Now and Then: A potted history of the Beatles’ final songs

As Beatlemania once again reaches fever pitch with the release of Now and Then, the Beatles’ final song together, Chris James looks at the numerous contenders for the Fab Four’s last hurrah.

The End, as we know now, wasn’t the end.

In fact, it wasn’t even the last track on the last record from the Beatles in the 60s: Abbey Road. That honour went to Paul’s throwaway ditty ‘Her Majesty’, which in fact he did throw away before it was rescued from the cutting room floor by a tape operator called John Kurlander, understandably jittery about binning anything by the Fab Four.  

Yet Her Majesty wasn’t the final word. Far from it.

Let it Be, with its funereal black cover, was released after Abbey Road in 1970, (although recorded before) meaning there was a whole LP of final songs beyond The End.

The final song on the Let it Be album was Get Back, an unadorned, fresh-sounding rocker (complete with terrific guitar solo from John) bringing the Beatles back full circle to their rock and roll roots.  A fitting finale, you might think. Except it wasn’t to be. The actual last song they worked on together (or at least George, Ringo and Paul) was I Me Mine, which needed tidying up before adding to the LP.

The 1970s  

Then along came the Hey Jude compilation album later in 1970, a ragtag collection of odds, sods and pearls, pulling together A-sides, B-sides and besides, that had somehow slipped through the clutches of record executives, too busy to notice while fileting perfectly good albums to make less good ones. In their excitement they’d forgotten to swipe these. Making up for lost time, they put this enjoyable but slightly nonsensical compilation together. 

The Hey Jude LP ended not with the iconic refrain of its title track, but with the sprightly Ballad of John and Yoko. A breezily busked diary song, it was recorded between Let it Be and Abbey Road and distinguished in that it featured only John and Paul. It gallops along to Paul’s spirited and really rather fine drumming (don’t tell Ringo!) while John noodles with obvious glee, let loose once again on lead guitar.  

Again, what a beautiful way to end things: John and Paul, the original partnership, rocking it up for one last hurrah. Then it really was over. Paul fell out with everyone. Lawyers were instructed. Insults (and bricks) were hurled.

John and George formed the next incarnation of ‘The Two-tles’ in 1971 for Lennon’s Imagine album. Like schoolboys smoking behind the bike shed, they collaborated on John’s rather mean-spirited dig at Paul: ‘How Do You Sleep?’ It’s a great sounding track with some career-best playing from George, and an emphatic bass part from Beatles’ alumni Klaus Voormann, but it makes for uneasy listening. John later tried to reinterpret what he meant in the song, but he didn’t sound convincing. 

All four Beatles then reunited, after a fashion, to rally behind Ringo on his eponymous 1973 LP. Above-par songs like I’m the Greatest from John, Six O’Clock from Paul and the superb Photograph co-written with George meant that fans could enjoy all the talents once again on one piece of plastic if not on the same song. These too, were all final songs of sorts.

Another contender is the Long and Winding Road. Most would agree this sounds exactly what a Beatles final song should be: a rueful, elegiac look back at their shared history. It finally got its chance to be the final song as the final track on the Beatles’ ‘Blue’ compilation album, also issued in 1973.   

Then, for a few years, things went quiet. Then got incredibly loud.

Live at Hollywood Bowl, recorded in 1964-5, but not released until 1977 is essentially an album’s worth of screaming with some songs indistinctly heard in the background. The unresolved seventh chord and Paul’s last shriek on Long Tall Sally then, was the final curtain. It was how they’d often finish their live sets, and so again, with nothing more to give, it was a suitably exuberant, and fitting way to bow out. You can see them now, taking their polite bow while the fans tore the seats from beneath themselves.

Cut to Eric Clapton’s garden on May 19^th, 1979. Celebrating the guitarist’s marriage to Pattie Boyd (yes, George’s ex-wife and the same muse who inspired both Something and Layla) George, Paul and Ringo found themselves part of an impromptu, allegedly drunken, Beatles reunion, missing only John. They stumbled through Get Back and Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band, before finishing with a pub band bash at Lawdy Miss Crawdy. It was an ignominious note, and poor final song, to end things on.  

The 1980s

The senselessness of John’s murder in December 1980 prompted the unthinkable: all three remaining Beatles finally reunited (and sober) on record for George’s tribute to John: All Those Years Ago. It was pleasant enough, but perhaps not the final word people were looking for. For this reason, perhaps that’s why George recorded the superior When We Was Fab (with Ringo on drums) for his masterful 1987 Cloud 9 album.  

