She gives me everything, and tenderly

Liverpool tomorrow. I'm training it - using split tickets for the first time - ETA into Lime Street around lunchtime. Ray's flying in from Belfast, due to land around the same time, so it'll be a spot of bush tucker in the Philharmonic, and then we'll see where the fancy takes us.

We're not expecting to see Macca during our two day stopover, though if he did care to join us I'm sure he'd be good company. There are many questions I'd love to put to him, not least: 'Why, at the age of 76, are you still getting bent out of shape about songs being credited to Lennon & McCartney and not McCartney & Lennon or, in the case of 'Yesterday', McCartney & Lennon can whistle? Life's too short Paulie, get over yourself.

If I've got this right, these two Hard Day's Night period classics - which, as you can see (above) were paired as an 'A' & 'B' side for their American release - were written by the pair thus:

And I Love Her (1964)- McCartney, with Lennon writing the middle eight* 

If I Fell (1964) - Lennon*

*Unless of course you, or indeed Macca, know different

Mr. Soul

Sam Cooke, along with Charlie Rich, Solomon Burke and Nick Lowe, has a voice so rich, so layered, he could charm the birds out of any old tree he fancied.

And on 11 December 1964 that's precisely what he was doing; with disastrous consequences. Cooke, a born philanderer, couldn't keep it in his trousers. And that night he paid the ultimate price. But less than a year before, aged just 32, he had recorded and released, probably, the finest soul album of all time - Night Beat. Here's a cut from it.

Sam Cooke - Lost and Lookin' (1963)

True Colours?

It's not golden, nor does it have any gates

We all know that The Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District never repainted the bridge green, but they did, quite cleverly, show the iconic structure in its new livery in an advertising campaign to promote their green agenda - including emission reduction policies, bicycle programmes etc.
Vincent Tan, on the other hand, the new meddling Malaysian billionaire Chairman of Cardiff City FC, The Bluebirds, changed the team's home strip from blue to red overnight; thus instantly destroying 100 years of club history. Apparently the colour red is lucky in his culture. Maybe someone should tell David Moyes.

In 1964 when Richard Lester was brought in to make A Hard Day's Night he decided to shoot it in black and white; one of the film's many endearing qualities. But now, thanks to colorization, we can see Macca's Hofner bass looking the same colour as watery gravy and John Lennon looking decidedly unwell.

Geo.

None of your five-bar gate jumps and over sort of stuff

George Harrison was shot almost exclusively in monochrome in 1964; this snap from a Mike and Bernie Winters TV rehearsal in July was taken the week after A Hard Day's Night was released. It was the same week he pranged his new E-Type; I don't know, colour photography, E-Type Jags and Mike and Bernie Winters - it's enough to make any man loosen his tie.