Farmed out

It should have come as no surprise to anyone that when Squeeze recently went into the Radio 2 Piano Lounge to play the tried and tested format - a three song set comprising two originals and a cover - that they should have chosen a Beatle related number; Glenn Tilbrook & Chris Difford have carried the surrogate Lennon & McCartney tag around with them for well over forty years; so when they saddled up to play a Macca penned power pop classic all bets were off. Junior's Farm is a diamond in the rough. At the back end of 1974 McCartney had just recruited Jimmy McCulloch on lead guitar who would go on to play on the Venus & Mars album followed by the mammoth Wings Over America tour and accompanying triple live album. This sounds like it was a contender for V&M but Macca put it out as a single instead. And what a single. If this doesn't get your pulse racing then you're probably dead.

Squeeze - Junior's Farm (2026)

One lump or two?

Back in January 2022 some bright spark at the BBC began cajoling bands and artists into their Maida Vale studios to perform a couple of their own songs + a hand-picked cover and, with the help of the BBC Concert Orchestra, create more classical, and generally less frenetic, versions than the originals Radio 2 listeners are used to hearing. Playing the Piano Room has now become something of a badge of honour for yer Simply Reds and yer Pinks and anyone else who fits their daytime demographic. I blame Ken Bruce. 

With the station's flagship mid-morning show now anchored by Vernon Kay, the mercurial northerner invited Def Leppard in a couple of weeks ago to wheel the grand piano out and look earnestly down the lens of the BBC's cameras and bring some gravitas to a tune more usually heard in lap dancing clubs*. 

Def Leppard (feat. Emm Gryner) - Pour Some Sugar on Me (2023)

* Or so I've been reliably informed.