The Beatles White Album. Look closely and you can see the raised lettering which reads “The Beatles”.
This website has come to be about the music of Silver Laughter. While it’s been fun posting photos and stories of the band’s adventures, what I treasure most is the work we put into the music to make it great. And getting our cover songs to sound as much like the originals as possible was part of that.
As a kid, I took piano lessons from Mrs. Jepsen. She would pick me up at our house and drive me to hers where I would take my lessons. After a couple of years she realized I was incorrigible in that I like to play by ear and thought reading music was a waste of time. During one of my last lessons, she had my mom sit in. Mrs. Jepsen asked me to play a piece on her piano for them.
When I finished my mother said, “That sounded fine to me.”
To which my piano teacher replied,” Yes, but it is not what is on the sheet music!”
And so the music lessons came to an end.
Learning this song by the Beatles from their “white” album was a challenge. I played it at 33 1/3 on my dad’s console hi-fidelity record player which sat in our basement to get the key it started in; D#. (Dad used to play his jazz records on this large piece of furniture while doing his bookkeeping for his uniform sales business.) I would then slow it down to learn the song note for note. Whenever we showed up at a party where there was a piano, I was asked to play this special tune.
This cut starts with a brief lead in from “Hey, Jude” and ends with a segue into “Honey Pie”. The little electric piano isn’t as grand as the one Paul used on the recording, but our four man band did a GREAT job of performing this terrifically difficult piece that the Beatles only did in the studio. On it, I am singing the lead vocal. Ken is on bass, Jon on guitar and Paul on drums. There are no backup harmonies.
Mick Orton
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