But with John gone, so too went the prospect of a genuine reunion and new songs. (Paul had already been admonished by John for turning up unannounced at his New York apartment with a guitar, perhaps hoping to rekindle the magic).  

So long then, Beatles. Except there were still more final songs to come. Lots more.

The 1990s

The 90s ushered in the Anthology series: three double albums’ worth of giggly outtakes of classic songs, alongside some genuine gold, like McCartney’s demo of Come and Get It, as well as take-it-or-leave-it numbers like the lacklustre If You’ve Got Troubles or the dipsy What’s the New Mary Jane. More last Beatles songs.

Sensing the need to step in and stop this final song madness, re-enter George Martin, their peerless original producer. He declared, once and for all, that there was nothing left in the barrel to scrape.  

But hold on! Alongside this alternative history of The Beatles, we were treated to some sparkly ‘new’ recordings: Free as a Bird and Real Love. Lovingly rebuilt around some wobbly song-writing demo tapes John recorded in the 1970s, gifted by Yoko to McCartney), these were transmogrified into bright, tuneful records with cavernous drums, sunshine harmonies and searing slide guitars from George. They didn’t sound like the records the Beatles made in the 60s. For one thing, George didn’t really play slide guitar in the 60s. (The lovely Hawaiian flavoured slide on For You Blue was played by John).

Instead, they sounded like records the Beatles might have made if they’d followed the long and winding road into the 90s and chosen ELO supremo Jeff Lynne as their producer. As the mastermind behind Roy Orbison, Tom Petty and George Harrison’s late eighties career revivals (and great pal of George) Jeff was the right man in the right place with the right sunglasses. And he played a blinder.  

The 2000s

But no sooner than the ghosts had been laid to rest, when the news came in 2003 that the Let it Be LP was being ‘de-Spectorised’ and reissued as Let It Be Naked; this time, without the orchestral treacle and uninvited choir of angels added in 1970 without Paul’s consent.

The new version certainly had a raw quality missing from the original, returning it to the spirit of the ‘live only/no overdubs’ promise they’d made at the start of the project. They also reinstated a criminal omission from Let it Be: John’s Don’t Let Me Down, while quietly shoving also-rans Dig It and Maggie Mae off the end of the bench.  But what about the final song?

This time, they went for the hymn-like ‘Let it Be’ as the final dignified statement. A comforting reconciliation with friendly ghosts, a coming to terms with the past, it was a healing song of hope and remembrance and the perfect note to end things on.  

But as we well know by now, no final song by the Beatles stays final for long. The Let it Be album was transformed again, this time, by Peter Jackson’s magisterial Get Back docuseries. It charmed and astonished us at every turn, and showed that the Beatles didn’t fight all the time in 1969, just some of the time.

The series ended of course, with the inspired rooftop performance, ending on their third run at Get Back. (They practiced that one a lot as anyone who’s watched all 468 minutes will testify). Considering that their hands were freezing on that cold January day in West London, the performances are miraculously tight and soulful.

John’s pronounced: ‘I’d like to thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves and I hope we’ve passed the audition.’ It was the perfect, ironical, good-humoured way to bow out.  Or might have been.

The 2020s

Fast forward to June 2023. While chatting amiably to Martha Kearney on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, Paul casually drops in that he’s been working on a demo from John, and had been using some new technology to clean it up. It had the unmistakable whiff of another final song.

Rewind to 1994-5

The origins were a second tape handed by Yoko to Paul that year, and actually inscribed by John: ‘For Paul’. It contained the song Grow Old With Me (another beautiful tune, but already issued posthumously on John’s 1984 Milk and Honey LP. Putting this final song to one side, and after completing fellow final songs Free as a Bird and Real Love, the Threetles turned their attentions to the new final song: Now and Then.  

Slated to open the third of the Anthology compilations, it was shelved after only an afternoon’s work in 1995. Unimpressed by the quality of the demo, hampered by an obstinate ‘mains hum’ that couldn’t be separated from Lennon’s vocals, George Harrison threw in the towel, declaring the demo ‘F*&cking rubbish’. Not even Jeff Lynne had a magic wand powerful enough to take a bad demo and make it better. 

Instead, for the new final song on the last Anthology compilation, they added: ‘A Beginning,’ (see what they did there?) a pleasant but ultimately surplus-to-requirements orchestral excursion from George Martin, which originally pre-ambled Ringo’s Don’t Pass Me By from the White Album.

And so that was that. Except, of course, it wasn’t.

