Monday July 12, 2021 “My Best Friend” Queen/Jefferson Airplane
Your first thought may be that we are in for a week of covers but alas that’s not where we are heading. Musical copyright laws are pretty strict relative to music and lyrics, remember what happened to Hootie and the boys when Dylan sued them. However song titles have no such restrictions.
So we will look at songs with the same title but by different artists and in many cases remarkably different moods. And a week of twofers.
Our first adventure is with the popular Queen tune “My Best Friend” written by bass player John Deacon who created the tune for his wife with the explicit intention that it include the melody played on a Fender Rhodes keyboard which Freddie Mercury, the keyboard player in the group, refused to play.
"It's tiny and horrible and I don't like them. Why play those when you have a lovely superb piano." Mercury has said.
Prior to Queen’s best friend Jefferson Airplane had recorded their tribute to their best friend. “My Best Friend” written by Skip Spence, who played guitar in an early formation of the band Quicksilver Messenger Service before Marty Balin recruited him to play drums for Jefferson Airplane. However prior to the release of the Airplane’s Surrealistic Pillow, he left the band after only one album to form the band Moby Grape.
Stay safe and well...and these two best friend songs do have a similar feel to them, don’t they?