It’s a curious fact that some of the most enduring songs were written in a matter of minutes, such as The Beatles’ Yesterday, the Stones’ Satisfaction, Led Zeppelin’s Rock And Roll and Black Sabbath’s Paranoid. Another one is Johnny Kidd & The Pirates’ classic from 1960, Shakin’ All Over. Knocked together hastily in a cellar at midnight, it was intended as a throwaway B-side. Instead it became a monster hit and a foundation stone of British rock‘n’roll.
“I’d asked our studio engineer, Peter Sullivan, if we could write the B-side of our next single,” explains bassist Brian Gregg. “But we were so busy doing gigs that we never got round to writing it until the night before the recording session at Abbey Road. We got back to London at midnight, after a gig in Aylesbury, and Alan Caddy [guitarist], myself and Johnny Kidd went to the Freight Train coffee bar in Soho. Downstairs was an unused basement with no lighting, full of old chairs and CocaCola crates. All our instruments were still outside in the van, so the three of us sat there and came up with the guitar intro and bass line.”
