The Beatles story is arguably the most enduring in music history and it always seems to keep on giving. At the centre of it all was the creative partnership between Lennon and McCartney which was pretty much completely over by 1969. Following their bust up and subsequent 1971 song attacks on each other a truce was fairly swiftly arrived at and a civility prevailed whenever they spoke about each other in interviews henceforth. But, other than McCartney’s 1994 Anthology contribution to Lennon demos, there would be no more Lennon / McCartney collaborations. And yet… (I am fully aware there are thousands of Beatle heads who already know this) I became aware this month that there was in fact one more event that had escaped me. On ’Let Me Roll It’ McCartney had admitted he’d made a track very much in Johns style. What I did not know was, maybe being made aware of this, Lennon for his next album had wholesale lifted the central guitar lick from McCartney’s song and inserted it into his own ’Beef Jerky’. Does this make it the final Lennon and McCartney composition of Lennon’s lifetime?

Blatant thieving is a slight hidden theme of this months playlist. I also learned this month how, following the Staples Singers unmistakable borrowing of an Upsetters intro for ’I’ll Take You There’, Lee Scratch Perry had vengefully placed a totally out of context Staples sample at the beginning of ‘Cow Thief Skank’.

Just as I was putting the finishing touches to the tracklisting, I finally ended my enforced 18 month gig drought with three in the space of six days. All three were pretty fantastic too, firstly a seated show to witness Martha Wainwright open her life up like a book singing mostly tracks from her new LP written after her divorce. The support band, Bernice, were pretty special too playing a kind of folk-club electronica. Two nights later John Grant once again mixed stunning, melodic electronics with aggressively honest singer-songwriter soul baring. Then I took a recommendation on The Lathums who played a winning mixture of Housemartins, Smiths and Arctic Monkeys style guitar pop. Catching a band whose debut album had just gone to number one was not something I necessarily expected to see at this stage of my gig going life but it was delightfully uplifting, one of the best gigs I’ve seen in fact. If a rowdy crowd singing ”UKs number one number one” to the tune of KC & The Sunshine Bands ’Give It Up’ for a band who are getting attention for no other reason than they are writing great songs doesn’t lift you….well just give it up.