TILL THERE WAS YOU
BARBARA COOK
AND ROBERT PRESTON
BARBARA COOK
AND ROBERT PRESTON
Written by: Willson
Recorded by: Barbara Cook and Robert Preston (1957)
Recorded by: Barbara Cook and Robert Preston (1957)
PAUL MCCARTNEY WAS ALWAYS a
pushover for an MOR song. On
the first Beatles album ‘A Taste Of
Honey’ occupied the mainstream melody slot, and
that was a song with an odd history. Originally
written as mood music to accompany the Broadway
version of Shelagh Delaney’s gritty 1958 play of
the same name, it took on a life of its own with the
result that Herb Alpert & His Tijuana Brass had
a hit with it, surreally adding a touch of Mexico
to music intended to accompany Delaney’s grim
parable of post-war life in Salford, Lancashire.
Lyrics were added and The Beatles version gave
the resulting song a high profile which led to
other versions being recorded. For their second
album, With The Beatles, McCartney chose a tune
pushover for an MOR song. On
the first Beatles album ‘A Taste Of
Honey’ occupied the mainstream melody slot, and
that was a song with an odd history. Originally
written as mood music to accompany the Broadway
version of Shelagh Delaney’s gritty 1958 play of
the same name, it took on a life of its own with the
result that Herb Alpert & His Tijuana Brass had
a hit with it, surreally adding a touch of Mexico
to music intended to accompany Delaney’s grim
parable of post-war life in Salford, Lancashire.
Lyrics were added and The Beatles version gave
the resulting song a high profile which led to
other versions being recorded. For their second
album, With The Beatles, McCartney chose a tune
from Meredith Willson’s hit Broadway musical
The Music Man. At first glance this seemed an
equally odd choice because the song was already
a staple of the kind of tame BBC music request
show that had made rock ’n’ roll so necessary.
Barbara Cook and Robert Preston’s original
Broadway cast recording of ‘Till There Was You’
was routinely played on such programmes from
1957 until, in 1962, a movie was made in which
Preston retained his role but Barbara Cook was
replaced by Shirley Jones. From 1962 on you were
more likely to hear Shirley Jones sing ‘Till There
Was You’ on the radio. Since the movie had come
out the year before With The Beatles was released,
the song had perhaps taken on a new lease of life
which may have contributed to the choice. The
irony was that, plucked from the musical where it
belongs, it sounds like a routine romantic ballad,
but in context the song has considerably more
edge since the female character who sings it was
about to expose her lover for the con man he is,
but has second thoughts at the last minute. In any
event, soon McCartney would be writing his own
melodic ballads and many were so good that those
fans who secretly feared that songs like ‘Till There
Was You’ hinted at a Beatles ambition to become
dreaded ‘all-round entertainers’ need not have
worried; they were just another influence on the
future work of the extraordinarily creative Beatles.
The Music Man. At first glance this seemed an
equally odd choice because the song was already
a staple of the kind of tame BBC music request
show that had made rock ’n’ roll so necessary.
Barbara Cook and Robert Preston’s original
Broadway cast recording of ‘Till There Was You’
was routinely played on such programmes from
1957 until, in 1962, a movie was made in which
Preston retained his role but Barbara Cook was
replaced by Shirley Jones. From 1962 on you were
more likely to hear Shirley Jones sing ‘Till There
Was You’ on the radio. Since the movie had come
out the year before With The Beatles was released,
the song had perhaps taken on a new lease of life
which may have contributed to the choice. The
irony was that, plucked from the musical where it
belongs, it sounds like a routine romantic ballad,
but in context the song has considerably more
edge since the female character who sings it was
about to expose her lover for the con man he is,
but has second thoughts at the last minute. In any
event, soon McCartney would be writing his own
melodic ballads and many were so good that those
fans who secretly feared that songs like ‘Till There
Was You’ hinted at a Beatles ambition to become
dreaded ‘all-round entertainers’ need not have
worried; they were just another influence on the
future work of the extraordinarily creative Beatles.
A durable show tune, ‘Till There Was You’appeared as track 6, side 1, of the moodily-
packaged second album With The Beatles. It was
the only Broadway tune the band ever recorded.