The Beatles wrote almost countless amount of songs during their tenure, but their real success was in how many other singers covered their memorable songs.
And Paul McCartney has admitted he listens to as many cover versions of his songs as he can. But one has always stood out to him.
The track in question was their 1964 single And I Love Her, which was included on their third UK album, A Hard Day’s Night.
McCartney confessed he loved a cover which took the song in a completely new direction – both musically and lyrically.
“The earliest one that really caught my ear was by Esther Phillips, R&B Singer,” he said in 2018. (Via Far Out)
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McCartney noted: “She did a female version of ‘And I Love Her’ called ‘And I Love Him’, which is really great. I love it.”
The track’s composition is vastly different to the Fab Four’s boppy rock ballad. Instead, Phillips created a moody R&B soundscape for her listeners.
She also changed all of the pronouns from feminine to masculine to align with her style a little better.
Phillips released the cover in 1965, a year after And I Love Her hit store shelves.
This is not the only Beatles cover that McCartney has kept his eye on over the years.
“I was lucky when I came up with Yesterday,” he confessed. “Because that’s got covered like about 3000 times. And I think 3000 people – maybe over that – have recorded that.”
He added: “But I thought: ‘Who are these people?’ So I said to one of our guys: ‘Johnny, can you get me like the top 10? Just give me the sort of top ten best ones.’ So I listened to all of them. They were great.”
Naming a few of these heavy hitters, he said: “It was like Frank Sinatra, Elvis [Presley], Marvin Gaye – very cool, Ray Charles, and the list went on. Amazing people, amazing versions.”
Elvis famously sang Yesterday while he was performing his residency slots in Las Vegas during the 1970s before his untimely death in 1977.
