By Jim Fusco:

Hello everyone- time for another episode of “The Laptop Sessions”. Boy, do I have a lot of these in the works for you. I have two more requests for Beach Boys cover songs, plus Chris and I still have to do our Moody Blues song and another Beatles cover song. Somewhere down the line I’d like to throw in one of my original songs, too.  Oh, you didn’t know that I was a songwriter? 🙂  Well, that’s one of the reasons I do the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs music video blog.  I’m hoping that the people who like the cover songs I play will take a chance and listen to my original music, as well!  So far, it’s been a great success.

Tonight’s cover song video is the Beatles song, “Do You Want To Know A Secret”, originally sung by the great George Harrison. This is a fun song to play and sing, especially because it’s got those minor 7th chords that make it sound a bit “old fashioned”.  People just don’t write songs like this anymore.  It’s one of the earliest Beatles songs released, so it was written during their period of relative innocence (you know, before the drugs).  John Lennon wrote this song and gave it to George to sing.  His heavy British accent really comes through on this track.  I sang, though, in my normal New England American accent, as I do with all my cover song videos.  My goal here at the music blog is not to imitate the artists I cover, but to reimagine my favorite songs in a stripped-down acoustic solo performance.

I chose to go with my nylon-stringed acoustic guitar for this song.  Why?  Well, for one, it’s much easier to sing over than a steel-stringed guitar.  For this cover video, I wanted to sing a bit softer and sweeter (just like George Harrison did!), so I thought this guitar was the right choice not to overpower my voice.  Also, and I’ve gotten a lot of compliments about this, the strumming pattern I used works so much better on this guitar than steel-string acoustic guitar.  Because I don’t have the solid drumming of Ringo Starr behind me, I had to come up with a way of playing that incorporated the unique beat of “Do You Want To Know a Secret” while playing by myself.  The “hops” that are in the chord progression really move the sog along well and I found it to be an easy way of switching chords, as well.  Plus, sliding down like that gave my version that cool retro sound I was talking about before.  It sounds like a song from the 40s when played that way!

Of course, requests are welcome for any other Beatles or George Harrison song you’d like to hear!  Everyone knows pretty much all of the Beatles songs, so my “to-do list” is pretty extensive at this point.  I hope you enjoy tonight’s cover song video and stay tuned for more Laptop Sessions music videos in the coming days!