Triviamongers report that there have been at least 2,500 different recordings made of "Yesterday," Paul McCartney's melancholy ode to lost love.
That's 2,499 too many, according to the most unforgiving of fans.But while the idea that pretenders would presume to "cover" a Fab Four original may seem sacrilegious to some, from the earliest days of Beatlemania, performers of all stripes -- gospel and soul, pop and classical -- have recognized the treasure trove to be found in the mop-top melodies.
Jazz guitarist and vocalist John Pizzarelli said the editor of one magazine told him that his new album -- one of several recent all-Beatles collections -- "was a bad idea for my career. People said I'm going to get killed in the press. And I don't know why . . . I don't think they're bad performances."
They're not: "John Pizzarelli Meets the Beatles" (BMG Classics-RCA Victor) is a swinging, often clever reinterpretation of 11 favorites, from "When I'm 64" to "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away." That's because Pizzarelli and arranger Don Sebesky approached the songs of McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr as perennials -- selections from a "songbook," as they used to call a body of work, as pliable and multidimensional as anything by Cole Porter, Irving Berlin or Rodgers & Hart.
The Beatles' songs "are thought out," Pizzarelli said by phone from New York. "They often have little bridges or something else about them. They have a 'standard' quality."
Besides, awhile back, he caught a vintage performance by Ella Fitzgerald -- the queen of interpretive songbooks -- singing "Can't Buy Me Love." "I saw that on an 'Ed Sullivan,' " a compilation from the influential TV variety show. "She's swinging so hard -- that's the one that gave me the idea" to do the album.
The songs' allure and the disdain for remakes from some quarters "makes them a challenge -- and I'm a competitive guy," pianist David Lanz noted with bravado during a call to Seattle. He covered three Beatles tunes on his 1998 contemporary-instrumental salute to the British Invasion, "Songs from an English Garden" (Narada) and earlier recorded a take of his own on "A Day in the Life."
The Beatles had a huge impact on him as a young musician playing surf-styled instrumentals in the Northwest, "though there was not much call for 'surf piano,' " Lanz admitted. "I already knew how to play, so when they happened, I was ready to really jump right in. Plus, I got sucked into the fashion and the whole generational thing."
The Beatle phenomenon was -- and is -- irresistible, Lanz said.
"They were just such a light, a shining kind of light. They were rebellious enough to keep it really interesting for us when we were young but also brilliant enough to attract our parents, who'd say, 'Huh! These guys can write good songs!'
"They had an American rootsy edge but grew up in Europe, so they have that influence and then added their own twisted little quirkiness and genius," he said.
The Pizzarelli and Lanz albums are not the only examples of recent mining of the Beatles' mother lode.
Andy McKaie pulled together 14 hits and nonhits -- from Earth, Wind & Fire's brassy "Got to Get You Into My Life" to the Flamin' Groovies' "There's a Place" -- for his anthology "Meet the Covers" (Hip Records-Universal). The Canadian Brass toot 17 of them on the classical-flavored "All You Need Is Love" (BMG Classics). And Sir George Martin -- the indispensable producer often considered to be "the fifth Beatle" -- called upon a host of stars, including Jim Carrey, Robin Williams, Celine Dion and Goldie Hawn, to record songs by his "old mates" for what is purported to be his last album, "In My Life" (Echo-MCA).
While this seems to be yet another resurgence of the trend, hopping on the Beatles bandwagon is nothing new.
In the 1960s and early '70s, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin and Wilson Pickett covered the Beatles, as did Harry Nilsson (a Lennon favorite) and The Mamas and the Papas. Arthur Fiedler's Boston Pops and the Percy Faith Strings essayed entire orchestral albums; ditto such elevator favorites as the Hollyridge Strings (in multiple volumes) and the Longines Symphonette.
Among the odder concoctions: a helium-squeaky tribute by David Seville and The Chipmunks (Alvin, Theodore and Simon) and something called "The Baroque Beatles Book," "rediscovered and edited" by Joshua Rifkin, a Handel-like setting of early songs by the Liverpool boys that included a tenor emoting operatically on "Help!"
More shocking were allegedly serious dabblings in Beatlemania by a host of stars better known in other spheres. Sometimes other quadrants of the galaxy.
"This was particularly true of celebrities, most of them popular on television more than in films," said Pat Sierchio, who with Gary Peterson created the offbeat and excruciatingly entertaining Rhino CD series, "Golden Throats."
Volume 4, released in 1997, is subtitled, "Celebrities Butcher Songs of the Beatles." On the collection Telly Savalas croaks "Something," Mae West makes a mockery of "Day Tripper" and "Star Trek's" William Shatner absolutely mangles "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds," introducing it with a near-psychotic rant called "Spleen" that predates Dennis Miller by 30 years.
These vandals, Sierchio said, "saw a great chance for a crossover -- to get to a popular music audience. And the most accessible songs to cover were Beatles songs."
About 15 years ago Sierchio came across Shatner's album "The Transformed Man," which, the back label noted, included "Lucy" and Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man." "I discovered it in a 'nobody-buys-these-kinds-of-albums' sort of bin," he said.
He bought it for 25 cents, took it back to Rhino Records (then sharing space with an import company) and showed it to Peterson. "He said, 'I have a Leonard Nimoy album!' And from then on, we just tried to outdo each other finding a record" by a generally nonsinging celebrity.
The "Golden Throat" series was born.
The basic rule: "We tried to stay away from people actually doing it as a joke," Sierchio said. So no to Mrs. Miller, the 1960s' pop-star housewife; yes to the lounge-lizard version of "A Hard Day's Night" by George Maharis, onetime-star of TV's "Route 66."
"We wanted those trying to do this with seriousness in mind. They all took themselves very seriously," he said.
Licensing these flawed gems for their anthologies has always been a challenge. For the "Butcher" album, they wanted but were unable to get a "Sgt. Pepper" by Bill Cosby and the Salvation Army Marching Band. They also yearned to popularize Maurice Chevalier's "Yellow Submarine," in French, "but we just couldn't find out who had the U.S. rights," Sierchio said.
Through the years, rockers have probably done better service to the Beatles' legacy, he said, pointing to Joe Cocker's throat-tearing rendition of "With a Little Help from My Friends" and Elton John's chart-topping "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds."
But he's not against anyone and everyone taking aim.
"I think everyone should take a shot, if it fits (the performer's style), and you can get a great arrangement," Sierchio said. "But most of the time, they fall flat on their faces."
Pizzarelli and Lanz hope their albums show a better sense of balance than that.
Deciding which songs by the Fab Four and other British invaders to pick for "Songs from an English Garden" was a tough thing to do, Lanz said -- but a fun task. "I got to hang out with old friends and listen to records.
"But you had to ask: 'Does it sound good on the piano as an instrumental? Some of their songs do; some don't." The pianist tried the Beatles' "Fixing a Hole" and "Things We Said Today" on for size but ultimately did not use them.
"I'll Follow the Sun," "Girl" and "Strawberry Fields Forever" -- his favorite among the interpretations -- made the cut.
"I tended toward the more melancholy songs -- they go well with my style," which is most often graceful and introspective, Lanz said.
For his brace of Beatle songs, Pizzarelli applied a sometimes light, sometimes blue swing-jazz approach. The singer-guitarist has patterned his style after that of the Nat King Cole Trio, but for these arrangements, Pizzarelli and Sebesky also imagined several other musicians doing these tunes.
" 'Things We Said' took on the 'Moondance' groove from Van Morrison," Pizzarelli said. " 'Can't Buy Me Love' was Woody Herman's '. . . Woodchopper's Ball.' 'For No One' is almost like a Sondheim song to me. We said, 'This is our Sondheim song.'
"We obviously stayed away from 'Yesterday' and 'Michelle' and 'Here, There and Everywhere," he said. "There've been so many versions!"