Not written by the Beatles but recorded during their initial sessions for their first single, this song would go on to be a hit for Gerry And The Pacemakers. As a matter of fact, it was that group’s debut single as well and hit number one.
The Beatles were not adverse to recording cover songs (six of the fourteen songs on their debut album were covers) but did not want to use outside songwriters for their own material, feeling their own songs were good enough to be released as a single. Since they were under contract and the producer, George Martin, wanted to record this song with an as untested band, The Beatles did what they were told (in addition to using session drummer Andy White during a separate, earlier session) and recorded the song.
It isn’t bad, and you can almost see it fitting in with their sound among the early singles, but it isn’t quite theirs, and the group lobbied instead to release “Love Me Do” as their debut single. The rest is history.
Did you catch the Buddy Holly influence/homage about 45 seconds in.
Today is Christmas.
How do we do it?
This year we are doing things differently.
Usually, over the last I don’t know how many years, we attend mass on Christmas Eve. The time would vary, sometimes 4 p.m., sometimes 6 p.m., sometimes 5 p.m. – and there would be another later mass as well but we wouldn’t attend that one. Several years ago there was a midnight mass at our church which I would attend as an usher, but that stopped happening after a priest didn’t show up, so now the “regular” evening mass is at 9 p.m. with the “children’s” mass earlier.
Because of the number of families attached to the church, particularly because of the school, there would usually be two “family” masses in the late afternoon or early evening, say 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. or 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. and we would figure out our schedule of dinner, mass, etc. and it would be a bit of a scramble as the “family” masses were always heavily attended with standing room only and some people being turned away.
This year there is only one “family” Christmas Eve mass in addition to the 9 p.m. mass. Fearing the amount of people that would attempt to attend that mass we decided to try something different going to mass on Christmas morning.
The plan is to let kids get up, do stockings, maybe open a present or two, then get ready and head over to mass, then come home, eat and open presents.
Let’s see how that goes.
Well, it worked out.
As I type this is is some point Christmas Night. We were woken up early-ish, but also not abnormally so, which is nice. The kids got to go through their stockings, get a bowl of cereal if they wished and open a couple of presents. Then it was time to get ready for mass, and that went relatively well. We expected there to be a meltdown by somebody regarding wanting to open presents instead, but there wasn’t any pushback. It wasn’t until mass was over that Tevye kept asking every 10 seconds if we could go home.
We had our traditional pumpkin bread pudding for breakfast, but by the time we got home and had it, it was almost a lunch. Then we opened the remainder of the presents, which was about as chaotic as you would expect.
I can see the advantage of attending mass on Christmas morning as opposed to going on Christmas Eve. I still miss the midnight mass though.