Released March 1957 Label Cadence | Format Vinyl, 7", 45 RPM | |
B-side "I Wonder If I Care as Much" Recorded March 1, 1957, RCA Studios, Nashville, Tennessee Genre Rockabilly, country, rock and roll | ||
"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 number 2 on the US Billboard Pop charts and number 1 on the Cash Box Best Selling Record charts. The Everly Brothers' version also enjoyed major success as a country song, reaching number 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."
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The guitar intro to the song was not originally part of the song but was something that Don Everly had come up with that was just tacked on to the beginning. Chet Atkins was the lead guitar player on the session. Buddy Harmon was the drummer.
George Harrison's 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:
There goes our lady, with a-you-know-who
I hope she's happy, old Clapper too
We had good rhythm (and a little slide) till she stepped in
Did me a favour, I ... threw them both out.
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, 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'". 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".
Other cover versions
The Everly Brothers' country success was concurrent with another country version, recorded by Webb Pierce, at the time one of country music's top entertainers. Pierce's version reached number 7 that summer.
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.
Simon & Garfunkel included a live version of the song on their 1970 album Bridge over Troubled Water.
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.