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79: BADFINGER
Come And Get It/ Rock Of All Ages
(Apple, 1969)

THERE can be few stories in the history of rock which are as desperately sad as that of Badfinger.

The fact that two members of the band - Pete Ham and Tom Evans - committed suicide casts a terrible pall over a career which should really be remembered for the quality of Badfinger's music, not the nightmare of litigation and recrimination which ultimately affected them in that most dreadful way.

Back in 1969, however, it was all looking rosy for the band who began in Swansea as The Iveys. When The Beatles set up Apple Records in 1968, The Iveys were the first band to be signed to the label, and following the release of their debut album Maybe Tomorrow Beatle confidante Neil Aspinall suggested the name change to Badfinger as a means of updating their image.

Furthermore, Paul McCartney offered them a song - Come And Get It - which he had just written and demoed, playing all the instruments himself, in Abbey Road during the sessions for the White Album.

The story goes that McCartney advised them to copy it exactly as it was presented on the demo, and then they would have a sure-fire hit. Certainly, when the demo came to light on the Beatles' Anthology series it was apparent that McCartney had all the bases covered straight from the off - great drum track also, by the way.

(John Lennon, when asked if he thought Ringo was the best drummer in the world, memorably remarked: "he's not even the best drummer in the band.") What Badfinger brought to it, apart from an airy high harmony part, was an infectious joie de vivre which nicely offset the song's jaded cynicism, written as it was for the soundtrack of the film The Magic Christian and its underlying message that everyone can be bought.

The film in question was topped and tailed with Come And Get It and Thunderclap Newman's Something In The Air: just for a moment, it felt as though the revolution really had arrived.

7:35am Friday 25th July 2008

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