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A
Non-Album Recordings Part #11: 1968 (EMI)
A) 1968 was the year when the world went
back from multi-coloured splendour rot black-and-white. Riots, assassinations,
the escalation of troops in Vietnam: suddenly 'earthy' sounds were in and
existential musings were out. The Beatles' first release of the year (coming
out in March) caught the band at the direct halfway stage of where they've been
and where they're going. A-side [252] 'Lady Madonna' is the Beatles' simplest recording for years, an
entirely McCartney written song based around a funky piano riff and a bluesy
chord progression that's almost a solo project (John only appears on backing
vocals and George only takes the briefest of brief guitar solos). In a way
that's fitting because this in many ways Paul's first song for future wife
Linda and a tribute to how well the singer thought she was coping with all the
problems and multi-tasking of being a single parent in the late 60s (she's
divorced her geologist husband Joseph Melville See in 1965 and had been looking
after a by noe five year old daughter Heather alone for three years - typically
Paul, unlike John, got on rather well with his wife's ex-husband). 'Lady
Madonna' is an impressively advanced song for its era of chauvinism,
celebrating tough earthy women who get masses done without fuss (Paul, by now
established as Heather's favourite babysitter, was particularly impressed at
how Linda managed to fill his fridge with all the right foods without him
actually saying anything to her). The use of the name 'Madonna' also has
biblical connotations, hinting at women being the strong, silent partners
throughout history, since biblical times (although, like 'Let It Be', the song
is vague enough for non-believers to understand as well). Unfortunately after
making his point in the first verse Paul doesn't know where to run with it and
a good song simply runs out of steam a bit too quickly, filled in with some
nursery rhyme-styled nonsense (based around the tale of 'Monday's child works
hard for a living' etc) that detracts from the great first verse and a curious
'see how they run' passage 'borrowed' from another nursery rhyme, 'Three Blind
Mice'. Did this song start as a rhyming game Paul was making up for Heather,
before thoughts turned to her mother and well and easily she did this sort of
thing all the time? Either way, Yoko must have been cross that her future
husband's partner beat him to saying all the things she wanted him to say and
actually this is a very Lennon-ish song, harsh and unmelodic by Paul's usual
standards, although all the disaparate sections of the song typically tie up by
the end. First released as a single on March 15th
1968. Find it on: 'Past Masters Volume Two (1988, Re-issued 2009)
B) George's first ever B-side is more in
keeping with 1967 (it was in fact recorded, along with most of his first solo
project the under-rated 'Wonderwall Music', on January 6th 1968 so dates from
only a week into the new year). [253] 'The Inner Light' is the 'last' great song to come out of the
band's psychedelic years and is the best evidence yet of just how deeply George
has taken to the Eastern way of life. The lyrics are a direct steal from
Lao-Tse Taoist's book 'The Tao Te Ching' (or in English 'The Way'), a kind of
cross between a book of sonnets and an instruction manual. The book was sent to
Harrison by Juan Mascaro, a scholar and Beatles fan who thought he might find
it 'useful' - he sent it to the right person: perhaps the most open-minded
member of an open-minded group George understood the text straight away and knowing
him was probably halfway through the song by the time by the time he'd finished
it. Unlike Lennon's 'steal' from a circus poster on 'Mr Kite', you sense that
George believes every word (indeed the lines - which come practically unchanged
from the original - are very close to what he'd already written for 'Within
You, Without You'. The theme of the song is knowledge - that to understand this
world and our role within it we should be spending our time thinking about the
next one, not rushing around glancing at everything without really 'seeing' it.
