Tag Archives: George Harrison Songs

“Congratulations” (The Traveling Wilburys cover)

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By Jim Fusco: Well, it’s my day again already, huh? 🙂

Seems we’ve bee doing so much promotion between the friend requests, SEO work, and such that it really is getting harder and harder to keep on the “every third day” schedule. And now, we have a Members-Only section on the blog, which will have exclusive, not-on-YouTube, videos. So, that’s even more to do!

I’m hoping with the long weekend that I can record a bunch of Sessions and then focus on promoting what we already have for awhile.

Now, getting on to today’s Laptop Session:

“Congratulations” is a Traveling Wilburys song that my brother Mike and I would always kinda make fun of when we were younger. I mean, the album came out when I was four and my family loved it, so we always listened to it. Plus, when you’re a little kid, Bob Dylan’s incredibly raspy voice is pretty funny.

But, years later, after my 1000th listen, I began to realize that this really is a good song. I think the whole band contributed and the actual tune of the song (stripped of Dylan’s raspiness or not) is great.

The song is sad and emotional, which is probably why they chose Dylan to sing it in the first place, but I thought I would give it a more “pure” treatment.

This was done in one take, so you know I was dead-on. Jeff, Chris, and I are doing a lot more of that lately- partially because of time constraints, but partially because we’re just getting so good at doing this. My skills have been increasing steadily with my view count and subscriber numbers, which are nearing 200 now!

I will meet my goal of 55,000 views by the end of the month and now the only question is: how many more will I get? The Laptop Sessions site is poised for a BOOM in popularity, so stay tuned, as you may have already stumbled upon the Next Big Thing in music!

“This Is Love” (George Harrison Cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

Hello all, and welcome to another edition of the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs music video blog! It’s me, Jim Fusco, back here again with another cover song video.

This one is from one of my favorite albums ever- “Cloud 9” by George Harrison. I think I’ve mentioned it before, but something about the albums from this late-80s period is just so great to me. It’s probably because I grew up listening to them and it’s nice to think of a time I was alive AND people like George Harrison were still really popular. Plus, I think listening to rock music at such an early age (I was three years old when “Cloud Nine” came out) like this really sticks with you. There have been some songs that I heard back in the late 80s and I haven’t really listened to since. When I finally hear them again, somehow I know all the words! It’s really incredible to think that those lyrics stuck with me over all those years and that I learned them when I was so young. I guess that’s why they try to teach a second language to kids that are under ten years old- it really does stay with you! Of course, instead of a foreign language, I learned a ton of rock music lyrics. 🙂

For my iTunes, I have a song rating system I devised. Basically, it’s a way of sorting through all of my music and categorizing the ones I truly love. It also helps me weed-out all the songs I don’t like but have in my music library just to complete an album. Anyway, my 5-star songs are my favorite songs of all time- these are the classics like “God Only Knows” by the Beach Boys and “You Just May Be the One” by the Monkees that I just can’t live without. The next category down, 4-stars, is for songs that, when they come on, I say to myself, “Oh man, I love this song.” This category is reserved for songs that make my eyes widen and my ears perk up as soon as the first chords kick in. “This Is Love” by George Harrison is one of those songs. As soon as the song starts, you’re hooked in- the great chord progression and the wonderful late-80s guitar sound get me every time. I can only hope that my acoustic cover song version I’ve done here for the music video blog does the song justice.

This song, “This Is Love”, is a classic. It’s got that unmistakable George Harrison sound. If you don’t know it, get ready to have a new favorite song, because this song has a great melody and, of course, great chords and style- George all the way! Of course, there will be many more George Harrison songs done here for the music blog in the future. I recently got into listening to all of his solo albums and was blown-away…no pun to another George Harrison song… In the meantime, I hope you enjoy today’s video and will come back for more great cover songs from The Laptop Sessions music blog!

“It Don’t Come Easy” (Ringo Starr Cover)

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By Chris Moore:

Hello and welcome back to another brand-new Laptop Session! Jim and I have been laughing this week about how funny it is that Ringo has used his classic phrase “it don’t come easy” in at least one song for his past three albums. This is, of course, a reference to his early hit “It Don’t Come Easy,” one of the first solo Beatles singles. I figured, why not go right to the source? So, here I am singing this great Ringo tune!

I just bought his new album, Liverpool 8, last week, and I have really been enjoying it. I was hesitant to buy it, since I had heard that he severed his working relationship with Mark Hudson. However, I was excited to see that Ringo, Hudson, and the Roundheads (Ringo’s studio band) co-wrote all but one of the songs on the album. And it had a lot to live up to — after all, Ringo Rama and Choose Love are great, if underrated, albums. In the end, I have to recommend it, whether you’re a fan of Ringo and/or rock ‘n roll. I’ll certainly be recording a Laptop Session for “If It’s Love That You Want” — track 10 — if not others in the future. And I’m not going to say much more than that about the album, but look for an article from me about Ringo’s and George Harrison’s solo careers in the coming weeks!

As always, thanks so much for listening (and reading)… I hope you enjoy it! Don’t forget to come back to guitarbucketlist.com tomorrow for an all-new session from Jeff!

“Handle With Care” (Traveling Wilburys Cover)

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Hello and welcome to another edition of the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs music video blog! We’re back again with a cover song video from the Traveling Wilburys- their most famous song,  “Handle With Care”. When I was four years old, this song came out and it’s one of my first musical memories. Plus, it’s been one of my favorite songs for 20 years.

We’ve been playing this song live for years. It’s usually the full electric set, but we’ve done it live and acoustically here for the Laptop Sessions music blog.  As I’ve mentioned many times in the past, the goal of the Laptop Sessions cover songs blog is twofold.  First, we want to put an end to bad YouTube cover song videos forever.  And second?  We want to give a different take on our favorite songs.  This track, though mostly acoustically based in the original recording, is still not the same without George Harrison’s amazing lead guitar part.  But, we figured it would make the song sound different to only break out the acoustic guitars and the bongos for this cover song video.

One thing I love about this performance is the energy our band, Masters of the Universe (or MoU), puts into “Handle With Care”.  From the video, you can tell that we’re all having a good time singing one of our favorite Traveling Wilburys songs.  The harmonies, though not perfect (or complete, without band member Becky), are still pretty good.  And sure, the bongos are a bit louder than we would’ve liked.  But again, this was a fun acoustic live performance.  I think that having more energy in a video recording is even better than getting it note-perfect.  That’s one of the reasons why Masters of the Universe earned a nomination for Best Album of the Year by the New Haven Advocate in 2006.  We made an album that consisted mostly of our live set of original songs.  The songs sound great, but if we recorded everything separately, it probably would’ve come out much cleaner.  But, the thing that made MoU’s album stand out from the rest was the energy we had.  The songs would start out slowly and gradually get faster as it went on.  You can tell that the band is having a good time when something like that happens.  Plenty of people can play music in a technically correct manner.  But, it’s something special when you’ve got a band firing on all cylinders, playing music together in a circle.  You can really feel the energy in that album.

I know this has been requested before, so I hope you enjoy tonight’s Traveling Wilburys cover song! It’s my tribute to both George Harrison and Roy Orbison, and you know I’ll be doing more songs from George, Roy, and the Wilburys in the weeks to come!

To hear MoU’s original music, visit http://jimfusco.com/albums.html. To hear my original music, visit http://jimfusco.com.