EVIL HEARTED YOU
“Evil Hearted You” is a 1965 song by English rock group the Yardbirds. It was written by Graham Gouldman, who also wrote the group’s two prior singles, “For Your Love” and “Heart Full of Soul”. Music critic Cub Koda describes the song as a “minor-key pop classic” and guitarist Jeff Beck’s solo as “equal parts classical and James Bond soundtrack”. In a review for AllMusic, Richie Unterberger called the song “one of the gloomiest hit singles in all of 1960s British rock” and adds: “[It] throws in all of Gouldman’s mid-’60s bag of tricks: multiple abrupt tempo changes, a haunting Middle Eastern-influenced melody extremely heavy on the minor chords, a lyric abjectly pining for a woman’s love, and adroit integration of several contrasting sections.” (More from Wikipedia)
The Yardbirds included “Train Kept A-Rollin’” on their second American album, Having a Rave up with the Yardbirds that is absolutely chock full of classic songs; in addition to their major hits “I’m a Man” and “Heart Full of Soul”, Having a Rave Up includes “Evil Hearted You” and “Still I’m Sad”, plus a full side of the Yardbirds in concert featuring Eric Clapton on lead (taken from their British debut album, Five Live Yardbirds) that includes “I’m a Man” again plus their devastating cover of Howlin’ Wolf’s “Smokestack Lightning” that I first heard on their 1967 collection The Yardbirds’ Greatest Hits. Anyone who thinks that the British Invasion began and ended with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones needs to hear this music post haste.
(June 2015)
