Saturday, December 30, 2006

Abbey Road (1969)

"I Want You (She's So Heavy)" Objectively speaking, there is no song title of the past 50 years more common than "I Want You." It's a simple and potent formulation, assertive rather than passive. Giants of this planet Bob Dylan, Marvin Gaye, Savage Garden, Elvis Costello, even the Troggs and Spiritualized, stand with the Beatles, here, each with their different song and the same title. As you see, the Beatles have added extra copy with their parenthetical. For that matter, so has the King himself, Elvis Presley, with "I Want You, I Need You, I Love You." Not to mention the downright wordy "If Loving You Is Wrong, I Don't Want to Be Right." You may suppose that all these latter open the door for variants and you are right: try this on for size: Bread, "Baby I'm-A Want You." Andy Gibbs, "I Just Want to Be Your Everything." Hey, why the fritch not!?! Thanks to technology, I can name-check the Barking Spiders with pinpoint accuracy. Check it OUT: Lobo's over-under Bread parallel of the time, "I'd Love You to Want Me." Various (and sundry!) "I Just Want to Dance With/Make Love to You/Walk You Home/Hold Your Hand" permutations. Also, "I/I'd Still Want You/Your Love/Sex" flavors from a whole new crew: Hank Williams, Chic, Chris Isaak, George Michael. Iggy's & all the vast ranging covers of "I Want to Be Your Dog." Sly wants to take you higher, the Jackson 5 want you back, Merle Haggard is always wanting you, Lou Reed says he wants to boogie with you, Nat King Cole (ever the dapper gentleman) wants to thank your folks, and Randy Newman wants you to hurt like he does. Frank Zappa's "My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama"? Would that be going too far? This one goes on a long time and ends suddenly. Plus the coda.

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