Back to the 2000s

Cue the ecstatic chime of the chord of the century that opens: ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ (The Beatles were very good at opening and closing songs). Love was a show and album from 2006: a dizzying, playful reimagining of The Beatles legacy assembled by Giles Martin, who had inherited all of his father’s taste, talent and charm. Accompanying the Cirque du Soleil spectacular of the same name, this was as good as a Beatles album should be. But what about the final song?

This time they went for ‘All You Need is Love as the final unifying anthem: a manifesto statement: Love is all you need. There it was then. The real final song had been there all the time, quietly waiting its turn. As if to underline the point, there was a mischievous little send-off from John spliced in at the end: ‘This is Johnny Rhythm just saying good night to yous all and God bless yous!’

But the Beatles being the Beatles, would insist on a last coda.

Join us back in 2023

Paul made no secret over the years of his intention to complete Now and Then; to: ‘finish it off one of these days.’ And that’s what he and Ringo did, albeit with the full blessing of Yoko Ono Lennon and Olivia Harrison, helped by the magic ears and knob twiddling of Giles Martin, who’s done so much to restore the Beatles’ recordings to their full glory, updating some of the earlier, more eccentric mixes.

But why has Paul felt the need to open Pandora’s box once again? Surely not for the money or to give the reissued and expanded Red and Blue compilations a sales boost. But perhaps because it was so intensely personal. After all, John’s final words to him in person were: ‘Think about me every now and then, old friend.’  This was Paul fulfilling a promise to a dear friend.

Thanks to sound source separation technology (the magic wand Jeff didn’t have in 1995) they’ve finally been able to clean up the tape John left behind for Paul.

Giles has brought his own considerable powers to the party, along with the magic cauldron of the Beatles’ own recordings. With harmonies borrowed from Because, Eleanor Rigby and Here There and Everywhere for the new recording, there’s a tantalizing prospect in store.

Add to John’s still potent writing powers from 1979, Paul’s unmatched musical invention, Ringo’s inimitable drumming and there’s only one man missing: George. Crucially they’ve made full use of that afternoon’s work he put in during the nineties.

The Beatles have had more final songs than number ones. And they’ve had plenty of those: 20 in all. And they’re deserving of another. But maybe this really is the final word.

Christopher James is an author, collage artist, and poet. He won the 2008 National Poetry Competition. His latest poetry pamphlet is The Storm in the Piano (Maytree Press, 2022)

John, Paul, George, Ringo…and Elvis

‘Without Elvis,’ John Lennon once declared, ‘there would be no Beatles.’ Yet songs by the King are conspicuous by their absence on The Beatles’ original albums.

What could the hip-shaking Memphis rockabilly of Elvis, and the Mop Tops’ mind-bending psychedelia, possibly have in common? It’s a long way from Liverpool to Tupelo, Mississippi. But the King’s influence runs deep throughout The Beatles’ work, both together and in their solo years. 

Even the most casual McCartney fan knows that Paul is now the owner of the Elvis Presley bass: the famous upright once played by Bill Black. You’ll find plenty of clips of Paul looking adoringly at it before essaying his a startlingly good version of Heartbreak Hotel.

‘They weren’t playing much of Elvis’ stuff on the radio in those days,’ Paul remembered. ‘To hear Heartbreak Hotel I had to go into a record shop in Liverpool and listen to it through headphones in one of those booths. It was a magical moment, the beginning of an era.’

John was equally moved: ‘When I first heard ‘Heartbreak Hotel’… me whole life changed from then on, I was just completely shaken by it.’

While perhaps more famous for his Little Richard screech, the dopy charm of Paul’s Elvis impersonation is just as convincing: full of love and respect for the man. You’ll hear it again on There’s Good Rockin’ Tonight and Blue Moon of Kentucky from his 1991 MTV Unplugged live album, as well as on scattered recordings from across several decades.

When The Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein was touting his boys to the record labels he described them, with astonishing prescience (or barely credible hyperbole) as ‘potentially bigger than Elvis.’ Once they’d got their deal, however, they largely steered clear of Elvis’ repertoire. Perhaps conscious they needed to make their own mark, The Beatles put some distance between themselves and the 20^th century’s other runaway pop phenomenon. Despite being huge fans, they only recorded four songs made famous by him, including Paul’s take on That’s Alright Mama. Even these only appear on the BBC recording sessions rather than any of the original 1962-70 LPs.

