Here’s my latest song cover in a series that starts in 1963. This one, by the Beatles, was recorded in 1965:

You can also see the video on its YouTube page.

“I Keep Writing the Same Song” is my first “Logic Pro” recording — this is the Apple software of which GarageBand is the baby version. My YouTube video is here and is also embedded below.  Lyrics and production notes can be found at the linked site. Remixed in 2018.

I guess I’ve started a kind of long-term project — recording covers of songs that were influential in my musical development. The first was 1963’s Surfer Girl. This one is Mixed-up, Shook-up, Girl from 1964 (recorded by Patty & the Emblems, possibly the earliest hit co-written by Leon Huff, who later achieved legendary status as half of the song-writing-producing team of Gamble and Huff).

I made a “studio” version of my song (Own Biggest Fan), after having recorded live version last month. The lyrics, production notes and embedded video for the new version are here. The YouTube video, shot with my still-working low-resolution Flip camcorder, and edited with Final Cut Express, is embedded below.

I’ve been working on a new song, “Own Biggest Fan,” since November 2011. I made a live version — just me and my guitar recorded with a single mic — on June 1, 2012. The YouTube video can be found here.

Surfer Girl was written by Brian Wilson in 1961 and released by the Beach Boys in 1963. I decided to record it “live” on GarageBand, playing keyboards and singing the lead vocal simultaneously. This was all documented with the iSight camera on my iMac (I also recorded a live version of a new original song with guitar and vocal recorded simultaneously, but that one is not yet finished). I then recorded three tracks of background vocals, superimposed some lip-synching Flip video clips, and posted it to YouTube. YouTube has an interesting attitude towards such intellectual property violations (although the lyrics of Surfer Girl are only marginally intellectual by any rational standard) — on a case by case basis, they permit someone like me to post such copyrighted material online, as long as I acknowledge that the copyright belongs to others and allow the copyright owners to place an advertisement for an MP3 of the original song adjacent to the video. No problem — you could do far worse than to purchase the Beach Boy’s original version of this song.

About 30 years after we recorded this song, ROLLO’s Heyday of the Automobile is now a YouTube video. For lyrics and other song minutiae, go to the YouTube site; otherwise, just check it out here: