The Beatles recorded The Coasters’ ‘Young Blood’ on 1 June 1963, for the BBC radio show Pop Go The Beatles.
‘Young Blood’ was written in 1957 by the songwriting team Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, together with Doc Pomus. It was originally the b-side of The Coasters’ March 1957 single ‘Searchin”, a song The Beatles had recorded during their audition for Decca Records on 1 January 1962.
On 29 August 1985 a fan’s recording of The Beatles performing at the Cavern Club was sold for £2,310 at Sotheby’s auction house, London. ‘Young Blood’ was one of 18 songs on the tape, which was bought by Paul McCartney.
The recording dates from mid 1962, although a precise date has not been found. Nothing from the tape has found a wider audience, either officially or on bootlegs.
On 1 June 1963 the group performed ‘Young Blood’ for the second edition of the BBC radio show Pop Go The Beatles. It was recorded at the BBC Paris Studio in London, and first broadcast on 11 June.
George Harrison took lead vocals on The Beatles’ version of ‘Young Blood’, with a handful of lines in the chorus and middle eight sung by McCartney and John Lennon. This version of the song was eventually released in 1994 on Live At The BBC.
Lyrics
I saw her standing on the corner
A yellow ribbon in her hair
I couldn’t stop myself from calling
Why look a-there, look a-there
Why look a-there, why look a-there
Young blood
Oh young blood
Young blood
I can’t get you out of my mind
I took one look and I was fractured
I tried to walk but I was lame
I tried to talk but I just stuttered
Why what’s your name? What’s your name?
Why what’s your name? What’s your name?
Young blood
Young blood
Young blood
I can’t get you out of my mind
What crazy stuff, she looked so tough
I tried to follow her all the way home
But things went bad, I met her dad
He said ‘You better leave my daughter alone’
I tried to sleep but I just couldn’t
I saw the rising of the sun
And all along my heart was calling
Why you’re the one, you’re the one
Why you’re the one, a-you’re the one
Young blood
Oh young blood
Yeah young blood
I can’t get you out of my mind
Yeah young blood
Oh young blood
Yeah young blood
I can’t get you out of my mind
Joe – I have no basis for this except for my tired old ears, but do I hear Ringo singing (talking) one of the “look a-there” lines?
I’ve listened to this song several times trying to pick out who is singing. It sounds to me that it goes George, Paul, George then John
That’s right, Jeff. It’s most definitely George, Paul, George, John on the repeated lines. John’s ‘what’s your name’ always cracks me up; he sounds like he’s doing his ‘crip face’ during that lyric.
I agree totally with you Jeff and JPM-Fangirl on the vocal sequence of George, Paul, George (again), and John on those amusing instrumental breaks. For something fun when my son was very young, I would point to their pictures as they were singing their respective lines to help my son make the connection. And we too would crack up at John’s having fun with his last lines in the sequence.
Yeah, I think Ringo’s one of the four, even though they’re all doing fairly goofy voices! Many of those wonderful Coasters classics had little vocal bits that the four singers subdivided among themselves. Ringo was available, so I can’t see any reason why they wouldn’t use his voice, unless maybe the BBC facilities had no means of miking a drummer. I’ll have to give this another listen tonight to make sure.
Which leads me to wondering: Were those BBC sessions generally recorded live-off-the-floor, with live vocals; or did they overdub vocals (and maybe other things) afterwards? The BBC version of “A Hard Day’s Night” very obviously punched in the regular studio recording of the instrumental break. That’s not an overdub, but it does show that SOME tampering was done, in at least that one case. (The Beeb version of “I Feel Fine” may have similarly punched in the feedback intro.)
The BBC version of I Feel Fine has different sound of feedback, so I suppose it was recorded during this rendition of the song. The BBC recordings were mostly live, recorded in 1 take, but as noted in “Live At The BBC” booklet the “BBC” feedback took a couple of takes to record.
Thanks for the info!
regarding AHDN. The Piano was taken from the Studio version as George Martin couldn’t come in to perform with the lads
Ohh, when you say that Ringo is singing the last ” Look a there”
I believe it’s John, he’s always making goofy voices, and you really hear his voice, ringo’s more bass 🙂
Small point of confusion among beatlesbible, wikipedia (entry for Young Blood) and the-paulmccartney-project.com, all of which seem to cross-cite each other in various ways: did the Beatles play Young Blood at the Decca audition? I’m guessing not but that info seems to be out there. I’m guessing the only recording of them doing it is the one 1963 BBC track. It’s a pretty great song chord progression-wise.
As far as I can tell, it’s only the PM Project that says they did it at the Decca audition. They didn’t, according to Lewisohn’s Tune In. A non-BBC recording, as mentioned in the article, was made at the Cavern Club in 1962.
Unless there were more songs done at the Decca audition than the 15 we currently know of, “Young Blood” was not one of them. On the original Coasters single, “Young Blood” was the flip-side of “Searchin'”, which the Beatles DID do for Decca. That’s probably where the confusion stems from.
By the way, Ringo’s voice is NOT on the BBC version of “Young Blood”. Thor version was popular enough for fans to write in later requesting them to perform it on the BBC again, but they never did.