Countless other Elvis songs peppered their early live sets, when their gargantuan sessions at the Star Club and Reeperbahn in Hamburg necessitated an encyclopaedic knowledge of rock and roll. John took the lead on tough sounding material like Mean Woman Blues (later also covered by Paul on Unplugged, but unreleased). John’s drinking buddy, Brian Griffiths remembers being with John while Paul was heard practicing It’s Now or Never one morning in Hamburg. ‘Oh, why the frig’s he playing that sort of crap for?’ asked John. But Paul knew that an Elvis ballad was just the sort of thing the German crowds lapped up – even delivering Wooden Heart, complete with its German verse.   

Yet strangely none of these graduated onto the early albums, which were otherwise crammed with affectionate tributes to their other musical heroes. You can’t help but feel that when selecting the songs from their live act to fill their first LP, Please, Please Me, it was a deliberate move not to be seen paying such public homage to their transatlantic idol – and now rival.   

They were, by contrast, far less coy about recording Buddy Holly’s tunes, (no fewer than six on record, and 13 on stage) including That’ll Be The Day, their first ever recording as The Quarrymen in 1958. Admiring of Holly as a composer as well as performer, they even styled themselves after his band, the Crickets, with some slightly twee insectoid punning. If Buddy Holly had lived, and continued to flourish, perhaps they would have distanced themselves from him too.

While they might not have recorded many of his songs, Elvis’ influence can be found everywhere in The Beatles’ output. The flip side of their very first record, Paul and George’s In Spite of All the Danger, has the unmistakably ring of early Elvis – a distant cousin of the sort of mournful teenage cri de coeur Elvis so favoured when he wasn’t ripping it up. It even features the same, slightly hokey backing vocals you’ll find on Elvis’ 50s records. When Paul included it in his 2018 live set, it became an unexpected sing along favourite with fans. 

Then there’s Paul’s magnificently moody mumble on Back in the USSR. While it may be a Beach Boys pastiche in conception, the vocal is pure Elvis. The same is true for Lady Madonna – its boogie woogie styling has its roots in Fats Domino and Bad Penny Blues, but the voice is an echo of King; perhaps while it appealed to Elvis. He heard himself in it.

There’s a spirited but all too brief take on (You’re So Square) Baby I Don’t Care that surfaced on the deluxe reissue of The Beatles (White Album) in 2018. It was recorded directly before Helter Skelter, their proto-metal work out. It seemed that they hit upon the idea that channelling Elvis might put them in the zone for the heavy excursion that would follow. Meanwhile, when The Beatles’ 1969 Get Back sessions descended into a series of sloppy rock and roll jams, Elvis was one of their frequent go to points.   

While they may have cool towards the King in their recorded output, they couldn’t resist an opportunity to meet him in the flesh, a summit (brokered by their managers as a PR coup) which finally took place in Bel Air at the end of August, 1965. While it’s sold as one of the iconic moments of the 20^th century, the reality was somewhat anticlimactic. Priscilla Presley remembers The Beatles ‘being so excited, but so nervous. You could hear a pin drop when they came into the room… they were speechless. John was shy, timid. I think he couldn’t believe he was there with Elvis Presley.’

To break the ice, Elvis picked up an electric bass and played along to Mohair Sam, the Charlie Rich number, and an element of slightly forced larking reportedly ensued. John later claimed The Beatles ‘plugged in’ and jammed along, although the surviving Threetles in 1995 had no memory of this. (Ringo played football with him,’ George quipped. While no great friendship blossomed from this rather stilted meeting, Paul still remembers it as one of the great moments of his life.

Thirty years on, Paul, George and Ringo had conflicting recollections, but the sense of being star-struck was common to them all. ‘I mean, it was Elvis,’ recalled Paul, ‘he just looked like Elvis. Wow! That’s Elvis.’ Ringo lamented that he later discovered Elvis had tried to have the Beatles banned from America – either on the grounds that they were a corrupting influence or, more likely, that he didn’t want the competition.

They also learned something else: that fame wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. They took an instant dislike to Elvis’ court of hangers on and sycophants. They also saw that wealth, comfort and fame had somehow taken the edge off their idol. He wasn’t the same hungry hound dog they’d heard hollering through the static on Radio Luxenbourg. It was no coincidence that when John temporarily lost his mojo while procrastinating in the suburbs in 1965, he called it his ‘Fat Elvis period.’    

