B-side "Searchin'" Recorded February 15, 1957 Length 2:15 | Released March 1957 Genre Rhythm and blues Label Atco 6087 | |
"Young Blood" is a song written by Doc Pomus along with the songwriting team Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller that first became a hit in 1957. The song was included in the musical revue Smokey Joe's Cafe.
Contents
Structure
Musically, the song follows a minor blues structure, built mostly around three chords (im, ivm, V) except for the bridge (IV, VI, III, V). The lyrical theme is one typical of early rock and roll: boy meets girl, then meets girl's father, who does not approve of boy; so the boy departs, but cannot stop thinking about the girl, declaring "You're the one, you're the one, you're the one."
The Coasters' version
"Young Blood" was originally recorded by The Coasters and released as a single together with "Searchin'" in March 1957 by Atco Records (#6087). This song is compared to the cleaner cut song "Standing on the Corner" from the musical The Most Happy Fella. Their version can also be heard on The Very Best of the Coasters album. It topped Billboard's R&B chart and reached #8 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The Coasters' version is ranked #414 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, the group's only song on the list.
The Beatles' cover version
The Beatles played "Young Blood" in their Cavern Club repertoire. It is one of twelve songs recorded by them in July 1962 on a tape, which was re-purchased by Paul McCartney at a Sotheby's auction in 1985.
A previously-unreleased version performed by The Beatles (for the BBC radio show Pop Go the Beatles broadcast on June 11, 1963) is included on their album Live at the BBC, released in 1994. It was recorded at the BBC Paris Studio, London on June 1, 1963, and George Harrison is the lead vocalist on this recording; the tempo is moderately fast, considerably faster than in the original.
Other cover versions
The song has been covered by several other artists, including an audacious live performance by Leon Russell at the 1971 Concert for Bangla Desh, who was accompanied by a stageful of world-class musicians including George Harrison, Eric Clapton and Ringo Starr; a 1976 top 20 release by Bad Company; a 1983 version by Beach Boys guitarist Carl Wilson that served as the title track to Youngblood (his second solo album); and a version by Bruce Willis in The Return of Bruno (1987). The Grateful Dead are known to have soundchecked the song. "Young Blood" was performed by Flash Cadillac and the Continental Kids (as "Johnny Fish and the Fins") in a Season Two episode of Happy Days. The song appeared on Jerry Lee Lewis's 1995 album of the same name. For the 1995 Doc Pomus tribute album Till The Night Is Gone - A Tribute To Doc Pomus released by Rhino Records, The Band also recorded a cover, which later appeared on the rerelease of their 1996 album High on the Hog.
The song was sung by season 10 American Idol contestant Scotty McCreery during the Leiber & Stoller week of the competition.
A sound bite, "Look a-there! Look a-there! Look a-there!" from the Coasters' version was used in a Dickie Goodman comedy record, Flying Saucer the Second.