BDJ's Cellar Full of Remixes

A great void in the early life of Jesus is filled up by The Syriac Infancy Gospel (also called Arabic Gospel of the Infancy of the Savior (AGIS)), dating from the 4-5th century. In none of the gospels in the New Testament is any mention made of the childhood of Jesus. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, more rapidly than satisfactorily, pass over the period intervening between His birth...

Was PSY inspired by Hold Me Tight when he composed Gangnam Style ? Probably not, but it is not impossible........

"It's So Hard" is still one of the tracks of Imagine from which just 1 alternate take exists : a take without the saxophone of King Curtis. Lennon and Curtis probably met around the Shea stadium concert, where Curtis was one of the warm-up acts, and Lennon called him in for this track. On Imagine, the saxophone is mostly buried in the mix. In the outtakes, we can hear King Curtis riffing away. Sin...

On June 24th 2012, Muhammad Mosry was elected president of Egypt. Earlier, on May 1st, Egyptian cleric Safwat Higazi introduced this Muslim Brotherhood Presidential Candidate to his followers. Before Mosry took the stage, Higazi outlined his polcies, which I translate here (repeat each sentence multiple times): "The dream of the Islamic Caliphate is being realised thanks to Mosry and his Muslim br...

This is the latest - and probably last - installment of our effort to set Lennon's poetry to music. The National Health Cow is one of Lennon's best known poems, at least two recordings of him reading it survive. The NHC features in A Spaniard in the Works, a book from 1965 by John Lennon. The book consists of nonsensical stories and drawings similar to the style of his previous book, 1964's In His...

The Luck Of The Irish was inspired by a protest march in London that Lennon attended in August 1971. He began writing the song three months after. This remix is based on an acetate of an uknown take, recorded towards end 1971. Nice melody, but lyrics are way over the top.

Written about the prison riot of September 1971 in which at least 39 people died, Attica State was included on John Lennon and Yoko Ono's album Some Time In New York City and released in June 1972. The song was composed on 9 October 1971, John Lennon's 31st birthday. That night a party and jam session took place at a Syracuse hotel room. Lennon and Ono were joined by Klaus Voormann, Allen Ginsberg...

"Not a Second Time" is a song by John Lennon performed by The Beatles on their second United Kingdom album, With The Beatles. Lennon said he was "trying to write a Smokey Robinson or something at the time. The song was recorded in nine takes on 11 September 1963. Robert Palmer covered the song, and I heard him (Robert...) play it Live in Amsterdam in 1980-something. Sweet memories ! Here's Robert'...

"Here Comes the Sun" is a song by George Harrison from The Beatles' 1969 album Abbey Road. Harrison, McCartney and Starr recorded the rhythm track in 13 takes on 7 July 1969. The following day he taped his lead vocals, and he and McCartney recorded their backing vocals twice to give a fuller sound. A harmonium and handclaps were added on 16 July. Harrison added an electric guitar run through a Les...

All Things Must Pass is a triple album by George Harrison, recorded and released in 1970, the first solo work from him since the break-up of The Beatles in April that year. Johnny's Birthday was recorded in August 1970 with Ringo Starr and presented to John Lennon on his 30th birthday. (Based upon “Congratulations” - Bill Martin/Phil Coulter, new lyrics by Mal Evans, Harrison, Eddie Klein). On the...

Lennon made it no secret that many (all?) of his songs were inspired by music he hard heard. This goes for the riff of I Feel Fine, the intro of Instant Karma, Come Together... and for most of Happy Xmas. Here, the inspiration derives from Stewball, an English traditional. Stewball was perfomed by man artists (such as The Greenbriar Boys, Lonnie Donnegan, Peter, Paul & Mary, Woody Guthrie), bu...

“I Need You” was recorded on February 15th at EMI Studio Two. Both George and John played acoustic guitar, Paul played bass and Ringo played drums. Five takes of the song were recorded before everyone was satisfied, “take five” being deemed as best. This ended the night at 10:30. The next day, February 16th, 1965, they recorded all of the overdubs to “I Need You.” First on the agenda was for Georg...

Another installment of the BDJ Upgrade series. A new version, produced from the stereo and mono tracks of the Remasters. Instead of the orginal vocals-right/backing left stereo, we now have a balanced stereo spectrum + a bass line with real oomph !