Combined with a beautiful backing track that bounces between the serene vision
George has just discovered and the bouncy, sarod-led riff that would have leant
itself well to a Rickenbacker guitar (both parts held together by an unmoving organ
note, the musical equivalent of the soul still being tied by a single 'string'
to the body) Harrison finds his forte, with a song that's notably unlike John's
or Paul's work for the first time but every bit as good. Worried by the song
and certain that it didn't 'fit' the rest of his 'Wonderwall' soundtrack album
he wasn't sure what to do with it (I've often wondered if that soundtrack's
distinctly Beatles instrumental 'Party Seacombe' was intended in this song's
place as his contribution to their next album, perhaps with some lyrics that
hadn't been written yet). However Lennon and McCartney loved this song and
badgered George into adding first a vocal and then agreeing to its release as a
B-side (it helped that they didn't have anything else ready!) They also add a
grand total of one line of harmonies right at the end of the song, just saving
'The Inner Light' from being the first song since 'Yesterday' to feature only
one Beatle. A real triumph for its creator, the sad part is that the world
moved away from such mystical Indian sounds (although note that there's not a
single sitar on this recording, George keen to show how many other great sounds
there are in the Indian music scene) just when Harrison had finally found his
'voice'. Personally I prefer it to 'Lady Madonna', a song that tries a little
too hard in comparison to 'Light's clever lyrics, which prove that the best way
forward is not to try at all and let wisdom come to you. First released as the B-side of 'Lady Madonna' on March
15th 1968. Find it on: 'Past Masters Volume Two (1988, Re-issued 2009)
C) Recorded in July (at the heart of the
sessions for the 'White Album') and released in August (three months before) [254]
'Hey Jude' reveals none
of the frictions and difficulties of the band's parent project. Instead 'Hey
Jude' is one of the band's best known and most loved singalongs, a song that
manages to make the most of McCartney's buoyant optimism without descending
into anything trite or shallow and features one of the best Beatle group
performances of the second half of their career. The song started as words of
comfort to Julian Lennon, then aged five, whom Paul was particularly close to
(Cynthia's surprisingly snarling pair of autobiographies have bad words to say
about most people in The Beartles' orbit but she still clearly adores
McCartney, who still kept in contact long after John had taken up with Yoko).
After trying to be happy and optimistic about her chances of getting back
together with John, the bassist was deeply
moved when he went to leave and saw a flicker of sadness on Julian's
face as he went to leave. Reportedly 'Hey Jude' was written on that very ride
home back to London (Cynthia was still in the family's Surrey house) as 'Hey
Jules', a song of hope and to 'not give up', with the name somehow
metamorphosising into the stronger-syllabled (and more satisfying to sing)
'Jude'. Strangely enough and unknowing all of this, Lennon latched onto the
song the second Paul played it to him, assuming it meant quite the opposite and
was effectively 'blessing' his union with Yoko (by the time it was finished
'Hey Jude' does indeed sound like its being sung to an 'old friend' rather than
a small boy, especially the line 'you were made to go out and get her'). To his
dying day, when Lennon was still a little bit anti-Paul, he still claimed to
love this song which features the best of all McCartney's traits: it's happy
without being facile, hopeful without being trite and repetitive but in a way
that builds up to a towering climax. The lyrics are comforting without actually
explaining the situation, basically a big brother putting around the listener's
shoulder and telling them that everything is going to be alright ('it's just you
- well, you'll do' Paul screams, as if ready to take on the school bullies on
your behalf). The extended ending which kicks in at the 3:10 mark is
extraordinary, all that tension and uncertainty being turned into a positive
nonsense singalong of 'na na na na' that make 'Jude' feel like the most loved
person in the world (and extending the song - as the band must have known it
would be - to a record-breaking-for-a-number-one-single at 7:09 - allegedly
mixed to run a second longer than current nominee 'MacArthur Park'). The result
has been dimmed by the amount of times we've heard it, the fact that McCartney
seems obliged to end every concert or TV appearance with it and the way that
anytime The Beatles are represented on some general TV programme about music
it's always this song they play. In other words, 'Hey Jude' made a lot more
sense in 1968 when it was new and fresh than it does now it's sentiment has
grown old and stale. But this is still a clever and satisfying work, filled
with just enough love to make up for the lines that have clearly just been
'blocked in' (Paul remembers telling John the line 'the movement you need is on
the shoulder' was a 'filler' lyric till something better came along - John
loved it and told him it was the best part of the song) and enough emotional
power to go with the clever construction. Oh and for something a little extra
that few fans ever notice or comment on, Paul messes up his piano line and
exclaims '!#in' hell' deep in the mix at around 3:10 . This is the third time you
can hear a Beatle swear on record!) First released
as a single on August 26th 1968. Find it on: 'Past Masters Volume Two (1988,
Re-issued 2009)
D) If 'Hey Jude' was designed to bring
people together, then the single mix of B-side [245b] 'Revolution' is Lennon song designed to divide and conquer.
