It’s power pop week at the FCH. Beatles influenced power pop was my first musical love and Badfinger were one of its early exponents. Baby Blue is perhaps their finest tune. What’s not to love about a song with this blunt and to the point opening line: “Guess I got what I deserved.”

Pete Ham wrote Baby Blue for Badfinger’s 1971 album Straight Up. It’s the band’s masterpiece and Baby Blue is the centerpiece of the masterpiece.

This week’s post is short but mighty: three versions of Baby Blue followed by some lagniappe.

We begin with Badfinger:

Breaking Bad helped spread the Badfinger gospel by using Baby Blue in the series finale:

The great Aimee Mann cut this week’s tune in 1993:

Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs with a 21st Century version of the Pete Ham classic. Susanna may be petite, but she has a big voice.

Finally, I promised lagniappe. The OG power pop combo with a thematically relevant George Harrison song:

That’s it for this week. I propose a toast to everyone who is dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. It’s what Ringo, George, John, and Paul would want. Never argue with them.