(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
From January 1963, The Beatles appeared on BBC’s Saturday Club and a myriad of other radio shows on several occasions before they received the ultimate recognition from the BBC, who invited them to curate and present their own show, Pop Go the Beatles. The weekly instalment saw the band co-host the programme, interact with other presenters, welcome special guests, take listeners’ requests, play some of their favourite songs, and, of course, perform live themselves. Recording five new takes each week, the show presented them with the opportunity to explore new influences and play some favourites.
Over the course of 16 episodes, the Fab Four played everything from The Miracles’ ‘You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me’, Chan Romero’s ‘The Hippy Hippy Shake’ and Chuck Berry’s ‘Too Much Monkey Business’ to their own classics taken from their debut album released that same year, namely ‘Love Me Do’, ‘I Saw Her Standing There’, and ‘Please Please Me’ – not to mention singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to a young 21-year-old Paul McCartney, although that was a little more impromptu.
It was for episode eight that the Liverpudlians performed the theme tune to the 1959 film Luna De Meil, ‘The Honeymoon Song’. The song appealed to McCartney, who was a big fan of movie show tunes – he also sang ‘A Taste of Honey’, written by Bobby Scott and Ric Marlow for the 1960 Broadway show and subsequent film of the same name, as well as ‘Till There Was You’, written by Meredith Willson, and popularised by the stage production The Music Man and its movie musical adaptation.
While other covers that appeared on Pop Go the Beatles were often treated to renditions on more than one occasion, ‘The Honeymoon Song’ made it through just once. McCartney admitted, “‘The Honeymoon Song’ wasn’t a big hit, but I liked it, thought it was a nice tune. I was the force behind that, the others thought it was a real soppy idea, which I can see now!”
In Mark Lewisohn’s The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, the frontman further detailed his excitement at the time for the original performance by Marino Marini and his Quartet: “‘The Honeymoon Song’ was Marino Marini, an Italian and his backing group. They used to appear on telly and the greatest thing about them was they had a volume pedal!”
‘The Honeymoon Song’ was written by Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis – perhaps best known for his 1964 score for Zorba the Greek – with the English-language lyrics by William Sansom. The film, Luna de Miel – or “Honeymoon” in English – was based in part on the ballet El Amor Brujo by Gregorio Martínez Sierra. It was made in 1959 by British writer-director Michael Powell and repeatedly featured the title theme song. The Beatles’ take was recorded on July 16th, 1963, at the BBC Paris Studio, London and broadcast the next month. It was released in 1994 on the Live at the BBC album.
Despite the lack of shared enthusiasm for the composition that McCartney was met with during the BBC sessions, he went on to produce a recording of Mary Hopkin’s track, which appeared on her debut album, Postcard—the fifth long player released in the UK by The Beatles’ Apple Records. Looking back, it is a tale that doesn’t do much for the Soppy One stereotype that has often beset Macca. Yet, you also get a snippet of his drive that pushed the band forward.
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