Jeff Beck, man of steel, allowed his guitar to cry for a few minutes in 1974. He was in the studio with the Beatles' producer, George Martin, working on "Cause We've Ended As Lovers," which was no slight tune. For one thing, it had been suggested to Beck by its author, Stevie Wonder, as recompense for Stevie's having jumped the gun with his own version of "Superstition" instead of letting Beck, Bogert & Appice take the first shot as promised. (Beck had helped shape the rhythm.) For another, Wonder had written "Lovers" for his ex-wife, Syreeta Wright, who had sung it on her just-issued album.
The ballad was loaded with vibes, and Beck approached its yearnful changes cautiously. Known more for his rambunction than for his romanticism, Beck asked himself, "What would Roy do?" Dedicating "Cause We've Ended As Lovers" to Roy Buchanan on the record jacket, Beck applied very Roy-like string bends, fingertip brushes and volume variations to the beginning of the instrumental. Who knows who or what he was thinking about, but he made us believe he was turning a very difficult emotional corner, and feeling it with every breath.
George Martin's reports of Beck's perfectionism are borne out by the introductory segments, which are too amazing not to have been selected from various attempts. As a musical story, the song makes sense in that it doesn't maintain its initial level of anguish -- it rises above the crisis, gets itself together, moves forward like a man, representing Beck as the stone cold artist he is . . . but looking back wistfully for a moment at the end.
A key track from the breakthrough 1975 "Blow by Blow" album, "Cause We've Ended As Lovers" must have occasioned some ambivalence for Beck throughout his career. Though audiences demanded it, a listen to live versions reveals little attempt to re-create the song's original atmosphere. That would have been impossible; Beck was no actor. So he played the melody and made something different of it every night. We could have expected no more.
And Beck usually delivered more than we expected. He brought noise to the Yardbirds. He brought us Rod Stewart on the first two Jeff Beck Group records, and burped up so much hellation behind Rod that we thought it was OK to play out of tune (which, now that we hear it again, he didn't). He was a rocker who played jazz instead of the other way around, and he made jazz players imitate him. He invented whole new ways of using the right hand's fingers and the volume control. He had huge fun with effects and drum machines. He hired women in his bands. He did some of his most creative playing just last year with Ozzy Osbourne on "A Thousand Shades."
Jeff Beck liked cars. He worked on them and got in wrecks. He died of bacterial meningitis. Wild guess: He cut himself and got infected. He was 78. He was the best.
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Busting his guitar with the Yardbirds in Antonioni's "Blow-Up." Turning Spain into space with "Beck's Bolero." Feeding back, whammying and pounding it like cubesteak on "Rice Pudding." Getting reborn as an insane tech head. Putting up with Rod at the Bowl. See ya. Always thought we would, again.