Other Voices, Part 18: The R&B Song Intended For The Beatles

Johnny Keyes was a staff songwriter for the Memphis-based Stax Records--a famous soul and R&B label in the 1960's.

In an interview Keyes gave the Memphis Flyer (a metro Memphis area newsweekly started in 1989), he describes the visit Brian Epstein made to Stax records in early April, 1966 to look into having The Beatles record there.  Epstein decided to keep The Beatles in England (see my last post) and The Beatles recorded the Revolver album at EMI studios in London.

Keyes thought The Beatles might like to record a Stax-style track so he and Ronnie Gorden, a Stax keyboardist wrote a Smokey Robinson-like song (think, "The Way You Do The Things You Do") called "Out Of Control."

The Beatles didn't use the song.  Finally, in 1968, it was recorded by L.H. and the Memphis Sounds and released on the Madison, TN label, Hollywood records.  It had backmasking.

To put the backmasking into context, you might remember that in the new, new Beatles 1967 Sgt. Pepper album song, "A Day In The Life", the run-out groove in the album released in England had the backmasked message:  "Will Paul come back as Superman."  Also, a Superman image is included in the 1967 Magical Mystery Tour booklet.  (See third panel right and more on that image in a future post.)

So . . . . "Out Of Control"  has the following backmasking:
     1.)  Beginning at 0:02 in the backmasked song, you hear:  "Oh . . . Superman" repeated six times.
           "Oh . . . Superman" is also repeated four times beginning at 1:02 and twice beginning at 1:52.
     2.)  From 2:18-2:20:  "I survived the worst."
     3.)  From 2:25-2:28:  "They would not pay."

Did the songwriters or the band hear gossip about Paul and retool the song as an ironic comment on "A Day In The Life" and Paul?


One more note on this:  In the song, Superman is pronounced Supermahn, in a Caribbean or African way.  ???