Beck ranked in the top five of Rolling Stone and other magazine's list of 100 greatest guitarists. He was often called a "guitarist's guitarist". Rolling Stone describes him as "one of the most influential lead guitarists in rock". Although he recorded two hit albums (in 1975 and 1976) as a solo act, Beck did not establish or maintain the sustained commercial success of many of his contemporaries and bandmates.
Beck earned wide critical praise and received the Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance six times and Best Pop Instrumental Performance once. In 2014 he received the British Academy's Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music. Beck was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice: as a member of the Yardbirds (1992) and as a solo artist (2009).
Beck was born on 24 June 1944 to Arnold and Ethel Beck at 206 Demesne Road, Wallington, England. As a 10-year-old, Beck sang in a church choir. He attended Sutton Manor Schoo and Sutton East County Secondary Modern School.
Beck cited Les Paul as the first electric guitar player who impressed him. Beck said that he first heard an electric guitar when he was 6 years old and heard Paul playing "How High the Moon" on the radio. He asked his mother what it was. After she replied it was an electric guitar and was all tricks, he said, "That's for me". Cliff Gallup, lead guitarist with Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps, was also an early musical influence, followed by B.B. King and Steve Cropper. Beck considers Lonnie Mack "a rock guitarist [who] was unjustly overlooked [and] a major influence on him and many others."
As a teenager he learned to play on a borrowed guitar and made several attempts to build his own instrument, first by gluing and bolting together cigar boxes for the body and an unsanded fence-post for the neck with model aircraft control-lines and frets simply painted on.
Upon leaving school, he attended Wimbledon College of Art, after which he was briefly employed as a painter and decorator, a groundsman on a golf course and a car paint-sprayer. Beck's sister Annetta introduced him to Jimmy Page when both were teenagers.
Beck stopped regular use of a pick in the 1980s. He produces a wide variety of sounds by using his thumb to pluck the strings, his ring finger on the volume knob and his little finger on the vibrato bar on his signature Fender Stratocaster. By plucking a string and then 'fading in' the sound with the volume knob he creates a unique sound that can resemble a human voice, among other effects. He frequently uses a wah-wah pedal both live and in the studio. Eric Clapton once said, "With Jeff, it's all in his hands".
Along with Stratocasters, Beck occasionally played Fender Telecaster and Gibson Les Paul models as well. His amplifiers were primarily Fender and Marshall. In his earlier days with the Yardbirds, Beck also used a 1954 Fender Esquire guitar (now owned by Seymour W. Duncan, and housed in the Cleveland Rock and Roll Hall of Fame) through Vox AC30s. He also played through a variety of fuzz pedals and echo units along with this set-up and has used the Pro Co RAT distortion pedal. The pickup was based on a Gibson pickup rewound by Duncan and used in a salvaged Telecaster dubbed the "Tele-Gib" which he had constructed as a gift to Beck. Scott Morgan of the Rationals, who at one point shared a dressing room with the Yardbirds, recalls how Beck amplified his lead guitar through a Vox Superbeetle while using banjo strings for the unwound G string on his guitar because "they didn't make sets with an unwound G at that point."
During the ARMS Charity Concerts in 1983 Beck used his battered Fender Esquire along with a 1954 Stratocaster and a Jackson Soloist. On Crazy Legs (1993) he played a Gretsch Duo Jet, his signature Stratocaster and various other guitars. In 2007, Fender created a Custom Shop Tribute series version of his beat-up Fender Esquire as well as his Artist Signature series Stratocaster.
Described by Rolling Stone as "one of the most influential lead guitarists in rock", Beck cited his major influences as Les Paul, the Shadows, Cliff Gallup, Ravi Shankar, Roy Buchanan, Chet Atkins, Django Reinhardt, Steve Cropper and Lonnie Mack. Of John McLaughlin, Beck said: "[he] has given us so many different facets of the guitar and introduced thousands of us to world music, by blending Indian music with jazz and classical. I'd say he was the best guitarist alive."
According to musicologist and historian Bob Gulla, Beck is credited for popularising the use of audio feedback and distortion in rock guitar. Prior to Beck's arrival, guitar playing generally conformed to the "clean, bright, and jangly" sounds of early-1960s British Invasion bands or the bluesy aesthetic of 1950s African-American performers like Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley. During his short time with the Yardbirds, Beck's experimentation with feedback, distortion, and "fuzz" tone "pushed the band into directions that would open the door for psychedelic rock" while "jolt[ing] British rock forward", according to Gulla. While Beck was not the first rock guitarist to experiment with electronic distortion, he nonetheless helped to redefine the sound and role of the electric guitar in rock music. Beck's work with the Yardbirds and the Jeff Beck Group's 1968 album Truth were seminal influences on heavy metal music, which emerged in full force in the early 1970s. Gulla identifies one of Beck's characteristic traits to be his sense of pitch, particularly in exercising the whammy bar to create sounds ranging from "nose-diving bombs to subtle, perfectly pitched harmonic melodies".
According to guitarist and author Jack Wilkins, Beck is regarded alongside Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton as one of his generation's greatest guitarists, receiving praise for his technical skill and versatile playing. Stephen Thomas Erlewine finds him to be "as innovative as Jimmy Page, as tasteful as Eric Clapton, and nearly as visionary as Jimi Hendrix", although unable to achieve their mainstream success, "primarily because of the haphazard way he approached his career" while often lacking a star singer to help make his music more accessible. On his recorded output by 1991, Erlewine remarked that "never has such a gifted musician had such a spotty discography", believing Beck had largely released "remarkably uneven" solo records and only "a few terrific albums". In Christgau's Record Guide (1981), Robert Christgau essentialised Beck as "a technician" and questioned his ability to "improvise long lines, or jazz it up with a modicum of delicacy, or for that matter get funky", although he later observed a "customary focus, loyalty, and consistency of taste".