Clearly having parked his misgivings, Elvis turned to The Beatles’ songs during his Vegas years, covering Hey Jude and Yesterday (although, as Paul pointed out ‘he gets the last verse wrong’ slightly changing the lyrics to the less apologetic ‘I must have done something wrong, how I long…’ ‘He added a little disclaimer,’ says Paul). Elvis seemed to favour Paul’s tunes, although his version of George’s Something is perhaps the most famous of the five. His charmingly ramshackle version of Lady Madonna features some tasteful harmonica, although it’s clearly an impromptu recording as Elvis has only the shakiest grasp of the lyrics. He loses interest towards the end, clearly thinking of his lunch: ‘I’ll tell you what, are you guys hungry?’ There’s also a film showing Elvis take a stab at Get Back, as part of a loose medley. It’s fascinating to see him reclaim the pastiche of a quintessentially American sound and making it sound authentic.     

Once The Beatles were themselves history, they clearly grew much more relaxed about sharing their Elvis fixation. ‘I love Elvis so much,’ Paul told Uncut Magazine, ‘that for me to choose a favourite would be like singling out one of Picasso’s paintings.’ That said, the song Paul returned to most frequently was That’s All Right, Mama – including a version recorded with the late Scotty Moore, Elvis’ original guitarist, surely a dream come true for Paul.

John went further still: ‘I’m an Elvis fan,’ he admitted in 1975, ‘because it was Elvis who really got me out of Liverpool.’ In his promo film for Whatever Gets You Through the Night, John’s wearing an Elvis badge; while presenting the Grammy’s the same year, he sports a garish brooch spelling out the world ELVIS. By this point, he literally wore his influence on his sleeve. And further evidence, if any was needed, of his love for the man can be found in the unmistakable Memphis echo of (Just Like) Starting Over, the song that helped him kick-start his short lived comeback in 1980.     

As early as 1973, when putting together his slightly indulgent TV special, James Paul McCartney, Macca recorded four Elvis songs later dropped from the official release, including a delightfully playful, We’re Gonna Move and a less successful, schmaltzy version of It’s Now Or Never. Perhaps John had a point, back in Hamburg.  

Paul’s rock and roll covers projects, Run Devil Run and Choba B CCCP (‘Back in the USSR’) both lean heavily on Elvis’ output. The former (and superior of the two) features blistering versions of I Got Stung, All Shook Up and Party, which rank among Paul’s greatest covers (perhaps only bettered by Long Tally Sally), and he’s in superb voice throughout. Meanwhile, the Russian rock and rock album featured lively, although less inspired versions of Lawdy Miss Crawdy, and Just Because, also covered by John Lennon on his 1975 Rock and Roll album. For both Beatles, Elvis had a talismanic quality – almost beyond rational explanation, connecting them to some ghostly other world of magic and danger that lay beyond their reach.

It seemed Elvis defined for them the purest the spirit of rock – the original spark that lit the fire. Of course, The Beatles eventually transcended their rock and roll roots, later exploding into astonishing technicolour, their writing and recording becoming ever more experimental. Yet their sense of wonder at the person and image of Elvis never left them.   

Marvelling again at the mystery of Elvis’ appeal, Paul circles back to Heartbreak Hotel: ‘Elvis is a truly great vocalist, and you can hear why on this song. His phrasing, his use of echo, it’s all so beautiful. It’s the way he sings it, too. As if he’s singing it from the depths of Hell. It’s a perfect example of a singer being in command of the song.’

When Paul finally visited Graceland in 2013, he left a plectrum bearing his own name on Elvis’ grave ‘so Elvis could play in Heaven,’ where perhaps John finally got his chance to jam with him after all.   

The Boss at 70: When I was kidnapped by Bruce Springsteen fans for a lost weekend in the north

It’s a cold, Saturday night in March, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1996. My flatmates – medics and geography students with exams approaching, are making pasta in their dressing gowns or watching Friends on TV, their revision notes resting on their laps. As an English student, I have a somewhat more relaxed schedule. But this evening there is renewed sense of urgency. Tonight, Bruce Springsteen is in town.

But this is not the barnstorming Bruce of Born in the USA and Badlands, all chiming electric guitars and thunderous drums. This is The Ghost of Tom Joad acoustic tour. He’s picking up where he left off with the Nebraska album: mournful downbeat ballads inspired by the lost souls of the American south and Mexican border; Steinbeck anti-heroes. Still Bruce is Bruce and I’m drawn like a moth to the light.

