, and made me feel like a real musician. I didn’t even really know how to play too well when I bought it. So, I learned how to play a bunch of songs I was listening to at the time. That taught me more chords, which turned me into a better player. And, at the time, I was going through a HUGE Paul McCartney phase. They had just released “Wingspan” with all of Wings’ greatest hits. I know those songs probably grate on people after all this time, but they were all new to me- and I fell for it pretty hard. We were also listening, as a family, to Paul’s albums from the 90s quite a bit. The first real song I learned how to play (and played it for my parents) was, of all things, “Hope of Deliverance” by Paul McCartney off of the “Off the Ground” album from the early 90s. I guess you could say that Paul McCartney’s songs really taught me how to play. And when it comes to rock musicians, you can’t get a much better tutor than him.
This is the perfect acoustic song and gives quite a vocal workout, which you wouldn’t expect in such a simple song. I decided to do this acoustic cover song on my nylon-string classical acoustic guitar, as it gave me the opportunity to be more expressive in my performance. This song is very soulful, which you wouldn’t really expect from the lyrics. I kind of dumbed-down the guitar picking riff throughout because that’s not really my thing. I’m a strummer and a soloist, but can’t do the flat-picking thing too well. Paul McCartney, the phenom that he is, is proficient at almost anything, musically. The man is one of the best bass players of all time, he can play the drums, sing (obviously), write songs, and play any guitar part you throw in front of him. Oh, and he’s written some of the most famous rock songs of all time on the piano, as well. That’s a pretty impressive life, for sure!
I hope you all enjoy today’s Session, as I’ll be back on Wednesday with a “political” original song- don’t miss it!
Hello everyone and welcome to your Thursday fix of the Laptop Sessions music blog!
I’ve been sick with a cold these past couple of days- good thing I had a couple of cover song videos in reserve! I should be back to my healthy self again over the weekend, and I have a list of literally 40 different songs to record cover song music videos for the Sessions…hopefully not all in one day…
This tune is a great one from Paul McCartney’s late 90’s album, “Flaming Pie”. That album stands as one of my all-time favorites because it came out right when I was really getting into music seriously. My family listened to it constantly. I plan on doing most of the songs off this album eventually because of it. “Flaming Pie”, for me, will always be the “vacation” album. I remember the summer that this album came out. My family went on vacation- a road trip to one of the New England states. We listened to this album constantly while on the trip. It was so exciting to go into a music store and see this album being promoted. I remember listening to the album on headphones in one of these stores (remember those kiosks?). But the weird thing was- we were listening to it in the car! I guess I was just excited to see an album I liked getting some popularity for once.
Paul McCartney’s songs, dare I say, are much better when he’s in a bad mood. Unfortunately, his wife was suffering from cancer at the time he wrote and recorded “Flaming Pie”. The emotions Paul put into this album range from sweet (“Little Willow”) to edgy (“Really Love You”). I think “Flaming Pie” features some of the best songs he’s ever written. “Heaven On A Sunday” is one of my absolute favorites- it’s just got that perfect peaceful sound. And “The World Tonight” is just a great rock’n’roll song- the perfect single. Paul even makes mention of his old friend John Lennon. You remember John’s story of how the Beatles got their name, right? “A man on a flaming pie came down and told me to spell “Beetles” with an “a”.” Yeah, right. Anyway, it made for a great song (and album) many, many years later.
This tune is a great one on acoustic guitar and was one of the first songs I leaned to play on guitar. It’s fun to sing and has a great melody, but most of all, I love the message in the song. “He’s gotta do it for himself.” How many times have I tried to steer someone in the “right” direction, only to learn that the person needed to learn on his own. I love when people learn from others’ mistakes, but I also accept the fact that it doesn’t happen that often.
I hope you enjoy tonight’s Paul McCartney cover song. “Young Boy” is a great one for you to learn, too. Just start with C – Am – Em – F – G. There- you’ve got the verse and you’ve mastered five different chords! Stay tuned for many more Paul McCartney songs here on the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs music video blog!
