Putty in Your Hands - 2015 Remaster

Missouri-born jazz pianist Big John Patton wrote this tune of helpless devotion with "Strangers in the Night" songwriter Eddie Snyder (under the pseudonym Kay Rogers). It debuted as a track on the Shirelles' 1962 album Baby It's You. The Shirelles were a New Jersey-based girl group known for R&B-pop hits like "Will You Love Me Tomorrow."

Yardbirds drummer Jim McCarty explained in a 2011 interview with Rock Cellar Magazine why the band covered the song: "Eric (Clapton) hated the fact that we were recording a very commercial pop song ['For Your Love']. He also did not like the idea that Paul (Samwell-Smith) had elected himself as the producer of the session. In an effort to smooth Eric's feathers, we agreed to record two additional songs that he had suggested as singles: the Major Lance song 'Sweet Music' and The Shirelles' song 'Putty (In Your Hands)'. Neither of those songs was ever released as a single, but both would appear on future Yardbirds albums. The singles' setup was beginning to kill us as a band. Paul wasn't a great songwriter but he was good as a part of the team. When he left the band, it was a bit of a blow creatively. But we managed to get some songs together and carry on for a while."