nick manho

one of the tricks about covering songs in the early 60s was to cover stuff that hadn't been released in your country, or had been a flop, or had been released only as an instrumental or something. so your version seemed original, get it?

a taste of honey had a bit of everything. first, it was the theme music from a successful and important film. second, it was a hit only as an instrumental. third, the one version with lyrics was crap.

paul sussed this one right off. a paul song that he didn't even need to write himself (though he would rewrite it a few times in the future).

here's the version the beatles copied which flopped:

Lenny Welch: A Taste Of Honey



here's lenny:






and here's the big instrumental hit by the one, the only, the late, the nearly great acker bilk:

Acker Bilk: A Taste Of Honey



paul would dig deep into this stuff in the mid 60s when he wrote the music for the film, the family way.

he was a canny lad, paul. that's why he's worth $1,000,000,000 now.



manho's vote on the honey: lenny 3/10. beatles 5/10. acker 7/10.

acker was ok.