Tuesday Tunes 238: You Is Back

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Having played a couple of weeks of your and you’re songs I took a look back at where that idea started: my list of possible songs with you in their title. Although I have already run with that as a theme – back in October for three weeks – I was pleasantly surprised to see how many good ones I could still play, so I’m revisiting that theme for today, with four from that list plus a very new one. So, here goes with episode four of you.

I had two choices for my first tune, either the original or another big UK hit for a cover version. I’m going with the original:

Yazoo released Only You in March 1982 and it reached #2 here in the UK, going Platinum for 600k sales, and also managed #67 in the US. Yazoo comprised Vince Clarke, previously of Depeche Mode, who wrote this song, with Alison Moyet – she of the wonderful smoky voice. The track was their debut single, and was also included on their first album, Upstairs At Eric’s, which came out in August of that year and also made #2 in the UK, and also went Platinum. They were short-lived, only making two albums, but they were very successful: three top three singles, and their second album, You And Me Both, was released in July 1983 and made #1 in the UK. The cover of this song was a novelty ‘a cappella’ version by The Flying Pickets, which was the UK Christmas #1 in 1983. I still prefer the original, but it is just a very good song.

This next one is a bit of a cheat, as the you part is slightly extended and there is also a your in the title, but hey, I can choose what I want, right? This is a little band of whom you may have heard:

For anyone who has been on Planet Zog for the past sixty years, that was of course The Beatles with You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away. The song featured in their second movie – Help! – which is where the clips come from. The movie came out in July 1965, when I was still just a little lad of 11, and was one of the first that I was allowed to go and see on my own – Mum and Dad weren’t all that interested in making a family outing for it. Needless to say, I loved it. The album had two very different releases, one for N America and one for the rest of the world. I’m afraid to say this, N America, but you were really stiffed on the deal! Here the album came out in early August 1965, a week after the movie, and contained fourteen tracks. Side One was the seven that were in the movie, and Side Two was a selection of other songs the band had recorded but not yet released: it was the first time we had heard Yesterday on an album. In N America, you only got twelve tracks, and the album was padded out with orchestral instrumentals. If only someone who is apparently (in his own mind) good at ‘the art of the deal’ had been around to negotiate a better result for you! And of course, the album made #1 on both sides of the pond.

From the biggest band of all time to one that I suspect many of you might not know. This is a track from an album I bought when it came out – I loved it and played it to bits. Its obscurity is reflected in the fact that I can only find an audio version, and even then it is showing the sleeve of their ‘best of’ album rather than the original! Still to my ears a lovely song, though:

The band was Brewer & Shipley, with a song called Lady Like You. I’ve only played them once before – and not this track – so I think they are due another airing. The song is from an album entitled Weeds. Mike Brewer and Tom Shipley were a folk-rock duo who were originally around from 1967 to 1978, and then reformed in 1993 and kept going until the 2020 pandemic stopped them. If you know of them at all it is probably from their 1971 US hit single One Toke Over The Line, which made #10 over there. This one was slightly earlier – Weeds was released in 1969. It is a lovely album, full of great harmonies and some fabulous acoustic guitar playing. Beg, steal or borrow a copy – you won’t regret it! Sadly, Mike Brewer died last December at the age of 80, but I think he enjoyed his life in music.

I’m going (sort of) with another big name for my next one. She used to be my guilty secret but I have long since let that cat out of the bag. But I’m not playing her own version of the song – I’m going with my favourite covers band:

I Knew You Were Trouble was a track on Taylor Swift’s fourth album, Red, which came out in October 2012 and made #1 in the US, UK, Canada, Australia and several other countries, and has sold more than 4.5m copies in the US and 900k in the UK. This was the fourth single taken from the album, in November 2012, and it peaked at #2 in both the US and the UK, though it did get to #1 in Canada (and in Croatia and the Czech Republic!). This version by First To Eleven is great. Like everything they do they attack it with real verve, which is why I have loved them so much since I first found them five or six years back. and have played them several times before. They are a talented bunch and Audra Miller, their lead singer, is as cute as they come, which helps.

 

I said I was adding n a new one for today’s set, and I’m closing with it. Back in November I played the first track to be released from a collaborative album by Mary Chapin Carpenter, Julie Fowlis and Karine Polwart, which was lovely and was well received here. The album, Looking For The Thread, was released on 24 January and didn’t disappoint: it is as beautiful as I had hoped. This is You Know Where You Are, one of its tracks:

Utterly gorgeous music, from an album I’ve had on repeat play for the past couple of weeks. In its short time it has reached #6 on the UK Americana Albums chart and #8 on the UK Independent Albums listings – a good start. The album has been well received by critics and the band will be playing some dates here in the UK next month – I wish I was well enough to get to one, as I think it will be a magical experience. This song was co-written by Karine Polwart with Pippa Murphy, a long-time songwriting partner of hers, and is a good example of the beautiful music to be found on the album. Highly recommended.

That’s all for today. My usual mixed bag, with the familiar and the less so, and one brand new one. I hope you have enjoyed them.

See you again soon 😊

 

64 thoughts on “Tuesday Tunes 238: You Is Back”

  1. Pingback: February Flew By | Take It Easy

  5. Wow! I can honestly say I had never heard ANY of today’s songs!!! I thought I knew the first one, but I was thinking of …

    As for the others, I hadn’t heard them before and … well, nothing reached out and grabbed me until that last one by Mary Chapin Carpenter et al … I loved that one!!! Thanks again, Clive, for expanding my horizons and introducing me to a number of new tunes!!!

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  6. Pingback: Tuesday Tunes 238: You Is Back – the secret about how life

  7. It probably doesn’t surprise you that my favorite of the week is by First to Eleven, a band you introduced me to a few years ago. I have spent entire evenings since listening to their cover songs in the background while I’m working on something on my computer.

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  8. YOU did it again! I mean, YOU can’t really go wrong with The Beatles, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and Taylor Swift, can YOU? Though when you said “your guilty secret I thought it may be Mariah Carey. 😂😂
    No. I knew it was Taylor. 🙂

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  15. Alison Moyet was a great singer. I loved her voice. Just recently, I played one of her records (Alf). I know her version of Only You but the Flying Picket’s version was much more popular over here.

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  18. Great songs and you are SO right: the fact they pulled songs from the Beatles UK releases in order to cobble together extra albums was such a cheat! I was too young to buy them so lucked out, but the greedy record label here actually had the audacity to offer remastered version of the albums “as originally released in the US” as if fans would want to remember them that way! A sucker born every minute I guess!

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      • Totally agree and you know what Clive? My wife bought be a turntable because I still had almost 200 alums from my teenage years…and I realize I do NOT like buying “greatest hits” albums…I really want to hear all of the songs from a release, as album tracks can show much more depth to the artist than just the “hit”…and of course sometimes you get a LOT of filler but that’s OK by me!

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      • I remember you saying that Alex bought that for you. It’s great that you still have the albums and can enjoy them as they were intended. My vinyl collection had to be lost after I got divorced – and I don’t have anything to play them on now anyway!

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  21. ‘You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away’ is one of my favourite Beatles songs. I was too young to see Help when it came out and it was a few years later that I saw it – Sunday Night at the Movies on the small screen.
    I have the album as an LP, and on CD as well as the movie DVD.

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