Whilst not perhaps quite rising to the heights of Please Please Yourself, Without The Beatles is a good listen, with no obvious weak spots.
It Won’t Be Long – The Heavenlies
Breathy vocals give the opener a different feel, but otherwise the song follows the original pretty closely.
All I’ve Got To Do – Toxic Audio
If God had meant there to be occapella he would not have invented the electric guitar. However, the vocalisations here are just dandy and manage to avoid being boring or irritating, which is quite unusual for the genre.
All My Loving – Les Lionceaux
The Beatles did this song very well, as evidenced by the wealth of poor copies of it by cover artists. The French Beatles made one of the best attempts with added Gallic flavourings.
Don’t Bother Me – Eyton Myrsky
I don't really know what Eyton Myrsky is but he/she/it covers this really rather well. Of the early Harrison compositions, it always struck me as the best.Little Child – The Inmates
Typically raunchy live offering of this lesser tune by the hard-rocking Inmates.Till There Was You – Po Boy Swing
Contemporary band but a most discontemporaneous version. Uncontemporary ? Antidiscontemporary ? What I mean is, it sounds just like the old song !
Please Mr Postman – The Carpenters
If some of the Carpenters’ output was middle of the road then this was bang on the cats’ eyes. But beware, this is so unthreatening we are in Stepford Wives territory. Should we have realised that nothing is this nice and that its creators were in deep depression at the time ?
Who would have thought then that Jeff Lynne would later be in a band with George Harrison (The Travelling Wilburys) and produce The Beatles themselves (on Free As A Bird and Real Love) ? Not me, for one. Here he sings the Chuck Berry classic in a not altogether pleasant fashion.
Hold Me Tight – Steven King
Steven’s seven cover albums are good value for obscure songs and here is one. Not great admittedly but then neither was the original. Searches for covers of this tune are hampered by the amazing amount of songs with the same title (one of which McCartney himself wrote !).
You Really Got A Hold On Me – Smokey Robinson & The Miracles
This was of course the original and, at the risk of being a trifle sacrilegious to Motown disciples, I think it sounds a bit weak and wobbly compared to the Beatles’ synchronised shouting.
Devil In Her Heart – The Donays
More of the same here, an original with less punch than the Fab Four’s rendition, but it’s charming in a cutesy sort of a way.
I Wanna Be Your Man – Rotgut
Rotgut overcome the monotony of the original by playing each line of the song in a different tempo ! They really do ! Rock, punk, reggae, it’s all here. Quite exhausting !
Not A Second Time – Robert Palmer
Robert tried to have a hit with this but I’m not sure he succeeded. Maybe it was because the opening notes sound off key ? Anyway, the rest of the song is perfectly fine, though I could have lived without the extra lines if I had to.
This is what they want, but they don’t care too much for it, it can’t buy them love ! The Moptops were clearly confused on the subject but Barrett comes down firmly on the fiscal side of the fence in this raunchy original.