Although released first this is actually the second version of the song to be
recorded (about six weeks after the 'White Album' version) and it's spiky,
hard-hitting brash guitar strums reflect the mood of a year that had got
further and further out of control since Lennon wrote the song. It would be
nice to think that Lennon cared enough about his art to keep recording till he
got things right, but it seems more likely that he was so taken with his own
song (which, like many of his early Yoko songs, finds him making a 'statement'
and giving an 'opinion' to the world rather than talking about himself or
people he didn't know) that he effectively demanded it be released as the next
Beatles single. Sure that the record would be banned (and break their run of
hits) the other three weren't so sure; as a cop-out they told Lennon that his
'first' version was too laidback and not commercial enough. Undeterred Lennon
got the band back in the studio and made his rallying cry one of his more
accessible songs of the period, fairly bursting with energy and featuring a
notably aggressive drum track from Ringo. However Paul's last minute coup with
'Hey Jude' (recorded about three weeks later) meant John had 'lost' the
argument: unusually adamant about not leaving things in the archive, Lennon
agreed to have the song come out as a flipside. The solution to keeping both
halves happy, surely, is obvious: release the record as another 'double 'A'
side (like they did after a similar impasse over 'Day Tripper' and 'We Can Work
It Out') but measure it by point-of-sales (which almost certainly would have
had 'Hey Jude' first). Hard-hitting as this version is and as good as many of
the arrangement touches are (Lennon singing triple-tracked with himself but
coming in at different times, as if to keep us on our toes) the more laidback
'White Album' version is a better fit for the song. Lyrically the two versions
are identical, apart from Lennon now being confident about being 'counted out'
of the revolution when it comes (he hedges his best with 'out...in!' on the
album version).Even so both versions are strong and it's this single version
that will set the tone for Lennon's solo career more than perhaps any other
Beatles song. This second version first released as
a the B-side of 'Hey Jude' on August 26th 1968. Find it on: 'Past Masters
Volume Two (1988, Re-issued 2009)
E) [255] 'Across The Universe' is a funny little song. I've
known fans who adore it and fans who hate it - in truth it's not much of a song
to get worked up about either way. Written
around a mantra given to Lennon by the Maharishi (although, unusually,
the song seems to have written once the band had got home and most likely came
to Lennon after the venomous 'Sexy Sadie') 'jai guru dev' (basically 'I am at
one with the world - and the world is at one with me'), this song of beauty and
awe seems out of place in Lennon's canon, especially his new Yoko-enhanced
caustic self of 1968. Could it be that, impressed by George's 'The Inner
Light', Lennon wanted to write a song in his partner's genre? If so then he
woefully misses what makes Harrison's piece so special: awe. Lennon's narrator
is adamant that 'nothing's going to change my world' and gets hung up on some
'Lucy In the Sky' style surreal imagery that's a poor substitute for the very
real emotions going on in George's heart. Lennon was always best when he wrote
instinctively about what was on his mind, but he really struggled writing songs
about subjects he thought he 'ought' to be writing about. Unsure quite what to
do with it, this song was recorded many times - the first, more psychedelic
version played on a zither and harpsichord released on 'Anthology Two' being
about the best and was pencilled in for several Beatles projects: for 'Yellow
Submarine' (back when it was an EP - the animators would have fun doing this
one, actually!) and for The White Album. Eventually the song was given away to
an early various artists charity album raising money for the World Wildlife
Fund - while not about the environment per se the lyrics fitted nicely. Even so
the 'WWF' version (collected for the world to hear on 'Past Masters Volume Two'
- the original never sold that well) rather misses the point with its added on
sound effects, female choir (actually two 'groupies' camped outside Abbey Road
invited in on a whim) and varispeeded vocal (which makes Lennon sound 'high'
rather than moved) and The Beatles are badly upstaged by labelmates The Hollies
(whose contribution to the same album, 'Wings' is one of their very best songs). A third and final version
(basically a remix of the WWF version) was included on 'Let It Be' by producer
Phil Spector to bulk up the LP and (probably) to butter Lennon up a bit more
for getting the job. The song really doesn't fit there either, being an
overhang from a more innocent time and losing out as part of an album where The
Beatles were never less at one with the world (and the world less at one with
them). The Beach Boys, fellow acolytes of the Maharishi, also used the phrase
'jai guru dev' in their 1972 song 'All This Is That' (from the 'Carl and the
Passions - So Tough' album), a lovely song about peace and tranquillity that
sounds more like what Lennon was aiming for here. Find
it on: The various artists compilation 'Nothing's Gonna Change Our World'
(December 12th 1969), 'Let It Be' (1970) and 'Anthology Two' (1996)
F) Unsure quite how to begin a
particular side of 'The White Album' in its original rough running order, some
bright spark asked George Martin' to come up with an instrumental passage that
would loop into Ringo's first song 'Don't Pass Me By'. Martin either hadn't
heard the song or misunderstood the brief: what he came up with was [256] 'The Beginning', a 40 second orchestral instrumental full of