In 2015, Beck was ranked No. 5 in Rolling Stone' magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists". In an accompanying essay, guitarist Mike Campbell applauded Beck for his "brilliant technique" and "personality" in his playing, including a sense of humor expressed through the growl of his wah-wah effects. Campbell also credited Beck with expanding the boundaries of the blues, particularly on his two collaborations with Stewart.
I Can't Give Back the Love I Feel for You
Jeff Beck Lyrics
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And a dream, that's torn at the seams
Here's a promise you made to me
Of the tomorrow I'll never see
And then you're free to go
But I can't give back the love
I feel for you
No matter what I do
Take these arms that held you close
I thought I was the one you needed the most
Take these hands, they're no good to me
That used to touch you so tenderly
But I can't give back the love
That's a part of me
If you want just a little bit
You have to take all of me
Here's a ring
That didn't mean a thing
And the letters you wrote
That gave my young heart hope
Take the pillow where my dreams were made
And the mind, where the thought of you stayed
But baby, you should know
That I can't give back the love
I feel for you
I'm gonna be stuck with it
No matter what I do
Take these eyes that once could see
Now reflections of a misery
The happiness I thought would last
Now a becoming just a thing of the past
But I can't give back the love
That's a part of me
If you want just a little bit
You have to take all of me
No, I can't give back
No, I feel for you
Oh, I'm gonna be stuck
No matter what I do
'cause it'll grow 'till the world
Don't go 'round no more
But I can't give back the love
I feel for you
I'm gonna be stuck with it
No matter what I do
But I can't give back the love
I feel for you
I'm gonna be stuck with it
No matter what I do
But I can't give back the love
I feel for you
I'm gonna be stuck with it
No matter what I do
The song "I Can't Give Back The Love I Feel For You" by Jeff Beck Group describes the emotional pain experienced by someone who is unable to let go of their love for a person who has already left them. The lyrics express the feelings of helplessness and heartbreak that come with being stuck in a one-sided relationship. The singer is torn between a desire to move on and the lingering feelings that they still have for their lost love.
In the first verse, the singer presents a poignant image of a broken dream and an unfulfilled promise of a future together. The second verse goes deeper into the heartbreak, with the singer offering up physical things that represent the lost love, such as arms that held the other person, hands that touched them tenderly, and eyes that saw happiness where there is now only misery. The chorus offers the sad truth that no matter how hard the singer tries, they will always be stuck with the love they feel, even if the other person has moved on.
The lyrics suggest a sense of futility and desperation, with the repetitive use of the lines "I can't give back the love I feel for you" emphasizing the singer's feelings of helplessness. The song captures the essence of unrequited love, where even though the feelings are not reciprocated, they persist, sometimes even growing stronger over time.
Line by Line Meaning
Here's a tear, for a souvenir
I have nothing left to hold onto from our love except for the memory of a tear.
And a dream, that's torn at the seams
My dreams of our future together have been destroyed and are falling apart at the seams.
Here's a promise you made to me
You made a promise to me that you will not keep.
Of the tomorrow I'll never see
The promise of a future together is something I will never experience.
And then you're free to go
Once you break your promise, you are free to leave me.
But I can't give back the love
I feel for you
I'm gonna be stuck with it
No matter what I do
Although you are free to leave me, I cannot take back the love that I still have for you, and I am stuck with it forever.
Take these arms that held you close
My arms used to hold you tightly and keep you close.
I thought I was the one you needed the most
I believed that I was the one you truly needed in your life.
Take these hands, they're no good to me
That used to touch you so tenderly
My hands that used to touch you gently are now useless to me without you.
But I can't give back the love
That's a part of me
If you want just a little bit
You have to take all of me
Even though I am willing to give you everything I have, I cannot give back the love that is a part of who I am. If you want to be with me, you have to accept all of me.
Here's a ring
That didn't mean a thing
The ring that I gave you was meaningless because our love was not real.
And the letters you wrote
That gave my young heart hope
The letters you wrote to me when I was young gave me hope for a future together that will never come true.
Take the pillow where my dreams were made
And the mind, where the thought of you stayed
Take everything that reminds me of the dreams I had for us and the thoughts of you that were constantly on my mind.
That I can't give back the love
I feel for you
I'm gonna be stuck with it
No matter what I do
Even though you are taking everything from me, I cannot take back the love that I still have for you, and I am stuck with it forever.
Take these eyes that once could see
Now reflections of a misery
My eyes that used to see the beauty of our love are now only able to reflect my misery and pain.
The happiness I thought would last
Now a becoming just a thing of the past
The happiness I thought we would have together is now nothing but a distant memory of the past.
No, I can't give back
No, I feel for you
Oh, I'm gonna be stuck
No matter what I do
'cause it'll grow 'till the world
Don't go 'round no more
I cannot take back the love I have for you, and it will continue to grow until the world stops turning.
But I can't give back the love
I feel for you
I'm gonna be stuck with it
No matter what I do
Although I am willing to give you everything I have, I cannot take back the love that is a part of who I am, and I am stuck with it forever.
But I can't give back the love
I feel for you
I'm gonna be stuck with it
No matter what I do
Even though you are free to leave me, I cannot take back the love that I still have for you, and I am stuck with it forever.
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: BRIAN HOLLAND, NICKOLAS ASHFORD, VALERIE SIMPSON
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind