| Tin Pan Alley / Pop |
| The term "Tin
Pan Alley" derives from an area that had been in the mid-nineteenth
century dominated by tinkers and hardware shops on what would become West
28th Street between Broadway and Sixth Avenue in Manhattan. Music publishers
began moving into this area late in the century and, by the mid twentieth
century, the area had become firmly associated with the profession of
popular music. Songwriters like Carol King and Gerry Goffin, Neil Sedaka,
Neil Diamond, and many others had studios (albeit tiny) in places like
the Brill Building. |
| The importance of
performance models drawn from the American pop mainstream appears in a
number of Beatle works. Indeed, in one interview McCartney indicates that
he and Lennon would like to be songwriters like Goffin and King. |
| They knew the songs
of many Phil Spector and other Brill Building composers and performers
and their repertoire included many other tunes of this sort. Moreover,
as a "bar band" of the era, they performed songs from musicals, as well
as novelty tunes. |
| Song |
Original
Recording |
Beatles |
| "Till
There Was You" (Willson) |
Peggy Lee,
1961 |
McCartney,
October 1963 |
| "A Taste of
Honey" (Marlow & Scott) |
Lenny Welch,
1962 |
McCartney,
March 1963 |
| "Yesterday"
(Lennon & McCartney) |
|
McCartney,
June 1965 |
| "Keep Your
Hands off My Baby" (Goffin & King) |
Little Eva,
1963 |
Lennon,
January 1963 |
|
