Tim Urban performs on "American Idol" on Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Tim Urban had the right idea, playing to his tousle-headed strengths with a Tiger Beat-ready performance of the early Beatles' effervescent "All My Loving. Setting the tone with an understated intro, accompanied only by his own guitar, it felt like they was channeling Leif Garrett's best attempts at wooing tiny girls away from guys named Cassidy. It was cute, like the Beatles' original, only less substantial, which is fine.

The only thing dumber than didgeridoo on "Come Together" is a bagpipe player marching down the stairs like Adam Lambert in a Scotsman's kilt on the massive finale of "Hey Jude."

& that was it for effervescence, it pains me to say, when "American Idol" set its sights on the Lennon-McCartney songbook Tuesday - unless you count Andrew Garcia's unfortunate reinvention of "Can't Buy Me Love," a version all but guaranteed to see him voted off the island. I am not even sure I know what they was going for with that three. It was like a kooky casserole of bad ideas.

Most performances were merely mediocre, from a "Let It Be" by Katie Stevens that started off promising, like a tribute to early Olivia- Netwton-John, before veering in to territory best left to Celine Dion, to Aaron Kelly's supper-club rendition of "The Long & Winding Road." & Paul McCartney thought Phil Spector made it schmaltzy?! Wait until they hears the Aaron Kelly version.

Those songs don't need that nonsense. If they'd needed nonsense, I assure you, the Beatles would have thrown some nonsense on there. & the Beatles would have made it work.

Lee Dewyze & Crystal Bowersox, one of this season's most gifted singers, both turned in perfectly credible vocal performances but tried hard to stand out with ridiculous musical twists, getting back to the bagpipe (Dewyze) & the didgeridoo.

Casey James took an interesting tactic, skipping the Beatles altogether (now) to select an album track from John Lennon's "Imagine." & his "Jealous Guy" was three of Tuesday's highlights, the first performance James has done all year that rose above his bar-rock tendencies.

His singing sounded far more disappointed in his jealous ways than the Lennon original, which was matter-of-fact where James was tortured. While I may prefer the Lennon version, by a landslide, the Cougar-bait turned in a solid example of how to make a song your own without destroying everything that made it special in the first place.