The Beatles cover Paul McCartney called “mind-blowing”
The Beatles have been covered more times than you’ve had hot dinners. Considering John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr were responsible for writing some of the most formative and revered pop songs in the history of recorded music, this isn’t all that surprising. The Beatles’ music laid the foundations for British pop, making their records an obvious choice for musicians looking to hark back to the glory days while offering something innovative. Here, Paul McCartney opens up about his favourite Beatles cover of all.
It’s certainly true that The Beatles’ music only gets better with age, but some of the finest Beatles covers are those contemporary with the band itself. Take Joe Cocker’s 1968 rendition of ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’, which was released just a year after The Beatles unveiled their 1967 conceptual masterpiece Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Born and raised in Sheffield, Cocker signed to Decca Records in 1964, for whom he recorded his debut single, a version of The Beatles ‘I’ll Cry Instead’. Sadly, the song failed to chart. Four years and many attempts later, Cocker released ‘Marjorine’ via EMI’s Zonophone label, which peaked at number 48 on the UK singles chart. Much more celebrated was his cover of the Lennon/McCartney hit ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’. One of the friends hired to lend a hand during Cocker’s recording session was none other than Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page.
The song topped the UK charts that November and was even endorsed by The Beatles themselves, much to Cocker’s delight. When Joe died in 2014, Paul issued a statement in which he recalled hearing the rendition for the first time. “I remember [Cocker] and Denny Cordell coming round to the studio in Saville Row and playing me what they’d recorded. It was just mind-blowing … [he] totally turned the song into a soul anthem, and I was forever grateful for him for doing that.”
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