On the afternoon of 6 July 1957 the Quarrymen skiffle group played at the garden fete of St Peter's Church, Woolton, Liverpool. In the band were John Lennon (vocals, guitar), Eric Griffiths (guitar), Colin Hanton (drums), Rod Davies (banjo), Pete Shotton (washboard) and Len Garry (tea chest bass).  Their repertoire consisted mainly of Skiffle songs; skiffle blossomed in England, just before Rock &...

In 2010, BDJ's Cellar presented 2 special Christmas Podcasts; one based on the Nativity story in the Gospel of Matthew, the other on Nativity according to the gospel of Luke. This left us in a predicament for 2011: the other 2 gospels in the Bible (Mark and John) don't speak about the birth of Jesus, so we ran out of Nativity stories. Or did we ? For 2011, we resorted to ancient texts, which were...

I still find JFK an inspirational speaker. Listening to his inaugurational speech, delivered on the steps of a snow covered Capitol, it struck me that his words appear to be so relevant to the world of today; the overthrow of (mostly secular) dictators in the Arab world, to be replaced by ? We don't know yet, but could very well be military or religious dictatorships. But as JFK says; "those who r...

Victor van Kampen is a guitar virtuoso, now living in the Netherlands. Vic released a number of CD's (go out and buy'em !), but is yet to make the big time. He's about my age, so he should get a move on... Hence this plug: Vic plays the Beatles, I believe these tracks unreleased so far. Did some mastering and fussing about, that's all. Vic not has great technique and tone, he also makes the songs...

In the summer of 1966, the Beatles scored a No 1 with a double A-side single. On one side was "Yellow Submarine", and on the other there was "Eleanor Rigby", a sombre song with string backing about lonely people. It featured Eleanor Rigby, who sat by the window, and Father McKenzie, who may or may not have been the priest who officiated at her funeral, to which nobody came. Paul claimed that he ha...

A nice instrumental track of "Oo You" appears on the new "McCartney" Deluxe as a bonus track. This instrumental track is called "Don't Cry Baby" on it; im the blurbs, it is labelled as an 'outtake', why is a mystery. Anyway, it is rather simple and straightforward, so we did a little mash-up. Oo You is based on a guitar riff,, much like several of Lennon's songs (I Feel Fine, Day Tripper etc.). He...

This song was recorded on 11 February 1963 in ten takes. There's a Place was first released as a track on Please Please Me. It's release in the US came a year later on the legendary Vee-Jay album “Introducing…The Beatles,” released on January 6th, 1964. The second US release was as a single, which wasn’t released in Britain, as the flip side to “Twist And Shout.” This single was released on the ne...

The Beatles recorded "Money (That's What I Want)" in five takes on July 18, 1963. I suppose they intended it to be a smashing final track to With The Beatles, just as Twist & Shout had closed Please Please Me. Money had been featured in their shows since the Hamburg days, and they had converted it into a raunchy rocker song. The regular visitor to BDJ's Cellar immediately notices something odd...

The first ever Beatles mash-up was broadcast on 29 February 1972, at 3.30 PM. The occasion was the 'Beatles Day" on Radio Veronica. Radio Veronica was a - pirate- radio station, broadcasting from a ship in the North Sea, off the Dutch coast. From April 1960 the station aired its programmes from the ship the 'Borkum Riff', an ex German lightship built in 1911. Though its programming then still was...

"Ask Me Why" was released in the United Kingdom and The US (VJ Records) as the B-side of their single "Please Please Me". It was also included on the UK album, Please Please Me. It was recorded on 26 November 1962, in 6 takes. Take 6 was used for both the mono single and the stereo LP mix. No outtakes have surfaced, so there's not a lot to create a remix from.... Apparently, Ask Me Why was always...

"Please Please Me" is the second single released by The Beatles in the United Kingdom, and the first to be issued in the United States. Both its recording history, and its release record, are complex and often confounded. We'll shed some BDJ light on it here..... RECORDING HISTORY: Lennon first conceived "Please Please Me" as a bluesy, slow tempo song. Lennon recalled: "I remember the day I wrote...

Here's a loosely played cover of this great track by the Doors; my Other Favourite Band. Not much in common with the Beatles, just that only 2 band members are still alive... "Love Me Two Times" first appeared on the 1967 album Strange Days. It was released as their second single. Special challenge for this cover was that I did notwant to play keyboard on it. Ray Manzarek played this song on a cla...