Cry for a shadow

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Cry for a shadow
The Beatles
publication March 27, 1964
length 2 min 19 s
Genre (s) Pop song
Author (s) George Harrison ,
John Lennon
Label Polydor

Cry for a Shadow is an instrumental song by the British band The Beatles from 1961. It was their first professionally produced original composition. It was written by the two guitarists of the Beatles George Harrison and John Lennon .

background

In June 1961 the Beatles recorded some songs under the name The Beat Brothers together with the British singer Tony Sheridan , on which they can only be heard as a backing band. Towards the end of the recordings, which took place under producer Bert Kaempfert on June 22, 1961 in the Friedrich-Ebert-Halle in Hamburg , the band got the opportunity to record two songs without Sheridan. The songs Ain't She Sweet and Cry for a Shadow were created - the latter still under the title Beatle Bop . On the recording, the Beatles' first drummer Pete Best can be heard instead of Ringo Starr .

The song and the title are to be understood as a parody of the band The Shadows who accompanied Cliff Richard . In Cry for a Shadow the Beatles imitated guitar and bass melodies from the Shadows as well as the typical screaming of Jet Harris .

publication

Originally, Cry for a Shadow was to appear on the B-side of the single Why , on which Sheridan sang, in 1961 , but the record company decided against it. Only in the course of the later popularity of the Beatles was Cry for a Shadow (now as A-side) released on March 27, 1964 by the German record company Polydor . The song Why was pressed onto the B-side. The cover of the single shows four stylized mushrooms in allusion to the mushroom hairstyles of the Beatles .

In 1995 the song appeared again as part of the Anthology series.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Mark Lewisohn: The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions. Hamlyn, London 1988.
  2. ↑ [1]