Bye Bye Love (The Everly Brothers song)
"Bye Bye Love" is a popular song written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant and published in 1957. It is best known in a debut recording by the Everly Brothers, issued by Cadence Records as catalog number 1315. The song reached No. 2 on the US Billboard Pop charts and No. 1 on the Cash Box Best Selling Record charts. The Everly Brothers' version also enjoyed major success as a country song, reaching No. 1 in the spring of 1957. The Everlys' "Bye Bye Love" is ranked 210th on Rolling Stone magazine's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time." It was the first song Paul McCartney performed live on stage, with his brother Mike at a holiday camp in Filey, North Yorkshire. It was part of Rory Storm and The Hurricanes’ repertoire and a live version recorded in 1960 was released in 2012 on the album Live at the Jive Hive March 1960. The Beatles covered the song during the Let It Be sessions in 1969. George Harrison did a cover for his 1974 album Dark Horse, changing some of the words. "Bye Bye Love" has also been covered by Simon & Garfunkel.
The guitar intro was not originally part of the song, but was something that Don Everly had come up with and was tacked on to the beginning. Chet Atkins was the lead guitar player on the session. Buddy Harman was the drummer.
Simon and Garfunkel version
included a live version of the song on their 1970 album Bridge over Troubled Water. Following the end of filming of Catch-22 in October, the first performance of their tour took place in Ames, Iowa. The concert included "Bye Bye Love", backed by the audience's hand clapping. Simon & Garfunkel were fascinated with its sound, so they repeated it a second time for a recording; while the first try failed, they liked the second attempt and included the latter on Bridge over Trouble Water. The US leg of the tour ended in the sold-out Carnegie Hall on November 27. Three days later, their show Songs of America was broadcast on CBS just one time on November 30, 1969, after which it was banned. After numerous fan letters suggesting that they not intervene in politics but simply continue doing music, the duo did not release any similar TV specials. "Bye Bye Love" became a farewell song and a sign of a new career. Peter Ames Carlin praised their version for its "close harmony pleasures."George Harrison version
In 1974, George Harrison recorded "Bye Bye, Love" for his album Dark Horse. As well as inserting a comma in the song title, Harrison wrote additional lyrics and a radically different melody line. Author Chris Ingham describes Harrison's version as "recomposed in a minor key and featuring pointedly customised lyrics". The new words were in reference to his wife Pattie Boyd having left him for their mutual friend Eric Clapton:In a later verse, Harrison states that he has "got tired of ladies that plot and shove me", before apparently dismissing his wife's affair as "our lady ... out on a spree".
Rumours circulated that Clapton himself contributed on guitar and Boyd on backing vocals, but they were incorrect,Michael Gross, "George Harrison: How Dark Horse Whipped Up a Winning Tour", CIrcus Raves, March 1975; available at . although the new couple were credited on the inner sleeve notes. Harrison had written their names along with other cryptic messages among the album's musician credits, whereupon an assistant then sought permission from Clapton's record company and added the standard acknowledgment, reading: "Eric Clapton appears through the courtesy of RSO Records."
The song also included a credit for "Rhythm Ace", which Tom Scott explained soon after the album's release: "Rhythm Ace is an electronic machine that plays any rhythm – a boogaloo, a cha-cha or a rhumba. I suppose a lot of people will think it's a person." In fact, Harrison played all the instruments on the recording, using the multitrack facilities at his Friar Park home studio: two 12-string acoustic guitars, drums, Moog bass as well as bass guitar, three electric guitar parts, electric piano, bongos, together with his lead vocal and backing vocals.
While Harrison dismissed the exercise as "just a little joke" in a 1977 interview, his reading of "Bye Bye Love" drew harsh reactions from music critics when Dark Horse was released in December 1974. Decades later, it continues to find little favour with many reviewers; Richard Ginell of AllMusic calls it a "slipshod rewrite", Alan Clayson has written of the ex-Beatle's "blatant ... liberty-taking", while Harrison's musical biographer, Simon Leng, views it as "one track on Dark Horse that seriously fails the quality-control test ... a desperately bad offering". Leng adds: "In its own way, 'Bye Bye, Love' is a classic 1970s period piece, from the era when rock stars used music to settle their own personal scores. Thankfully, George Harrison only made that mistake once."
Conversely, in a 2014 review for Uncut, Richard Williams views Harrison's reading of "Bye Bye, Love" as a highlight of an album that otherwise "only a devoted Apple scruff could love". With this cover version, Williams suggests, Harrison "sought the kind of return to bare-bones rock'n'roll simplicity Lennon had achieved with 'Instant Karma'".Richard Williams, "George Harrison The Apple Years 1968–75", Uncut, November 2014, p. 93. Ingham also rates "Bye Bye, Love" among the best tracks on Dark Horse, along with the title track and "Far East Man". Another advocate of Harrison's rewrite, Blogcritics' Chaz Lipp describes it as "a funky and funny comment on the dissolution of his marriage".
Personnel
Everly Brothers’ version
- Don Everly – vocals, rhythm guitar
- Phil Everly – vocals, rhythm guitar
- Chet Atkins – lead guitar
- Floyd “Lightnin’” Chance – double bass
- Buddy Harman – drums
George Harrison version
- George Harrison – lead and backing vocals, 12-string acoustic guitars, electric guitars, bass, Moog bass, electric piano, bongos
Other cover versions
Rory Blackwell and his Blackjacks recorded the song the UK in 1957, issued by Parlophone/EMI.
The song was covered by Ray Charles on his seminal 1962 album Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music.
Highly influenced by the Everly Brothers, 1960's Mexican rock group, Los Hermanos Carrión, recorded a Spanish language cover entitled "Adios Adios Amor".
An uptempo version is included in the 1973 duet album Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man by Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn.
The 1979 film All That Jazz features a rendition of the song performed by Roy Scheider and Ben Vereen with rewritten lyrics.
David Lindley covered the song in 1981 on the album El Rayo-X, issued by Asylum Records.
Lacy J. Dalton covered the song on her 1992 album Chains on the Wind. Her version peaked at number 69 on the RPM Country Tracks chart in Canada.
A cover of the song by the Proclaimers is heard in the 1995 film Bye Bye Love.
French-American singer-songwriter Madeleine Peyroux recorded the song in 2013 for her album The Blue Room.
Livingston Taylor also made a version of the song for his 2017 album Safe Home.