layers of longing and emotion (it would have made a fine film score) that
sounds nothing like 'Don't Pass Me By'. The only way you can tell the two parts
were meant to go together is that they end in the same key (C Major, if you're
wondering - Ringo couldn't play any black notes!) The idea didn't really work
and was quickly removed, with the track listing shiggled round to prevent the
problem. Sadly the refusal by one of the remaining Beatles to release a third
Lennon-demo-with-overdubs single in the 1990s (George most likely - but what
was the song? We'll have fun guessing later on in this book!) means that 'Anthology
Three' now starts with this piece instead - you can almost here the outcry from
confused fans wanting The Beatles from here! Find it
on: 'Anthology Three' (1996)
G) Yet again Anthology put a recording
that only fans could love second on their key albums! Lennon's demo of [228b] 'Happiness Is A Warm Gun' is
fascinating stuff if you love the song - there are sections that don't make the
record but should have done (John playing with his new girlfriend's name on
'Yoko Oh No Oh Yes' is terrific!), sections missing (none of the 'lizard on the
windowpane' surreal-ness of the finale) and the sense that Lennon is forcing
the song out from his self-consciousness right then and there. Unfortunately
all non-fans can hear is a man stumbling around a song he hasn't got chords for
yet (I' starting to lose count but I think this is the third and final time you
can hear a Beatle swearing on record!) and the two less interesting parts of
the song ('I need a fix' and 'mother superior jumped the gun') heard over and
over. Find it on: 'Anthology Three' (1996)
H) The Anthology version of [243b] 'Helter Skelter' could really have been something.
Inspired by Lennon's twenty minute (!) version of 'Revolution' on the first day
of the album sessions McCartney drove the Beatles through a sleepy 25 (!)
minute version of 'Helter Skelter' (these two songs would have filled up a
single album between them!) Alas some idiot pulling the strings at Apple
decided that only four minute were good enough to go out so what we have here
is a slowed down ramshackle version of the song we already know and love
without the more interesting-sounding Grateful Dead/Jefferson Airplane style
jam sections either side of it. What we have here sound suspiciously like the
'release' section to me, without all the tight energy built up from whatever
grooves the band had been playing up to this point (sadly until this song leaks
on bootleg I'll probably never know for certain!) So is this version better
than the release one? Not based on what's here - but we don't get anywhere
close to experiencing this song in full (incidentally the Beatles could have
added this entire version to 'Anthology Three' with the loss of just one
three-minute song - I nominate 'Rocky Raccoon' - so leaving it out for 'space
reasons' seems daft to me). One wonders what crimes Charlie Manson might have
committed had he heard this rambling creepy version in full... Find it on: 'Anthology Three' (1996)
I) [257b] 'Mean Mr Mustard' sounds in ruder health as a White
Album demo than he ever did as part of the Abbey Road medley. Lennon's 'Esher'
demo (recorded like many of this next run of songs in George's house shortly
before he moved to Friar Park) is much better than the final product: his
guitar riff 'waddle' makes Mr Mustard charming rather than sinister, his
double-tracked vocal (complete with 'whoops'es and mistakes) charismatic and
the repeats to the song make it sound more substantial (especially the chorus
'He's such a dirty dirty...mean Mr Mustard', as if Lennon is too angry to sing
the right words). Listen out for the fact that Mr Mustard's sister taking him
to 'look at the queen' (where he shouts out something obscene) in this version
is Shirley - Lennon will change her name to 'Pam' when he realised that the
Abbey Road melody sequence would go quite well with the track 'Polythene Pam'.
One of the few Anthology recordings to trounce the original. Find it on: 'Anthology Three' (1996)
J) Talking of which, [258b] 'Polythene Pam' doesn't quite
work when heard in similar demo form, although it's fun when Lennon garbles his
words. Lennon has already pout his scouse accent on but somehow this early take
never really catches fire: Pam is too 'polite' in this version somehow. Find it on: 'Anthology Three' (1996)
K) [223b] 'Glass Onion' is another song that had a surprising
amount of time spent on it seeing that Lennon at best wrote it as a 'filler'. Lennon's
110 second demo is less wise-cracking than the version that made the record and
more of an actual 'song' than a mere list of in-jokes (recorded in mid September,
it beat the 'White Album' version by about a month). Lennon's decision to slow
the song down is quite effective, making the song sound briefly thoughtful - as
befits a song about how the mysteries of life unravel the closer to the middle
you get. With a few more lyrics (Lennon only has the first verse into the
chorus so far) this demo arrangement could have been an even better song. Some
14 songs later 'Anthology' also features the first arrangement of the song: one
that comes with all the power of the finished version but the band are clearly
less sure that it's going to work and end up sticking in all sorts of
unnecessary 'gimmicks' along the way. This version features - for no apparent
reason - the sound of breaking glass, a ringing phone and a football
commentator shouting 'it's a goal!' Lennon clearly wanted to leave his
listeners a few extra 'red herring' clues here, although the effect doesn't
really work. What's interesting is how much of the arrangement was held over: even
the 'Fool On The Hill' mimicking flutes are there in this early version
although you still miss George Martin's eerie strings.
