Synchronicity
Aug. 5th, 2025 10:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
billroperI am very fond of the movie "That Thing You Do" and regard the sound track as a master class in how to write musical pastiches. The title track was written by the late Adam Schlesinger and is clearly a Beatles pastiche. I concluded a while back that the Beatles source song which had been twisted around was "Please Please Me", given the way that you can segue neatly from the pastiche to the original and back.
Now, if you've seen the movie, you know that one of the plot points was that the original version of "That Thing You Do" was a slow, boring ballad. It was then shifted to be up tempo and became a much, much better song and a big hit.
So this morning, I read the article linked below about how Decca Records didn't sign the Beatles based on the demo they were given, apparently for good reasons. And near the end of the article, there is a discussion about how "Please Please Me" started out as a slow ballad and was of no interest to the label, but then the Beatles took it up tempo, the label recorded it, and the song became a big hit.
Uh huh. Ok.
Why Decca Didn't Sign the Beatles
Now, if you've seen the movie, you know that one of the plot points was that the original version of "That Thing You Do" was a slow, boring ballad. It was then shifted to be up tempo and became a much, much better song and a big hit.
So this morning, I read the article linked below about how Decca Records didn't sign the Beatles based on the demo they were given, apparently for good reasons. And near the end of the article, there is a discussion about how "Please Please Me" started out as a slow ballad and was of no interest to the label, but then the Beatles took it up tempo, the label recorded it, and the song became a big hit.
Uh huh. Ok.
Why Decca Didn't Sign the Beatles