I've Just Seen a Face

In a field of so many incredible songs, it's difficult to pick the single Beatles tune that's the best. But this one's got to be on the short list. It comes from "Help!" and was written by Paul McCartney in the early 1960's. If you haven't heard the original, you can hear it here on YouTube.

Jeff and I started playing it in September. It was nothing really serious, just a little bit here and there to fill some space when we got bored of other songs. Originally, we were playing it pretty slowly. We thought we'd slow the original song down while fingerpicking through the chords and maybe focus instead on the vocals.

It's not great, but here's what it sounded like back in September:

Either Jeff or I had a rare moment of brilliance and decided to pep it back up again. Keeping attention on the vocals was important, so we tried to minimize the instrumentation and play without any major indulgences with our guitars - a simple bass line and some staccato rhythm work.

Here's a voice memo recording of what that sounded like.

We liked it, abandoned how we'd been previously playing it, and committed to that faster version. Here's our final cut.

Jeff is singing the double melody parts and playing the bass pattern (interesting given that The Beatles original doesn't include a bass guitar). I'm singing the harmony and playing the rhythm guitar.

There's a double solo.

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