Find it on: 'Anthology Three' (1996)
L)[259] 'Junk' is a lovely McCartney song that will appear 18 months later
on first album 'McCartney'. This Esher demo is if anything slightly more
arranged than the simple finished version featuring a double-tracked vocal at
times, although Paul hasn't quite up with the lyrics yet. A eulogy for
forgotten objects gathering dust somewhere that used to mean so much, this song
cleverly leaves most of the story up to the listener (why is there so much in a
junk shop? Has there been a death, a divorce or a move recently?) Amazing to
think that a song this good was abandoned despite the Beatles needing material
to fill 'The White Album' and later 'The Abbey Road Medley'. Find it on: 'Anthology Three' (1996)
M)'Junk' would have made a better song
than [232b] 'Piggies',
for instance, which sounds almost as unlikeable in demo form. At least here
George sings the song properly, though, without any distracting production
trickery and a nice guitar part (and whistling!) that reveals how much debt
this song owes to folk protest songs (something rather hidden on the
harpsichord-led finished product). There's just one lyrical change this time:
instead of using knives forks to 'eat their bacon' the piggies are using
cutlery to 'eat their pork chops'. Snort! Find it
on: 'Anthology Three' (1996)
N) Paul's brief demo of [247b] 'Honey Pie' might not be
quite as polished as the 'White Album' version but it's a lot less po-faced and
a lot more fun. Various assorted Pauls seem to be having a roaring twenties
party by the sound of things and while the one who keeps singing 'ooh yeah' is
really irritating the lead vocal Paul sings is actually better then the
finished version. There's no middle instrumental section here yet (thank
goodness!) and no 'final verse/middle
eight' (depending what we call it) about the 'wind blowing her boat across the sea'.
All in all this Honey Pie is rather sweet and much more of a good-time gal than
the stuck up one that made the album. Find it on:
'Anthology Three' (1996)
O) Ringo's [234b] 'Don't Pass Me By' is next
(wouldn't it have been better coming after 'The Beginning' like it was meant
to?) and is seemingly here just so Ringo - as sole composer - gets a bigger
piece of the Anthology pie. The differences between this early takes and the
finished version is minimal: a few different drum thwacks and no violin solo.
The only lyrical difference is a rather fun 'drunken' monologue from Ringo over
the fade ('Don't pass me by, now, honey!') This version of the song sound very
unfinished, but then again the version on the 'White Album' didn't sound that
finished either - strange to think that it was actually quite a big improvement
from what's here! Find it on: 'Anthology Three'
(1996)
P) McCartney's [224b] 'Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da' is another song that went through several
permutations before the band were satisfied with it. Lennpon already sounds
mighty sick of it though, hence his rather edgy opening yell inviting us to
hear 'take one by the united jumbo band!' in his best Jamaican accent! This
version is more muted than the single version and the biggest difference is the
loss of John's opening crashing piano chords. If anything, though, this early
version is better suited to a song about being laidback and the ska-originals
of the song comes through much clearer here. Perhaps Paul should have left well
alone instead of nearly breaking up The Beatles recording another one? However
out of the two the 'White Album' does in by a nose, being more 'fun' sounding
whatever the issues in the studio! Find it on:
'Anthology Three' (1996)
Q) I'm also rather fond of the
'Anthology' take of Lennon's lullaby [251b] 'Good Night', even though it's not a proper take. A rare example
of one of The Beatles teaching a song to the others, Ringo is clearly singing
off a sheet while the others look on (and Lennon proves once again what a fine
piano player he is for someone who had never been professionally taught). Yes
you miss George Martin's strings, but this song for Julian sounds even sweeter
with just 'Uncle Ringo' and a piano, closer to how mums and dads across the
world would be singing anyway (it helps that Ringo has a voice that everyone
thinks they can improve on!) There's also a different beginning, Ringo singing
the chorus ('Dream sweet dreams for me') which works rather well as an opening
(As Lennon says it 'sounds quite nice now' - it's a shame they didn't keep it).