It all began five years earlier. Babysitting for the neighbours’ kids, I was rummaging through their tapes, and stumbled on Born in the USA and Dark Side of the Moon. I had heard of both, but had listened to neither. While my fourteen-year-old self found himself impatient with the celestial space-rock of the Floyd’s album, what punched home was the whip snap guitar, the howl and bear-like roar of The Boss. While I was later to discover his soulful depths, the folk, the storytelling, like millions of others, I was lured in by the big, bright, bold production, the Chuck Berry-like torrent of lyrics and the lock-tight band.

It was the start of a journey that took me from boy to a man. I dropped the needle on Born to Run when I got my GCSE results. I prepped for my driving test by listening to Racing in the Street (I would have been better off swatting up on my highway code) I snogged to The River and drive through France with the Live album ringing in my headphones. At one point my lovely American aunt takes me to his front drive, where I collect a pebble and put it in my pocket (my little brother later lobs it in the sea…). By the time his flawed twin albums Human Touch and Lucky Town arrived, I was loyal enough to look beyond their weaknesses and appreciate that even below-par Bruce was above-par everyone else. Which takes us up to ‘96.

Approaching the end of my third year, all three of my student loans have now evaporated in a cloud of Newcastle Brown Ale, second hand books and cheese and pickle stotties. I have about fifty pounds to make it to the end of term, still a couple of weeks away. My credit card is lying in two pieces at the bottom of an HSBC wastepaper basket after it was neatly snipped in half in front of me.

All the evidence says I should stay in. Instead I grab my coat, withdraw all my earthly wealth and head down to the City Hall. Declining a hundred-pound ticket from a tout, I shuffle to the back of the returns queue and pray to the angels of E-Street to let me in. I’m with a couple from Manchester, Dave and Sue. Between them, they carry a flask, packed lunch and a vinyl copy of The River from 1980, hoping for a signature. They saw Bruce last night and loved it so much they drove across the country on the off chance of getting a ticket for tonight. We hang around for twenty minutes exchanging Bruce-lore, all of us quietly aware that the chances of someone deciding not to go and see Bruce Springsteen and stay in and watch Friends instead, are quite slim. That is until the president of the Bruce Springsteen fan club ambles up and waves three tickets like winning lottery tickets. At first we think he’s gloating, until he says: ‘Face value is fine,’ he adds casually. ‘Who’s a three?’

‘We’re a three,’ Dave says immediately, grabbing his wife and me, and holding us up by our collars to demonstrate the fact. The deal is swiftly done and we glide into the venue, unable to believe our luck. Bruce is reliably magnificent, playing an all acoustic set of Mexican border songs peppered with dramatic renderings from his back catalogue. His new version of Darkness On the Edge of Town now sounds like Pinball Wizard. He essays a blistering slide guitar version of Born in the USA, its fist punching chorus entirely absent. When someone calls for Thunder Road, he growls: ‘I ‘aint playing that old bastard.’ With a ponytail, goatee and torn white t-shirt, he looks more like a pirate shipwrecked at Whitley Bay than a millionaire from New Jersey.

I get chatting to the fans on my other side, two blokes and their sister, all from Liverpool, who tell me their allegiance is divided between Bruce and Jackson Browne. ‘When I listen to Jackson,’ says one of the brothers, ‘I kind of feel like I’m cheating on my wife.’ They ask me what I’m doing here on my own, and I tell them the smallest white lie: that I’m covering the gig for the local paper.

‘A journalist!’ one of them exclaims. ‘Flippin ‘eck, we’ve got a journalist here! Mind your Ps and Qs Deborah.’ I daren’t tell them that it’s just the student paper.

After the gig, they whisk me across town to a tiny club where, in a surreal twist, Denny Laine, the Moody Blues and Wings’ guitarist is just finishing a gig. One of the brothers pushes me to the front. ‘Hey Denny, he says, ‘we’ve got the press here! Will you have a word?’ Forced to improvise on the spot, and without so much as a pen and paper for a prop, I tell him I love Again and Again and Again, an obscure late Wings’ song he wrote. He seems to like this, but I quickly realise it’s not a question. ‘Er, what songs are you playing on the tour?’ I blunder. ‘The ones I just played,’ he replies. I retreat to the bar.

The next thing I know, I’m in a new-build house in a village outside Newcastle being plied with more booze. We sing Jackson Browne, Bruce and Neil Young until the small hours. I’m younger than the rest of them by a good ten years, but they seem to have adopted me. ‘How come you know all this old stuff?’ Deborah ask me. ‘Well you see,’ I explain, ‘there was this stack of cassettes…’

When I wake in the morning dribbling into the grey carpet of a home office. A cup of tea is delivered, and I’m informed we’re heading up to Edinburgh.  I wonder whether I’ve been kidnapped. If I have, then I’ve developed a serious case of Stockholm syndrome.

