We Love the Beatles: "She Goes Out With Everybody" by the Spongetones

Illustration from Let's Go To a Bakery by Naomi Buchheimer, 1956

So I had this idea for a mixtape one time - maybe ten years ago or something - called "We Love the Beach Boys". I was listening to a lot of Brian-Wilson-inspired stuff at the time, and I thought it would be fun to collect the songs that did the best job of aping the style. I never got around to making the tape, but I still use the "We love..." concept as a time-waster - in boring meetings, I'll make a "We Love..." lists in the margins of a notepad. I thought I would resurrect the concept here - I'm not listening to music right now (see yesterday's entry), but luckily you don't need functional ears to tell that someone is ripping off the Beatles.

"She Goes Out With Everybody" is an early single from '80s power-poppers the Spongetones. It's from around 1983, but I think it may have been a standalone single as it's not on any of the track-lists I'm seeing for the first Spongetones record Beat Music. The first line of the first verse gives the game away as Jamie Hoover throws his best double-tracked Lennon lilt into a lovely descending melody line. What I like about the song is that it makes no attempt to "update" the Beatles sound - it's a straight-up imitation, but there's no mistaking it for an actual track from the '60s. The lyrics are too '80s somehow - the line "became a woman at fifteen" is a little too direct for the original British Invasion style. But it's got a fun little bridge and nice harmonies, and it's hard to argue with the charm and energy they put into their little pastiche. They love the Beatles.

"She Goes Out With Everybody" by the Spongetones