What a shame too that 'Good Night' had to be altered quite so much from the
simple likeable song it is here to the rather over-lush and overly senti,ental
version that made the album. Oh and it's an even bigger shame that The Beatles
had to go and 'Anthologise' the recording, segueing into the final version
instead of just letting the song come to a natural conclusion. Did they really
think that many people would buy these outtakes sets without having heard 'The
White Album' first?! Still, how lucky that this rare example of The Beatles
rehearsing and getting to know a song rather than going for a proper 'take'
managed to survive all these years (un-bootlegged too as far as I can tell). Find it on: 'Anthology Three' (1996)
R) [249b] 'Cry Baby Cry' is pretty similar all round compared
to the final version: all its missing are the accordion overdubs while the bass
and drums clatter in slightly later. Without quite so much distortion and echo
on Lennon's voice he sounds sad rather than scary which gives a quite different
'feel' to a song that, depending how you read it, is either a sigh for lost
childhoods that will never come again or a tirade at how much of a
commercially-driven sham childhood really was (something that makes 'Cry Baby
Cry' more relevant to each passing generation). Note how the chords Lennon
plats the beginning sound like the ones he plays at the start of 'A Day In The
Life', something that isn't quite so obvious on the finished take. Find it on: 'Anthology Three' (1996)
S) The earlier 'Anthology' version of
[231b] 'Blackbird' is also near enough the finished version
- with only a guitar part and a vocal there isn't much room to alter anything,
although that didn't stop Paul from attempting take after take. You can hear
differences when you know the song well though: Macca uses a slightly different
accent on this version (faux-American), his vocal lines rise and fall in
slightly different ways and there are a couple of pauses here and there that
suggest that this is an early take. Oh and there's no sound effect of a
blackbird singing along! Find it on: 'Anthology
Three' (1996)
T) After a run of comparatively duff or
at least familiar sounding re-takes, 'Anthology Three' suddenly pulls of a
masterstroke with a very young sounding [242b] 'Sexy Sadie'. Slightly slower (and as a result
slightly sadder), Sadie doesn't yet have the wondrous backing vocals of the
final version and the main instruments here are Lennon's creaky organ and
Ringo's rather loud drumming (both of which are there on the final record but
in the background, not face front like this). To be honest if the band had left
the song like this I'd have been taking them to task for playing so poorly, but
Lennon for one is having great fun and turns in a vocal simply dripping with uncorked
venom and mischief. Woe betide anyone who upsets Lennon - what have you done?
Frustratingly, the song fades out even though it sounds as if it still has a
fair way to go (did the take breakdown? And if so why can't we hear it? It's
not as if we'll ignore 50 years of popular culture and start laughing at the
Beatles because of a single mistake now is it? That's what The Spice Girls are
for!) Find it on: 'Anthology Three' (1996)
U) Another candidate for best
'Anthology' discovery is George's simple acoustic demo of [227b] 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps'.
A world away from the whirl of fury and Eric Clapton superstar solos of the
finished version, this version is stark and sad, a morose reflection on how so many things are out of our control. There's
even the bonus of an extra verse, cut from the final version that adds a
chilling conclusion to the song: 'I look from the wings at the play you are
staging while my guitar gently weeps, as I'm sitting here doing nothing but
aging, while my guitar gently weeps'. The 'Love' album later doctored this
version with some truly ugly George Martin strings - in truth this songs
doesn't need anything more doing to it - the wonder is that George didn't
simply release it as it stood. Of all four Beatles George was the one served
best by the Anthology project and never did his light shine brighter than here.