Over the next 24 hours, I’m driven to the Scottish capital, plied with more booze, bought a ticket for Bruce’s Edinburgh show (‘We’re earning, you’re not’ they tell me) and taken on a pub crawl. We stay over at Deborah’s house. Next day, I’m deposited on a grey street in Newcastle with a telephone number scratched on a piece of paper, watching their car disappear around the corner. Two Bruce gigs and about fifteen pints for twenty-five quid. This is the sort of thing that only happens at Bruce Springsteen gigs.

I can’t help but feel it’s the sort of thing the man himself would approve of. Ordinary decent people sharing what they have and looking out for each other, bonded by a common love for music. Bruce keeps adding new chapters to his story and everyone else’s. His latest album, Western Stars, is a jewel. But for my part, I still treasure those two lost days of adventure, travelling up the beautiful Northumbria coast into Scotland, stepping out of my own life for a little while, with the windows down and sound of Bruce’s voice and guitar filling the sky.

Happy birthday, Bruce. Thanks for the music and thanks to your great fans too.

The Penguin Diaries by Christopher James, 65 sonnets about Captain Scott’s last expedition, is available now.

‘Sing us an old song’ – Review of Before by Boo Hewerdine

A new album by Boo Hewerdine is always an occasion for bell-ringing, carousing and general rejoicing. In short, it’s something to look forward to. ‘Before’ is no exception. Except ‘looking forward to’ is perhaps the wrong phrase, because this is another impeccable collection of those irresistibly old-fashioned songs in which Boo excels.

He admits as much himself in ‘Old Songs,’ in praise of the ancient melodies that had families gathered in parlours singing with grandad, a pint of stout and a woodbine. ‘Sing us an old song,’ he begs, ‘one we all know, that lives in our memories from so long ago.’ It’s a lament for a simpler, happier time when families didn’t disappear into their devices and Netflix box sets on a Friday evening. Not only does it seem like it was written about the 1930s, it sounds like it was written then too. What makes Boo’s music so audacious is that he attempts (and usually succeeds) in creating brand new classics.

There are two theories. Either he has a stash of Sinatra and Nat King Cole albums that no one else has heard, and is slowly releasing the songs, or else he has an ear trumpet that reaches all the way back to 1937. His ability to transport you back to the golden age of popular song is consistently astonishing.

Last Rays of the Sun is a nostalgic, elegiac reflection on ageing, with toy piano accompaniment. ‘We see true beauty in the last rays of the sun.’ It’s one of those luminous, mid-pace numbers that Boo has made his own. His McCartney-esque melody is a counterpoint to the gloomy ruminations, the metronomic ticking in the background reminding us of the unstoppable march of time.

One of the many delicious quirks of this album are the extra tracks between the songs – eccentric instrumentals that foreshadow the main songs. For example, the one before Before is called Before Before. It’s a little confusing, but you get the idea. These are recorded in bizarre, creaky, arrangements on what sound like Japanese banjos and toy pianos. They’re like those odd, lean-to sheds that are squeezed into the gaps between houses. My favourite is Prepared, a funky, lo-fi interlude that threatens to turn into something interesting before vanishing into the ether.

If the opening track is a reflection on advancing years, then Imaginary Friends is a bittersweet look back at childhood spent on bicycles riding ‘by the old canal.’ It conjures images of a lonely existence, but with the consolation of a vivid imagination. It’s graced with beautiful instrumental passages, descending lines and unusual instrumentation.

Silhouette is the first of the true classics, beginning with a delicate, timpani-like accompaniment, rather like opening a music box. The lyric is masterful ‘When shadows are your own company, then you’re a silhouette.’ While classic sounding, the melodies are genuinely affecting, reliably inventive and freshly minted.

The title song, Before, continues the purple patch. Except this time, we’re not merely returning to the early 20^th century. Instead Boo transports us back several million years ago, to an unspoilt planet Earth untroubled by human meddling. ‘Come with me and understand, this was never our own land.’ It’s a brilliantly original take on conservation, climate change and a warning against hubris. We weren’t around for billions of years and the Earth did just fine without us.

Reno is something of a departure; a low-key country balled, complete with mournful dobro. ‘Don’t go to Reno’ is Boo’s advice – ‘you won’t come back this time.’ By the resigned tone of his singing, he doesn’t believe you’ll follow his advice. He knows you’ll be led into temptation.

