JOE COCKER – "With A Little Help From My Friends"

Not to mention The Wonder Years, which resurrected this song for a whole new generation of blues-scared teenagers and initricably coupled it in their brain with insipid life lesson learning sitcoms.

“You know, that’s when I realised that though my Dad was some sort of righteous smiting Zeuslike vengeful God in my brain, in everyone elses brain he was the guy down the street who looked a bit like Fred Flintstone”.

This really nails why I don’t care for this version of the song. It’s hard to be loud and humble at the same time, I guess.

A couple other points that work against it for me. First, the playing seems so sloppy. I’m sure all the musicians are talented, but their performances seem slovenly. Second, this might be THE song where it seems to me that popular music (read: white rock) became impossible to dance to, which I’m convinced is the moment when any particular genre begins to lose its hold on mass popularity. You can’t slow dance to this, you can’t fast dance – really, you can get very stoned, stand in one spot, and sway woozily back and forth. I seem to recall audience members doing in the movie of Woodstock, and it just never seemed like a good time to me.

Was this the ” Mad Dogs & Englishmen ” days for Joe ? I’m not a big fan of live albums but that was one of the best. And , as I recall , the Woodstock version of this song was a scorcher …

Number one “live album ‘ever : ” Waiting For Columbus ” by Little Feat.

I’m beginning to think Tom and soul singing don’t mix. THat’s the second time in the last half dozen posts.

Sorry everyone, I think this is rubbish. I’m not a fan of Joe Cocker generally, but I think he’s done better than this. The fundamental problem is that it’s a silly song they wrote for Ringo to sing. And that’s fine, but it leaves ol’ Joe straining to emote something that just isn’t there. He ends up sounding a bit constipated.

Cocker would appear to be a common name in Sheffield, no?

Thinking about the song some more overnight, I was struck by how complex* it is (not this recording as such, I mean the writing). In particular, the shifting “you” of the lyric. (Is this the “switch up” that Blount refers to above?) Going back to the Beatles version, the “you” starts out as the person Ringo is singing to, but by the end of the song, the most logical construction is that the “you” is Ringo. And in the middle it’s ambiguous who the “you” is, especially in verse 2. In other words, it’s debatable where the switch-over occurs. The Cocker version irons out a lot of these ambiguities, which may be where it fails, if at all.

The other thing I meant to say before in defence of the Cocker version is how fab the arrangement is. I mentioned the dynamic range in passing above (and far from the musiciams playing slovenly, as someone said, I hear every beat and pause as incredibly calculated). Not to mention the change from the clomp clomp 4/4 (or skippety skippety 12/8 if you prefer) of the original to waltz time; the Cocker version is not just slowed down. Some thought has gone into how to make it work as a slow dance.

*substitute “not very well thought through” for “complex” if you prefer. But I don’t think you can dismiss it as a ‘silly song’, if by that is meant ‘tossed off’. There’s too much going on in it for that.

OK I shut up now.

Slightly off topic, but this got me thinking about another cover version which illustrates both Jeff and Tom’s Cover Version Rules – “if you’re going to cover something, do something new with it” and “if you slow something down it becomes more serious but not necessarily better”. I can listen to the original version of “Over the Rainbow”, but Eva Cassidy followed by countless X Factor types have ruined it. “With A Little Help” was a charming lightweight song that was very effectively reworked by Cocker, “Over the Rainbow” was similar but needs to be kept simple – overwrought versions messing about with the phrasing as a substitute for emotion just ruin it.

Practical advice for making a cover version:

Take a BAD song and make it better.

(if you can……………)

I’m going to go entirely against the grain here and say that I actually like this recording. Because I don’t think that these “I love/hate this and everyone else is stupid” remarks contribute much to a discussion, though, I’ve been waiting until I could figure out what I like about it.

I believe/like it because it is absurd. Yes, this recording is absurd. This is a song about acknowledging that one does not, indeed cannot, stand alone. This is completely and unambiguously convincing (not to mention) when sung with Ringo’s quavering baritone. But here we have Cocker’s big growling, grunting, menacing, even bullying voice that seems as if it would tear the song’s sentiments to shreds. If this is not absolutely absurd, it is surely at least incongruous.

And I like its sense of dialogue. Perhaps my opera background is creeping in here, but what clinches it more me is the section later in the performance where the volume drops and the female voices (including the fabulous Madeline Bell) ask “Would you believe in a love at first sight?”, he responds, with a slight hesitation, “I’m certain that it happens all the time, yeah,” as if this is a completely new idea–a contrast with the previous bluster. (The Beatles, on the other hand, treat this exchange in a very matter-of-fact way, as if there could be no other answer.) This moment comes close to unintentional camp–but not quite. I’m almost convinced it’s sincere–an assumption I rarely make.

I suppose what I like about it is that it strikes me as if it represents the bully, the bloke without the slightest finesse or subtelty, coming to realize that he isn’t self-sufficient after all. Somehow, this doesn’t seem like what was supposed to happen after the bravura of the opening.

I won’t say that’s necessarily an improvement over Ringo modestly acknowledging what is already quite apparent. I think the original point of the song what that it was custom-made for Ringo, whose voice bears no resemblance to Joe Cocker’s. (And, by the way, I am still quite fond of the Beatles’ version as well.)

I could, of course, be entirely wrong. And I daresay that those who disagree can offer reasonable suggestions to the contrary. We like what we like.

But one other thing that should be said in its favor is that it’s a CREATIVE cover version that doesn’t merely recapitulate what the original did. What’s the point in that? (And that’s the question that I have to ask about the NEXT Beatles cover, coming up soon.

Thank you, Tom.

Cocker as Caliban, hearing the spirit voices singing……

Blimey! I really can’t understand how much of a panning this great record has taken from my Popular Pals as I have always regarded it as one of the sixties’ great spectacluars. I thought its usage as a backdrop for “The Wonder Years” worked wonderfully well too. Just goes to show.

Cocker as Caliban, I can see. Cliff could be cast as Ariel with Ian Anderson lording it over them both as Prospero.

DESERT ISLAND DISCS WATCH:

Emma Thompson, actress(2010).

RIP, aged 70. I was a bit surprised to discover that given that I remembered this as being a hit at the end of the 80s. I think I was conflating Wet Wet Wet’s cover of same and Jim (not even Joe!) Diamond being an 80s singer.

having grown up as a kid with the Sgt Pepper version – as the only contemporary pop LP my parents owned – I was a bit confused by this. I found Joe’s performance a little scary at the time – this wasn’t how I expected adults to behave. I still find it a bit over egged as a performance. Like many white singers trying to do soul Joe forces the emotion whereas IMO the best soul singers sound as if they are struggling to contain the feeling.

I think Joe really nails this. An iconic version of this Beatles song. 8/10 for me.