Tag Archives: Paul McCartney Songs

“The Fool on the Hill” (Beatles Cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

Welcome, all, to a late edition of Jim Fusco Tuesdays here on the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs music video blog!

I’m back with my friends Steve and Chris for another Beatles cover song video- tonight, we bring you ‘The Fool On the Hill”.  Chris C. brought this song to our attention because he has an incredible set of recorders (flute-like instruments) that he wanted to play at our practice sessions.  We were going to play “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away”, but it looks like Jeff and Chris M. have that market cornered already!

Anyway, when the Acai Berries’ Chris suggested “The Fool On the Hill”, I jumped at the idea- it would give me a chance to do some great Paul McCartney-like singing and Chris a chance to play his recorder in the style of the flutes on the song.  Let me tell you- he got it right on, didn’t he?

And how about the great 12-string guitar playing by Steve off-camera.  That picking style he’s doing on the D6 chord sounds a lot like “Dream On” from Aerosmith and it adds such a mystical feel to this song.  Paul McCartney said he wrote it about people like Maharishi, of whom people said was just a fool standing alone on a hill.  Those nay-sayers to the Maharishi’s principles would just discount his teachings and brush him to the side.

Come to think of it, this is a pretty universal theme.  I mean, I was just listening to my “old” album “My Other Half” from 2002.  I was a senior in high school when I recorded it and high-school “issues” (relationships, etc.) were very fresh on my mind.  I had just met Becky at the time, but we didn’t start officially dating until about two weeks before the album came out, so the songs on “My Other Half” reflect previous people I was (or even wasn’t) involved with.  There’s a song called “Never Taking Your Chances” (which is so weird, because that song was tuck in my head before I even starting thinking about writing this post) and I say, “Just because I’m not what you see, it doesn’t mean you can walk over me, and never taking your chances with me.”

I was complaining about someone who was a friend to someone I was interested in.  Well, looooong story short, she basically prevented me from ever having a chance with that person.  Why?  Who knows!  She knew nothing about me, but just like the “Fool on the Hill”, she assumed things about me and never gave me a chance.

That’s what Paul’s saying in this song: “They never listen to him, they can see what he wants to do.”  No they don’t!  They just think they see what he “wants to do” because of stereotypes, rumors, conjecture, etc.  I’m pretty happy that I made this connection tonight, as it gives “The Fool On the Hill” much greater meaning to me.

And I hope it gives meaning to you, too!  Anyway, I’m excited about an exciting weekend of TNA Wrestling ahead- three hours of iMPACT on Thursday (not to mention a HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my main man Jeff Copperthite!!!) and then the biggest pay-per-view of the year on Sunday, Bound For Glory.  Of course, I’ll be pulling for Sting to beat AJ Styles all the way.  Only 15 days left until the house is done, but man, it’s going to be stressful two weeks.  I get sick to my stomach just thinking about it.

Well, have a great one and I promise that next week’s video will be on time!

“A Day in the Life” (Beatles Cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

Actually posting on Tuesday night for once!  Well, there’s only one word to describe tonight’s acoustic cover song music video: ambitious!

Tonight, myself and my fellow Traveling Acai Berries, Steve and Chris, bring you another Beatles cover song, “A Day in the Life”, the masterpiece final song off of the masterpiece album, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”.  This song is filled with great piano playing, wonderfully crafted lyrics, and a multi-part structure that rivaled the type of “three minute masterpieces” Brian Wilson was producing at the time.

But, we give you the song in its purest form- myself singing John and Paul’s lead vocals, Steve backing my (actually his) acoustic 6-string up with our colleague Noreen’s wonderful 1967 Gibson 12-string guitar, and Chris on his signature mandolin.  Steve and I couldn’t believe how great this sounded acoustically- we just know the songs so well that we remember the little nuances.  Steve plays some stuff on guitar that I always leave out because I think, “Eh, no one remembers that little thing”- and now we finally have those parts!  And, this is only the second time Chris ever took a look at the music to this song- incredible.

I was lucky enough to sing both sections of the song.  Isn’t it great how you get a typical “day in the life” of both John and Paul?  Very interesting how they looked at a typical day.  I prefer John’s method of telling the story, as he puts such an interesting humor on reading bad news in the paper, seeing a war movie, etc.  Paul, on the other hand, gives glimpses as to what songwriting subjects he would touch-upon after leaving the Beatles (doesn’t the middle section of “A Day in the Life” remind you of “Another Day”?).

