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This a repost that first appearred in Chris Sligh's blog. It was rather a sidecar item to some exposition that Chris had on popular music with special attention to Beatles' place and influence.
It was posted 2007.05.18 and appears with corrections made.
The Brill Building song writers (Tin Pan Alley if you wish) supplied song for people who could sing and perform but didn’t, couldn’t and maybe shouldn’t write their own songs. Some of these people wrote songs for other people like there are professional musicians who do studio work, they weren’t interested in performing, not good at singing and performing, had not yet become successful or wrote more songs than they needed.
People who worked out of the Brill Building included: Neil Diamond, Carole King who wrote with her then husband Gerry Goffin, Carole Bayer, Neil Sedaka, Cynthia Weill, Barry Mann, and Ellie Greenwich. Almost all these people at some point recorded and released records.
With more people performing their own songs and demand was down, The Monkees particularly early on was a boom. They especially used the songs of Gerry Goffin & Carole King, who wrote a lot of hits such as “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” & “You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman”.
The Beatles continued doing what many of their favorite recording artists were doing regarding writing many of the songs they performed and recorded, which early on George Martin challenged when looking for a strong song that would make a good single(45).
But with the except of Elvis; Carl Perkins, Buddy Holly, Little Richard, Arthur Alexander, Larry Williams and others were recording their own songs. They had more latitude because they were usually signed to smaller record companies, and if successful, when they signed with a major were usually allowed to continue. Small companies were looking make money. While the major labels were looking for hits, so they tended to micromanage everything.
A sidebar moment: Arthur Alexander wrote “Anna (go to him)” which both Beatles and the Rolling Stones recorded, and “Burning Love” which Elvis Presley had a hit with. Elvis’ recording is a much better performance. Just because you write song doesn’t necessarily mean you record the best performance.
Larry Williams wrote “Bad Boy’ which the Beatles recorded. I am assuming with the first three that there is at least name recognition.
From various articles and interviews I have read over the years, The Beatles were always aware of what other people were doing so they were as influenced as they were influencing. They often sought out the company of other musicians, sometimes for reasons more than social. I recently heard a radio interview with Donovan talking about Paul McCartney showing up at his house unannounced asking for help to finish writing “Yellow Submarine” (a very minor rewrite of one line), then played a song that later became “Eleanor Rigby” but at this point had a completely different set of lyrics.
George Harrison was friendly with Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan & Roger McGuinn of the Byrds, could you imagine him not talking about guitars and songwriting with them.
When they first met Bob Dylan he told them he liked their work but commented that their lyrics didn’t say anything which resulted in the lyric content change first heard on the album “Rubber Soul” and the single “Nowhere Man“.
The other side is Dylan went to a Beatle performance and was so impressed that the next day rented electric instruments and started rehearsing with his band.
On the production side, George Martin commented that they were always curious and frequently questioned him about new instruments they may of seen someone play on television or how do something they had conceived but didn’t know to record.
"Strawberry Fields Forever" is actually two different performances edited together, a fragment of the original performance added to the end the second version, which is slowed down.
“A Day in the Life” is a John Lennon song with a fragment of an unfinished Paul McCartney song used in the middle, “Woke up, fell out of bed” section.
At the time Paul McCartney released “Tub of War”, in an interview he commented that The Beatles made a point of not repeat themselves.
Syd Barrett who was Pink Floyd’s original lead singer, lead guitarist and main song write was an art school student who tried to import paint concepts into English blues which he called "painted sound".
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