Undoubtedly the jewel of the collection is Starlight, a song he had already gifted to Eddie Reader. She delivers an ethereally beautiful cover; yet Boo’s stripped back version is arguably better. His voice is high and keening and the melody utterly mesmerising. If it found its way into a Disney film it would earn him a million pounds.

Wild Honey is another magical tune, with fragmented poetic lyrics, but like so many of the songs on Before, it’s tinged with melancholy. That’s perhaps why the optimistic, defiant sounding ‘I Wish I Had Wings’ is such a welcome closer. I imagined hundreds of synchronised swimmers performing to it, in a lavish finale to an MGM musical. ‘I know these words aren’t much, but I don’t care/I can hear an orchestra it’s in the air.’

One day, these new songs will become old songs and people will appreciate more than they do now.  Bravo Boo Hewerdine on a first-class return.

Before is released in September.

The summer of Bruce

When it comes to Bruce, it’s all about the power and the glory, the hope and the dreams. These are the sort of words that come up when people ask you what the fuss is all about. It’s also about jangling rock and roll, wild soul singing, stinging guitar solos and drums that make you think the stadium is collapsing around your ears.

Bruce spent a significant portion of his summer touring the cities of Europe like a one man EU trade delegation, and if ever a continent needed cheering up, it’s Europe with its youth unemployment and economic woes. I was lucky enough to catch him twice (thanks to friends Mark and Stephen) and I was able to remind myself why I’ve played his records at all my life’s significant moments – after getting my GCSE results (Born to Run) before my driving test (Cadillac Ranch) arriving in my Student Room (Out in the Street) before I got married (The River) before my son was born (Walk like a Man). So it was good to catch up with the man himself.

Coventry was a rain swept experience with some frustrations as well as plenty of highlights. Events were a overshadowed further by the fact that it was the same day we heard James Gandolfi had died and fellow actor and Bruce Right Hand Man Steve Van Zandt wore a black bandana. Managing what should essentially be a party under this double rain cloud was a potentially difficult trick to pull off. Such melancholy fare as Seeds, Trapped and Long Walk Home, requested by the die hard fans down the front, while stirring stuff, confused some of the more casual fans and held up the show a little. ‘I’ve got no idea what’s going on, ‘ confessed one baffled Brummie near me, ‘I’ve only got the best of.’

Wrecking Ball and Death to my Hometown (whose anti banker vitriol and stomping power chimed with the crowd) brought the gig back on its feet and the entire Born to Run album that followed was hard to argue with. I’d never heard the full electric Thunder Road live, and it was a thing of awesome beauty. My voice started to shred as I sang along, but other voices around me carried it home as the rain poured down. We Are Alive was another winner – a superb piece of song writing telling the story of America in forgotten voices singing from beyond the grave. With some crowd pleasing Born in the USA selections (with the title track back at its bombastic best) as well as belting folk sing-alongs Shackled and Drawn Pay and Me My Money Down (where he impersonated the crowd’s collective ‘British ass’ inviting them to ‘shake me!’) the battle was eventually won.

In contrast, Bruce at Hard Rock Calling, on a hot summer night next to the Olympic Stadium was how the man is meant to be appreciated. Uninhibited by rain or bereavement, this was foot on the floor party central. Disposing of Badlands and Prove it All Night early on – in other circumstances the culmination of a show – Bruce laid on a feast of rock and roll. Johnny 99 was a soaring highlight, recast from the Nebraska album as a kind of Status Quo meets Woody Guthrie protest rocker. It’s hard to explain but the towering, electrified performance of one of his best songs was the gold standard for me.

Bruce‘s announcement: ‘You get the Born in the USA album start to finish’ was greeted with the kind of reception you would otherwise get in an office if the boss walked in and announced he was giving everyone the day off. While most Bruce fans, rarely play this one anymore, hearing I’m Goin’ Down and No Surrender live is to experience the kind of delirium you might only otherwise get if England won the World Cup and you won the lottery all on the same afternoon. Yes, Bruce is all about being over the top.

As the sun set over the silver Olympic Velodrome and the strings of Jungleland rang out, I remembered what all the fuss was about. Bruce is about the triumph, the joy and the glory, as well the courage to get back on your feet. He banishes fear and makes everything possible. Of course, like any drug, the effects wear off after a while, but then you are left with the enduring miracle of how a 63 year old man can lift the spirits of an entire continent. As Joe Strummer said, it’s ‘a public service announcement – with guitars!’