A Little Night Music: Sean Connery Reads Beatles' Lyrics To 'In My Life'

In 1998 the Beatles' producer George Martin produced an album of covers of some of the Beatles songs he originally produced.

The album was a hit and miss, in my view, but having the great Scot actor Sean Connery read the Lennon-McCartney lyrics from In My Life was inspired.

You can listen to Sean Connery via the below link:

In My Life - Sean Connery - YouTube

You can listen to the George Martin In My Life album via the below link:

Robin Williams & Bobby McFerrin - Come Together (George Martin: In My Life CD) - YouTube

And you can listen to the Beatles' In My Life via the below link:     

In My Life (Remastered 2009) - YouTube 

Meet The Beatles, Johnny Carson, James Bond And The Cuban Missile Crisis: October 1962 Brought Not Just The Arival On Screen James Bond, But A History Book Full Of Enduring Pop Culture Icons

 

Joe Neumaier at the New York Daily News wrote an interesting piece that looks back at October 1962.

It’s been noted that 1962 was one of the great years — if not the greatest — in pop culture.

Let’s pinpoint things even more precisely: 50 years ago, October 1962, is when it all changed.

As the Cuban missile crisis brought the world closer than ever to its end, there was an explosion of beginnings whose aftershocks are still being felt.

One of the biggest was James Bond’s debut stroll across the screen — seen through the barrel of a gun — in “Dr. No.” The first 007 film, featuring Sean Connery as the British superspy and the blueprint for every Bond flick and so many other thrillers since, still holds up beautifully.

... Meanwhile, on television, Oct. 1, 1962, saw Johnny Carson's debut as host of “The Tonight Show.” Today, some half a dozen Carson heirs and aspirants stroll onto the air between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m. In music, the Beatles released their first single, “Love Me Do,” in the U.K. the same day “Dr. No” opened. (Its flip side: “P.S. I Love You.”) In America, the Beach Boys’ debut album, “Surfin’ Safari,” was released on Oct. 1. (It’s title track, from the previous June, is one of the original “songs of summer.”)

On Oct. 24, James Brown recorded his classic “Live at the Apollo,” backed by the Famous Flames. And on Oct. 26, Motown Records launched “The Motortown Revue” in Washington, D.C.,, featuring Marvin Gaye, the Supremes, the Miracles, the Marvelettes, Mary Wells and 12-year-old sensation Little Stevie Wonder.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/october-1962-brought-arrival-screen-james-bond-a-history-book-full-enduring-pop-culture-icons-article-1.1163940?pgno=1#ixzz27OOmq6BM

Note: I remember October 1962 well, as I was 10-years-old at the time. I became a big fan of the Beatles and Ian Fleming's character James Bond, and I recall that I was frightened of our heading towards a nuclear world war during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Songs From Youth Revisited

In my last post I linked to a piece by a British writer who claimed that he'd rather watch an old Sherlock Holmes film from his youth than a modern mystery.

This lead me to think of my late father.

When I was a kid growing up in South Philadelphia my father, a child of the Depression and a World War II veteran, had a workshop in our basement where he would spend most Saturday afternoons playing old records on an old record player.

I got a kick out of hearing the old songs, as did my older brother, because the songs were to us from the Stone Age - the 1940s and 1950s.

The only "modern" songs he played were Barry Sadler's 1966 The Ballad of the Green Berets and Brook Benton's 1961 The Boll Weevil Song.

I still recall hearing Frankie Laine's The Kid's Last Fight, Jean Shepard and Ferlin Husky's Dear John and other songs from my father's youth that he played over and over.

And now that I've passed my father's age, it amuses me that I find myself in my South Philadelphia basement office & library, playing songs from my youth, such as the Beatles, the Animals, Motown, Chicago, Steely Dan, Doobie Brothers and other groups from my teens in the 1960s and my 20s in the 1970s. (I listen to smooth jazz and other modern music as well).

Thanks to www.youtube.com we can revisit songs from our youth and listen to songs from our parents' youth.

You can listen to Frankie Laine's The Kid's Last Fight via the below link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhFZZNgUVpc

Jean Shepard and Ferlin Husky's Dear John:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMueKWzG0WE

Brook Benton's The Boll Weevil Song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVwjYptcnAY

Barry Sadler's The Ballad of the Green Berets:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0w6Bqma4qM

And some songs from my youth:

The Beatles' Yesterday:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwS_YDzxH3M

The Beatles' Abbey Road Medley:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pM3PVzDUCY

The Four Tops' Baby, I Need Your Lovein':

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joqjBAJx4ZA

The Temptations' My Girl:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbAaLdLguLo

The Animals' The House of the Rising Sun:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmdPQp6Jcdk

The Rolling Stones' Satisfaction:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3a7cHPy04s8

John Barry's theme song from Goldfinger:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgN50uAp4pg

Chicago's Beginnings:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxmD724H70Q

Chicago's Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-2rkWL8nx4&feature=related

Steely Dan's Reelin' In the Years:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBllejn5fVA

Steely Dan's Deacon Blues:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NntyxRhmFho&feature=related

The Doobie Brothers' Echoes of Love:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4Lj2iZzqRk&feature=relmfu

The Doobie Brothers' Minute By Minute:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_GmuIHL_EM

Boz Scaggs' Lowdown:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65EoK4OelZU

And from my clubbing and dancing days in the 1970s:

Chic's Le Freak:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqupk71a-O0

France Joli's Come To Me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voxU5X2VOCg

Donna Summer's I Feel Love:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljxm3NsnVI0&feature=related

The Trammps' Disco Inferno:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_sY2rjxq6M

Thelma Huston's Don't Ask to Stay Until Tomorrow from Looking For Mr Goodbar:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhbjmdYXKVM