Today’s classic song of the day was written by a Beatle and recorded by a group that that Beatle found and nurtured. The song is “Come and Get It,” the group is Badfinger, and the Beatle is Paul McCartney.
That’s right, Paul McCartney wrote “Come and Get It” back in 1969, for the movie The Magic Christian, which starred another Beatle, Ringo Starr. McCartney recorded a demo of the song on July 24, playing all the instruments himself; it took him just over an hour to lay down all the tracks—which, in itself, is amazing.
On August 2, McCartney brought the group Badfinger (then called the Iveys) into Abbey Road Studios to record their version of the song. As Sir Paul recalls:
“I’d written the song ‘Come And Get It’ and I’d made a fairly decent demo. Because I lived locally, I could get in half an hour before a Beatles session at Abbey Road—knowing it would be empty and all the stuff would be set up—and I’d use Ringo’s equipment to put a drum track down, put some piano down, quickly put some bass down, do the vocal, and double-track it. I said to Badfinger, ‘OK, it’s got to be exactly like this demo,’ because it had a great feeling on it. They actually wanted to put their own variations on, but I said, ‘No, this really is the right way.’”
To their credit, the musicians in Badfinger followed McCartney’s instructions to a T. The resulting recording was almost exactly like McCartney’s demo, but at a slightly faster tempo and in a different key, to better match singer Tom Evans’ vocal range.
Apple Records released the Badfinger single in December of 1969 in the UK, and in January 1970 in the U.S. “Come and Get It” hit #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #6 on the Cash Box Top 100. It also peaked at #4 on the UK Singles chart. It was the group’s first of four top twenty hits in the U.S., the others being “No Matter What” (#8 in 1970), “Day After Day” (#4 in 1971), and “Baby Blue” (#14 in 1972). It was the group’s biggest hit in the UK.
Just remember, you better hurry ’cause it’s going fast…