Find it on: 'Anthology Three' (1996)
V) By contrast, the shortened
'Anthology' version of '[254b] Hey
Jude' isn't all that different: the band clearly don't know the song
inside out yet (this is only take 2 - the finished one is take 26!) but they're
pretty darn close. John introduces Paul as 'from the heart of the Black
Country' (ie the Midlands) before Paul
starts off busking a new song - or at
least if it's an 'old' one I can't find any references to it anywhere... ('When
I was a robber in Boston place you gathered round me with your fond
embrace...') Then starts that familiar refrain (sadly faded short at the 4
minute mark after just 45 seconds of 'na na nas') which sounds audibly rough at
times but features a great soulful McCartney vocal. Not sure I learnt anything
new about the song but nice to hear a
slightly different version of a song that's probably suffered from too
much exposure down the years. Find it on: 'Anthology
Three' (1996)
W) [260] 'Not Guilty' is a rare example of a completely
unreleased Beatles original. It's a Harrisong, familiar from a slowed down,
rather calmer version on his self-titled 1979 album. This song is far too good
to have remained stuck in a vault for all these years, with a turbulent guitar
riff that sounds like George banging his head against a wall repeatedly and
which gets more and more desperate with each verse, ending with one of the
candidates for George's greatest solos by the time the fadeout rumbles along. A
song forever about to trip up and fall down, 'Not Guilty' sounds halfway between a comedy pratfall and
a sinister seedy black and white B movie, leaving the listener unsure whether
to laugh or cry. The reason The Beatles never did release it are two-fold. One
is that they were simply sick of it: this song is so complex that the band ran
through 106 takes (!) of this song before giving up (this is take 99, one of
the very few to get all the way to the end!), perhaps because this track is so
complex, jumping from 4/4 to 3/4 time and back again (something that would have
kept the rhythmically wayward Lennon especially on his toes). Was George trying
for the similar sound of his colleague's 'Happiness Is A Warm Gun' here by any
chance? The other reason is that this is another one of George's songs designed
to ruffle feathers. A kind of 'Apple' version of 'Only Northern Song' The
guitarist makes fun of the band's business empire and squabbles, distancing himself
from them with a mixture of back-stabbing and wry grins ('I won't upset the
apple-cart - I only want what I can get!) Along the way George gets in a few
digs at his simplistic public image ('Not guilty for looking like a freak,
making friends with every Sikh!') and his role in the Maharishi debacle ('Not
guilty for leading you astray on the road to Mandalay') Perhaps George was
simply guilty of airing too much dirty laundry in public? All that said,
though, John and Paul were hardly immune to talking about the band and this
song would have worked well if treated with the lightness of touch of Lennon's
similar 'Glass Onion' rather than the oppressive atmosphere the song is given
here. Find it on: 'Anthology Three' (1996)
X) The Anthology version of [240b] 'Mother Nature's Son' is
rather less essential and, as with 'Blackbird', there's nowhere else really
Paul can go with just his voice and a guitar. It's nice to hear the song bereft
of horn parts though and the studio chat surrounding the song is as usual
almost as good as the song itself (perhaps too used to Lennon's mocking huour
on his songs, Paul announces afterwards in a posh voice that he'd 'like to do
Londonderry Air' - defensive humour was a useful tool for all The Beatles when
they got too big-headed). Find it on: 'Anthology
Three' (1996)
Y) [233b] 'Rocky Raccoon', meanwhile, is even more pointless
on 'Anthology' than it was on 'The White Album'. The finished product wasn't
exactly exciting or polished but this early version is chaotic - among the
roughest recordings of The Beatles officially available. Paul is trying to
teach the song to the rest of the band who clearly don't know it, with Lennon
struggling to keep up on harmonica. Paul adds a clever spoken word introduction
to the song though that should have been kept (perhaps he couldn't remember it
for later takes?)Making the song even more obvious as a spoof of bad cowboy
films, it runs 'Rock Raccoon was a fool unto himself and he would not swallow
his foolish pride...mind you, coming from a small town in Minnesota it was not
the kind of thing that a young man did when a feller went and stole his chick
away from him'. There's even a fuller ender: where at the end of Paul's scat
singing he adds '...and that's the story of Rocky Raccoon', like the end
credits of some bad TV drama. The band plough on regardless despite some
toe-curling mistakes (most audibly Paul getting the line wrong that the 'doctor
is sminking of gin...sminking?!') but if anything there's even less joy in the
room on this version than the finished product. Find
it on: 'Anthology Three' (1996)
Z) Here's the good news: [261] 'What's The New Mary Jane?'
