A Taste Of Honey was a theme, originally an instrumental, written for the Broadway version of a Shelagh Delaney play the same name. A little like Devil In Her Heart (discussed earlier this week) it was a fairly obscure track to select as a cover. It must have had an interesting transatlantic journey into the Beatles’ repertoire, but according to Paul McCartney, who sang the lead vocal, it was a popular number:
‘A Taste Of Honey’ was one of my big numbers in Hamburg – a bit of a ballad. It was different, but it used to get requested a lot. We sang close harmonies on the little echo mikes, and we made a fairly good job of it. It used to sound pretty good, actually.
The play is an example of a new form of realist drama, sometimes called Kitchen Sink Drama that was popular in the UK at the time. These plays dealt with gritty social themes such as teenage pregnancy, homosexuality (then illegal), abortion and homelessness. These topics that had previously been ignored by British dramatists and contrasting with the metropolitan escapism that dominated theatre until the late 1950s. The new approach often featured working class people and Northern industrial settings which had been largely excluded from the London-based arts scene. Its emergence at the end of the 50s reflects the same societal shifts, the post-war disruption of the class system and the demographic dominance of the boomer generation, that later allowed the Beatles to break through .
Shelagh Delaney herself was in her late teens or early twenties and living in an industrial city in Northern England when the play was written.
I had strong ideas about what I wanted to see in the theatre. We used to object to plays where the factory workers came cap in hand and call the boss ‘sir’. Usually North Country people are shown as gormless, whereas in actual fact, they are very alive and cynical.
The new social realism was a very British phenomenon so it seems a little surprising that the play transferred successfully to Broadway, but perhaps some of themes – unplanned teenage pregnancy, class, ethnicity and sexual orientation, found some resonance in New York. It’s a stretch, but maybe it was an early sign that a city that was ready for A Taste Of Honey was also ready for the Beatles?
In any event, it appears that the music for A Taste Of Honey was written for the Broadway show, and the first vocal version of the Taste Of Honey theme was recorded by Billy Dee Williams*, who played Jimmy in the Broadway cast. The instrumental theme won its writers Bobby Scott and Ric Marlow a Grammy in 1962.
*
Best known for playing Lando Calrissian in the Star Wars movies
The Beatles’ version is modelled on Lenny Welch‘s 1962 recording, which seems not to have charted. It is very much in the adult-orientated easy listening mould.
The Beatles BibleA favourite song of Paul McCartney’s, ‘A Taste Of Honey’ was originally the theme tune for the 1961 film version of Shelagh Delaney’s play of the same name, starring Rita Tushingham.
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WikipediaA Taste Of Honey was evidently quite zeitgeisty. The play had been adapted into a suitably bleak looking British New Wave movie, starring Rita Tushingham, in 1961, and just as the Beatles were recording Please Please Me, in February 1963, clarinettist Acker Bilk had a version of the instrumental theme in the UK chart (reaching number 16). The song helped highlight the Beatles versatility and their potential appeal to a wider audience. The song features prominent harmonies and interesting time changes (the verses are in 3/4 time, with the refrain in 4/4). It’s sophisticated, grown-up, non-trivial and it gives an excellent showcase to McCartney’s melodic voice. However, in All These Years Volume One: Tune In, Mark Lewisohn writes that taste of Honey was a bone of contention between Lennon and McCartney:
There was resistance, most vociferously from John, that it was soft, not the sort of thing they should be doing. It would become a sustained point of contention between them, but they decided to put it to the test, to play it to audiences and watch the reaction.
At an early show they asked Billy Kinsey of the Mersey Beats (who were on the same bill) for a second opinion:
Paul came up to me and said, ‘What did you think of that song we did the other night, A Taste Of Honey?’ and I said, ‘I was knocked out by it. Superb.’ Paul grabbed hold of me and said, ‘Go and tell the others that.’ He took me into their dressing-room and John said, ‘Go on then, what do you think?’ I was fifteen and very nervous because there was Big John Lennon asking me what I thought of a song he didn’t like. Paul said, ‘Come on, just tell the truth.’ I told him I thought A Taste Of Honey was great. Paul said, ‘Ha-ha, there you go!’