For this week, Jim is inviting us to play something ‘recorded at Apple Records.’ You can see what he says in his post here. Apple Records is a record label founded by the Beatles in 1968 as a division of Apple Corps Ltd. which was initially intended as a creative outlet for the Beatles, both as a group and individually. They expanded this idea to include a selection of other artists that they had discovered and were supporting. To the best of my knowledge they never recorded anything themselves – there wasn’t an Apple Records studio per se – but each of the members was closely involved with one or more of the acts whose records were released on the Apple label: Paul McCartney, for example, was an integral part of the recording of Mary Hopkin’s early releases.

I’m playing you two songs from the debut album recorded by one of the best singer-songwriters of all time, in my view, whose debut album was released on Apple Records: the only one of his which earned that distinction before he moved to another label. Here is the first:

And here are the lyrics (not that you can’t hear them!):

There’s something in the way she moves
Or looks my way, or calls my name
That seems to leave this troubled world behind
If I’m feeling down and blue
Or troubled by some foolish game
She always seems to make me change my mind

And I feel fine anytime she’s around me now
She’s around me now
Almost all the time
And if I’m well you can tell she’s been with me now
She’s been with me now quite a long, long time
And I feel fine

Every now and then the things I lean on lose their meaning
And I find myself careening
In places where I should not let me go
She has the power to go where no one else can find me
Yes and silently remind me
The happiness and the good times that I know, but as I had got to know them

It isn’t what she’s got to say
But how she thinks and where she’s been
To me, the words are nice, the way they sound
I like to hear them best that way
It doesn’t much matter what they mean
What she says them mostly just to calm me down

And I feel fine anytime she’s around me now
She’s around me now
Almost all the time
If I’m well you can tell she’s been with me now
She’s been with me now quite a long, long time
Yes and I feel fine

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: James Taylor

Something In The Way She Moves lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

After suffering from mental health issues James Taylor took the brave step of moving from his US homeland to the UK, specifically London, where his friend Danny Kortchmar introduced him to Peter Asher, formerly of the pop duo Peter And Gordon but now head of A&R for the newly formed Apple Records. After sending a demo tape, which both Paul McCartney and George Harrison loved, James recorded his first album with them from July to October 1968 – he was 20 at the time. The album, simply called James Taylor, was released in December 1968 in the UK and February 1969 in the US. Critical reaction was generally good, including a very positive Jon Landau review in Rolling Stone Magazine that said “this album is the coolest breath of fresh air I’ve inhaled in a good long while. It knocks me out.” The record’s commercial potential suffered from James’ inability to promote it due to his hospitalisation for drug addiction and it sold poorly, only charting in Australia, where it reached #12. George Harrison was so taken with this song that he used its opening line as the basis for his own song, Something, which was included on the Beatles’ 1969 album Abbey Road and became a big hit single. James is on record as having said that he was perfectly ok with George ‘borrowing’ his lyric, and that he acknowledged that the ending of Something in the Way She Moves was taken from the Beatles’ song I Feel Fine and so “what goes around comes around.”

Just two of the tracks from the album were issued as singles. For my second song today, here’s one of them:

Wikipedia tells us that the song references James’ years growing up in North Carolina. He started writing it at producer Peter Asher’s London flat, resumed work on it while on holiday on the Mediterranean island of Formentera, and then completed it while stranded on the nearby island of Ibiza with Karin, a Swedish girl he had just met. As he mentions in his intro on that video, it reflects his homesickness at the time, as he was missing his family, his dog and his state.

Dark and silent late last night,
I think I might have heard the highway calling … 
Geese in flight and dogs that bite
And signs that might be omens say I’m going, I’m going
I’m gone to Carolina in my mind.

I think that this was quite understandable for a young man far away from home, who had mental health and substance issues and felt that he was lacking a solid basis for his life, and he has given us a beautiful reminder of that in a song which has become a firm favourite in his repertoire.

That’s it for this week. See you again for Tuesday Tunes 🎶