Now, since Chris Moore beat us to the punch on “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away”, which we were preparing an AWESOME version of (complete with recorder solo at the end), we’ll have to save that potential video as a “bonus” video one of these days.  Why?  Because every day is another cover song you haven’t heard before on the Laptop Sessions blog!

Tonight is a very, very important night for the blog and one that I’ve personally longed for over these past two years.  Tonight, we FINALLY match the number of “Wallflowers” posts with Beatles posts!!!  Can you even believe that?  20 posts about the Wallflowers (that had two mild radio hits) and it took us this long (and basically a whole month’s worth of Beatles posts) to match it.

Anyway, we hope you enjoy our rendition of “A Day in the Life”.  Hopefully, we can get the band together this Friday for some recording again- Steve and I have perfected an America song (I’ll let you ponder which one) and we’ve been practicing some more Beatles tunes (like “You’re Gonna Lose That Girl”, which could really use another vocalist, DAD, hint, hint…) and other ones from the Eagles and Rod Stewart.

So, stay tuned to the blog- we’ve got some exciting times ahead.  One more month ’till move-in date for us, as long as everything goes smoothly!  Have a great week and make sure to stop-back for Jeff’s Thumpin’ Thursday in just a couple days!

“If I Fell” (The Beatles Cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

Welcome, welcome to another edition of the Laptop Sessions featuring myself and the Traveling Acai Berries!  We’re continuing our month-long tribute to Beatles cover songs tonight (have you seen the great posts by Chris and Jeff these past two weeks?) with one of their finest early songs in “If I Fell”.

“A Hard Day’s Night” is an interesting film.  If you haven’t seen it, it’s really worth your while.  If you haven’t yet fallen in love with the Beatles, then this movie will seal the deal.  If you’re someone who wasn’t fortunate enough to live through Beatlemania, then this movie will show you what it was really like.  The fact that the boys could be so fun loving and charming during all that craziness proves why they were such a special group.

But, throughout the hype, they remained relevant and cool.  You might write-off some of their early hits like “She Loves You” and “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” as early-sixties fluff (you’d be an idiot, by the way), but there were some really introspective gems throughout their first few albums.  Go ahead and listen to “Things We Said Today” or “No Reply” and you’ll hear what I’m talking about.  These guys were not only great musicians and songwriters, but they were “deep, man”.  John Lennon and Paul McCartney (and even George Harrison on his early work like “Don’t Bother Me”) were ahead of their time in so many ways that I can think of 50 more songs I want to record for the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs music video blog.

“If I Fell” is one of those songs that just “gets you”.  I, for one, cannot stop singing it in my head.  The tune is one that goes back into itself constantly and is on permanent loop up there.  Couple that amazing tune with the harmonies of John and Paul (with Paul’s amazingly high vocals that I think I nailed pretty well) and you’ve got a classic Beatles song, indeed.  Both my father and my fellow Acai Berry Steve said that this song stood out to them when they watched “A Hard Day’s Night” and to me, that says it all.  When you’re up against the heavyweight singles on that album (like the title track) and the response is, “If I Fell really stood out to me,” then you know it’s a great song.

We couldn’t get Steve on camera again this week and Chris C. was busy studying sheet music (you can finally hear him this week!), so he was off-camera.  We had our fourth member, Bill, there for the session, but he had to leave early and we couldn’t get his guitar playing on the video.  I’m hoping that Bill can coax Steve on camera, as four people on camera makes you stand-out much less as an individual than when there’s only two people.  Anyway, I hope to record some more songs in two weeks, so maybe I’ll soften him up by then.  Next week is the last of our Beatles quatrain (like that little music term there?) and we’ve got a whole bag of tricks that should keep things fresh and interesting here on the best music blog ever created!

That’s right, I said, “Best EVER!”  Believe me?  Then comment about it!  We’d love to hear from you and, yes, each comment you leave brings Steve one more inch closer to appearing on camera!  So, get commentin’ and we’ll see you next week for another installment of Jim Fusco Tuesdays.  Stay-tuned for an all-new video by Jeff Copperthite, coming up Thursday!

“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!