February 20ths
2/20/1965 (Complete Beatles) ...’That Means A Lot’...was written for the new film and the Beatles had two separate attempts at recording it (this day and again on 30 March), neither successful, before they discarded the song and gave it instead to the day’s controversial singer P. J. Proby. Said John Lennon at the time, “The song is a ballad which Paul and I wrote for the film but we found we just couldn’t sing it. In fact, we made a hash of it, so we thought we’d better give it to someone who could do it well.” Proby recorded his version at Abbey Road on 7 April 1965, produced by Ron Richards. So what was wrong with the Beatles’ version? Actually, not a lot. If the Beatles were, as John Lennon indicated, unable to record the song correctly that may have been because it was an over-complex and somewhat unusually structured composition. [2/20/2026: A good example of something that happens as you write lots of material. Some of it starts to s...
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