Dr Robert (The Beatles - Lennon-McCartney, adapted)(The Clana Boys) by Hugh Boy published on 2021-08-02T14:53:16Z ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you like this track, check out all my other tracks at https://soundcloud.com/mobbing_it_up and https://soundcloud.com/clana_boys ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr Robert - Songfacts (Lennon-McCartney, adapted lyric by Mike O’Neill Original performance: The Beatles) ‘Dr Robert’ was released in the UK in 1966 on The Beatles album ‘Revolver’. I was one of the hordes of devoted Beatles fans and bought the album as soon as it came out, just as I had with all their previous albums and EPs. I think ‘Revolver’ is perhaps one of my favourite Beatles albums because by that time I was into my teens and increasingly interested in how The Beatles (and George Martin, their producer and a major part of their creativity in the recording studio) were moving their sound forward. They were becoming ever more interested in incorporating exotic sounds and instruments into their arrangements, and Revolver was a landmark album in that respect. Dr Robert has always been a favourite of mine as although it’s not hugely experimental (apart from the double tracked and distinctive lead vocal), I just love John Lennon’s humour both in the words and in his delivery. It successfully walks the tightrope between good Beatles and (to me) Banal Beatles (Yellow Submarine, When I’m 64 etc). And it’s not a Beatles song that gets flagged up much. I love it. Wiki has some interesting things to say about what might have led Lennon to write the song (credited to Lennon-McCartney but essentially a Lennon composition, says wiki). Paul McCartney said in 1967 that: “There's some fellow in New York, and in the States we'd hear people say: "You can get everything off him; any pills you want." It was a big racket, but a joke too about this fellow who cured everyone of everything with all these pills and tranquilizers, injections for this and that; he just kept New York high. That's what Doctor Robert is all about, just a pill doctor who sees you all right” And it has also been suggested that Lennon wrote it after The Rolling Stones had released ‘Mothers Little Helper’ and after Mick Jagger visited the studio while The Beatles were recording ‘Revolver’. Dr Robert (the song) started dancing around in my head a lot during 2020, when we were all locked down with the Covid 19 pandemic and I was thinking of our health workers who were working so hard and with great risk to themselves to try and help the waves of people being struck down with the disease. I felt it might be good also to remember it was not just male doctors (or even just doctors, as in the original song) who were on the front line in this battle. And so I invented an extra character – Dr Roberts – whose name is ‘Ann’ because it rhymes with ‘can’. Simples. I also put in my own guitar solo, playing on the signature guitar riff from The Beatles ‘Daytripper’. Great work as ever by Paul ‘I am not Paul McCartney’ Jennings on bass. I couldn’t do half these songs without his contributions. Hope you like it and please share with others if you do. Mike O’Neill, 2nd August 2021 Genre Pop