#easy to forget sometimes but these two had encyclopedic knowledge of pop songs

[get-back-homeward]

Any Lucille Ball fans out there?

She’s in a 1943 film of the 1939 musical DuBarry Was A Lady. It includes a Cole Porter number, Friendship, with Red Skeleton:

The song was a hit for Judy Garland with Johnny Mercer in 1940 and became a staple WW2 song:

Fast forward more than a decade later, I Love Lucy airs an episode where Lucy and Ethel agree to do a number for a women’s show. It’s fun during rehearsal:

But then they start getting egos and erupt in a fight. So they have to go on stage with these tensions, with passive aggression results:

I wasn’t sure whether 50s kids in Liverpool would have seen I Love Lucy. But it looks like ITV aired the show in 1955, and Lewisohn has the McCartneys renting a TV as early as 1953 for the coronation. So it’s possible they knew the episode.

But I think they definitely knew the song. And had made fun of it enough to riff on it. Maybe a remanent of a Hamburg or Cavern routine?

January 31, 1969, John and Paul.

If you’re ever in a jam, here I am

If you’re ever in a shit, grab my tit

That’s friendship, friendship

Another friendship to be forgot, ours will still be hot