(Credits: Far Out / Eva Rinaldi)
There are loads of songs that had been hits again of their day that completely wouldn’t fly within the fashionable world due to how attitudes have modified, and whilst you would possibly consider The Beatles as having been squeaky clear on this respect, they definitely did take a look at the restrict of acceptability.
‘Run For Your Life’ is a bit gross with its insinuation that unhealthy issues are coming for the ‘little girl’ if she finally ends up dishonest on the protagonist that John Lennon assumes the place of, however ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ is a little bit worse with its cringeworthy opening line of “well she was just 17, you know what I mean,” which paints Paul McCartney in maybe essentially the most grim style for the way in which he’s a younger lady.
I’m certain when you sought out their opinions on these explicit situations on reflection, they’d really feel a little bit little bit of regret, and McCartney has definitely denounced a number of the creepier situations of lyrics that he sang with the band throughout their unstoppable run within the Sixties.
However, that didn’t stop their former drummer, Ringo Starr, from making the ill-informed determination to cowl a reasonably problematic and predatory song for his 1973 album, Ringo, which is maybe one of the crucial grotesque shows of lyricism that he’s ever undertaken. While with the Beatles, he was identified for contributing vocals to a number of the band’s extra whimsical materials, reminiscent of ‘Yellow Submarine’ or ‘Octopus’s Garden’, however as soon as the highlight was firmly positioned on him after their cut up, he made one foul song selection that haunted him for years.
On this explicit solo enterprise, he ended up doing a canopy of ‘You’re Sixteen’ by the Sherman Brothers and launched it as a single, however he most likely ought to have observed there after which that it wasn’t a good suggestion to be singing a song like this on the age of 33.
He tried to declare a number of years later, in 2007, that it wasn’t his suggestion, and that he regrets it now, however on the similar time, he nonetheless agreed to commit to performing and recording the song, which made him considerably complicit in its moderately abhorrent message.
In the liner notes of his Photograph: The Very Best of Ringo Starr compilation, he claimed it was the choice of his then-producer that satisfied him to do the song. “Richard Perry presented the idea of covering this fifties song, and it just worked really well. If you’re open, you try things. But I can’t do that song onstage anymore. I can’t stand there singing those lyrics about a girl being 16.”
While he was evidently remorseful for having made the choice, he then recounted a time when he carried out it live and realised the influence of the creepy lyrics. “I did it in Texas, and part of the act is I would go up and point at a woman and sing ‘You’re Sixteen’ and then signal like, ‘Well, maybe not.’ This woman stood up like she wanted to stab me. I couldn’t look that direction the whole night.”
It’s hardly an important excuse for having seen past the lurid lyrical content material on the time, however no less than he’s gone on to realise that there’s no good time or place to be singing a song about preying on youngsters. However, the truth that he nonetheless selected to embrace it on his best hits compilation does increase a couple of eyebrows, because the song isn’t precisely okay on this context both.
