“Till There Was You” by Meredith Willson . . . from the Broadway Musical “The Music Man” . . . . Ukulele Chord/Melody arrangement by Ukulele Mike Lynch . . . contained in the Chord/Melody eBook ONE (now reduced to just $20.00)

Performance of “Till There Was You”

We learn from Wikipedia that “Til There Was You” is a song written by Meredith Willson for his 1957 musical play The Music Man, and which also appeared in the 1962 movie version. The song is sung by librarian Marian Paroo (Barbara Cook on Broadway, Shirley Jones in the film) to Professor Harold Hill (portrayed by Robert Preston) toward the end of Act Two. It became a hit for Anita Bryant in 1959 and was later covered by the English rock band the Beatles in 1963

THE BEATLES VERSION  . . .

“Till There Was You” was included on the Beatles albums With the Beatles (UK release, 1963) and Meet the Beatles! (US release, 1964), the song was the only Broadway tune that the English rock group ever recorded.

Paul McCartney was introduced to Peggy Lee‘s cover of the song by his older cousin, Bett Robbins, who would occasionally baby-sit the two McCartney brothers. McCartney said: “I had no idea until much later that it was from The Music Man.” “‘Til There Was You” was part of the Beatles’ repertoire in 1962 and performed at the Star Club in Hamburg. It became illustrative of the Beatles’ versatility, proving they could appeal to all sections of an audience, moving easily from softer ballads to harder rock and roll, as in their appearance on November 4, 1963 at the Royal Variety Performance when they followed this song with “Twist and Shout“.

The band had previously performed “‘Til There Was You” as part of their failed audition for Decca Records in London on January 1, 1962, and it was the second of five the group sang during their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964.

Live versions of the song were released on Live at the BBC (1994) and Anthology 1 (1995). The latter version was recorded when the Beatles played at the Royal Variety Performance; because the album was cut so that live numbers began with the actual song, John Lennon‘s famous request that those in the royal box “rattle your jewelry” to “Twist and Shout” is in fact included on the “‘Til There Was You” track. When introducing this song (likewise placed on “She Loves You” for Anthology), McCartney commented that the song “had also been recorded by our favourite American group, Sophie Tucker“. This tongue-in-cheek comment by McCartney unwittingly began an urban legend that “‘Til There Was You” was an old Sophie Tucker song, when in fact, there is no record of her ever performing the tune. A live performance of “‘Til There was You” by Paul McCartney appears on his DVD The Space Within US.

In 2016, the BBC announced that a “holy grail” Beatles record would be auctioned in March of that year. A private pressing; it features two songs, “Hello Little Girl” and “Til There Was You” and was valued at over £10,000. The disc eventually sold for well over its estimated value – £77,500.

MY CHORD/MELODY ARRANGEMENT

I originally did this as a FINGERPICKING, arpeggio arrangement a few years ago. . . It worked quite well in that format, but then I wondered how it mght work as a Chord/Melody arrangement.  I discovered that it gave it a kind of gentler, softer approach and it worked very well . . . It has very delicious chords (Jazz chords) and plenty of them to keep the left hand busy. . . See below the first few measures of the piece.

You gotta just love those diminished 7th and minor 7th chords . . . .

The BRIDGE  . . .

Notice how the melody and therefore the chord inversion takes us clear up to the 10th fret. . . Then we swiftly descend to the 5th fret barre chord on the last measure to play and upper inversion F chord.  Admittedly, this will take some degree of practice and lots of patience to get. . . but it’s well worth it as I always say.

Till There Was You” is contained in the Chord/Melody eBook ONE and can be purchased by making a payment of just $20.00 through the paypal button on the Ukulele Mike website: http://www.ukulelemikelynch.com Once purchased, it will be personally emailed to you within the day. By he way, this is a massively large collection . . . 52 songs in all!

Full table of contents:

Each of the Chord/Melody eBooks can be purchased separately for just $20.00 or all together at a combined discount of just $50.00  . . .

Announcing the NEW Chord melody ebook FOUR  $25.95

All 4 of the Chord melody ebooks can be purchased at a combo discount of  $70

Questions regarding any Ukulele resource, please email: TheUkuleleMan2012@hotmail.com