Beatles music for I Am Sam

There is not much you can do by way of arrangement or performance with the music of the Beatles except perhaps if you turn them into chamber pieces. The Bee Gees and Peter Frampton tried and failed miserably. Despite this though a wave of excitement accompanies the arrival of every new version of a Beatle song and though we always return to the originals, we never fail to listen. And while those outings seldom or never succeed, I can still say with all certainty that one never fails to appreciate the inventiveness of the structure, the flow of the words and the memory of the way they sounded when they were new, young and unbelievably beautiful.

Compositions by Beatles John Lennon and Paul McCartney make up the soundtrack of the motion picture I Am Sam. This is the film with which Sean Penn made his most recent bid for the Academy Award for Best Actor. It tells the story of Sam Dawson, a man with the mental capacity of a seven-year-old and his battle to keep custody of his also seven-year-old daughter. A social worker believes that the girl should be in foster care particularly now that she is getting to be more intelligent than her father. Sam does not only believe otherwise, he is willing to do anything to convince the system that the best place for his daughter is with him. Helping him fight his battle is a high-powered lawyer played by Michelle Pfeiffer.

Penn didn’t win the Oscar but it cannot be denied that he turned in a masterful performance in I Am Sam. To top it all the compelling drama is played out against a background of Beatles music. And what songs they are! The winners of the lot are You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away by a surprisingly noiseless Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam; Nowhere Man by Paul Westerberg of The Replacements; Ben Harper’s version of Strawberry Fields Forever and the lilting I’m Looking Through You performed by The Wallflowers. Famous and unknown acts get together in the rest of the 19-track collection. Some of them falter in their interpretation but they are singing Beatles music, which sounds much, much better than others we have these days.

The other tunes included in the album are Two of Us in two duet versions by Aimee Mann and Michael Penn and by Neil Finn and Liam Finn; Blackbird by Sarah McLachlan; Across the Universe by Rufus Wainwright; Mother Nature’s Son by Sheryl Crow; Golden Slumbers by Ben Folds; Only Sleeping by The Vines; Don’t Let Me Down by the Stereophonics; Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds by The Black Crowes; Julia by the Chocolate Genius; We Can Work It Out by Heather Nova; Help! by Howie Day; Revolution by Granddaddy; Let It Be by Nick Cave; and another take on Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds by Aimee Mann.

Speaking of Sarah McLachlan the head diva fair has taken nine of her previous recordings and allowed them to be remixed by and engineers in various ways by. The results may upset some of her fans as this is not Sarah at her usual but I can bet that she will win new ones most especially among those who like electronica and dance music. Simply titled Sarah McLachlan Remixed. The album includes Fear, Sweet Surrender, Angel, I Love You, Silence, Black, Possession, Hold On and Plenty.

Ashanti tops Billboard Hot 100

Foolish by Ashanti remains on top in the R&B dominated Billboard Hot 100. The other tunes comprising the top 10 are: What’s Luv by Fat Joe featuring Ashanti, who is really on a roll these days; I Need a Girl (Part One) by P Diddy who was once upon a time known as Puff Daddy, featuring Usher; & Loon; U Don’t Have to Call, by Usher; Blurry by Puddle of Mudd; A Thousand Miles by the hot new teen-aged find Vanessa Carlton; All You Wanted by Michelle Branch; Don’t Let Me Get Me by Pink; Ain’t It Funny by Jennifer Lopez featuring Ja Rule; and Oops (Oh My) by Tweet.

As for the top 200 albums, occupying number one is, No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems by Kenny Chesney; Ashanti by Ashanti; A New Day Has Come by Celine Dion; C’mon, C’mon by Sheryl Crow; Now 9 by Various Artists; Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, the movie soundtrack featuring the music of John Williams; The Scorpion King, another soundtrack featuring alternative rock acts; O Brother, Where Art Thou? the Grammy winning soundtrack featuring blue grass music; Josh Groban by the young exciting tenor from Canada; and Missundaztood by Pink.