is a completely unreleased Lennon song which finally secured an official
release after decades of Beatle fanlore discussing how terrific it must be. The
bad news is you should be careful what you wish for: 'What's The New Mary
Jane', for years described as John at his most psychedelically outrageous, is
no 'Revolution #9' never mind 'I Am The Walrus'. In truth its John and Yoko seeing
how much they can get away with recording while high while having studio timed
paid for ('Mary Jane' being a slang term for marijuana - if you're wondering
why the title is so ungrammatical marijuana tends to confuse people's idea of
tenses whilst under it's spell). What's a shame is that this track could have
really been something: no other Lennon song tries quite so hard to turn his 'In
His Own Write' style prose into a song, a clever idea for composition which -
to insiders who know the slang - is all about having your realities changed by
drugs ('He grooving with cooking spaghetti'). The song has a haunting piano
riff too and some of the sonic trickery (Yoko singing 'John' while varispeeded,
filled with echo and sounding like it's sung underwater is more effective than
similar attempts on the pair's 'Wedding Album' the following year) is very
clever - it's just that at 6 minutes and with a good two of those being Yoko
screaming loudly while John rattles a tambourine you've forgotten all about the
song's promise long before the end. While the Ono-Lennons only recorded the
song once there are multiple mixes on bootleg, all made by Lennon and I
wondered which one the Anthology project would use. Typically, they use a
hybrid version that starts off with the song at its most 'normal' (until about
the two minute mark) and then at its most 'weird' (with all hell breaking loose
on the sound effects). Someone, somewhere, really did hear this track for the
first time while stoned and is probably still having nightmares about the
places it took them to this day. 'Let's
hear it before we get taken away' Lennon jokes at the end - at least we think
he's joking; even by Lennon standards this 'song' is on the limits of sanity
and while very nearly the first official release by the Plastic Ono Band (as
the B-side of 'You Know My Name') you sense that Lennon never ever intended to
release a song quite as crazy and gloriously wretched as this one. Like many
things he did with Yoko this is for them to listen back and giggle at - John
would probably have been horrified that we ever got to hear it! Find it on: 'Anthology Three' (1996)
AA) The 'real' great lost Beatles song
of 1968 was [262] 'Step Inside
Love', a delightful McCartney pop song that was written especially for
Cilla Black after she asked Paul for a theme tune for a TV series The BBC had
just commissioned. Cute without being twee, it somehow manages to tick all the
boxes without sounding as if that's all it's doing - accessible but easy to
warm to, it's the kind of song Paul could write in seconds - something that
annoyed the hell out of John. That might explain why the Paul-sung 'Anthology'
version of this song turns out the way it does. The Beatles (or at least John
and Paul) are actually meant to be recording 'I Will', suggesting this
recording comes from the first day (Paul recorded the finished version that
made the album alone later in the sessions). Taking a break for a few minutes,
the guitar plucking of his new song clearly reminds Paul of 'Step Inside Love' so
he busks it for a couple of minutes.
Lennon then gets in his dig that the song is by 'Los Paranoias' (a typical
Lennon pun on 'Los Paraguyos', an acoustic minstrel outfit who used to appear
on all sorts of mainstream TV and a double dig because they're exactly the
people who'd appear on Cilla's show (although they never actually did). Paul's
response? he twists the knife again, busking a song right there on the spot
that shows off just how easily songs come to him and that - for these few
minutes at least - he doesn't mind one bit being an 'all round entertainer'.
Lennon must have been really narked by that and the fact that this fun but
throwaway recording turned up on 'Anthology' all those years later suggests
that he's still rather proud of his quick comeback...
Find it on: 'Anthology Three' (1996)
BB) The Anthology take of [230b] 'I'm So Tired' sounds, rather
suitably given the circumstances, as if The Beatles have been up all night
making it. John sounds grumpy and everyone else sounds tired (especially Ringo
whose drumming is especially slapdash). This version doesn't really have the
'zing' of the finished version but has a few interesting differences including
a smoother George Harrison guitar part, no organ overdub and a chance to hear
John's vocal without double-tracking. Find it on:
'Anthology Three' (1996)
CC) Strangle out of order on
'Anthology', here is an alternate version of what The Beatles should have been
recording instead of 'Los Paranoias'. [236b] 'I Will' took
one hell of a long time to get right by Beatles standards - 67 takes for the
finished album version in fact but this is the song right back at the beginning
on take one. After all that work there aren't really any differences: no
harmonies, a little more Ringo percussion and a slightly slower tempo. I'm not
sure that's enough reason to include this version on 'Anthology' really, but at
least it gives one of the most obscure Beatles originals a chance for another
hearing. Find it on: 'Anthology Three' (1996)
DD) The same goes double for Anthology's
'Why Don't We Do It In The
Road?' [235b] Obscure, unloved and a song that went through dozens of
takes taken right back to the beginning where the differences are minimal. The
biggest one is that Paul sings solo without Ringo to back him and that instead
of singing the one and only verse through twice he sings it four times in a
variety of voices: like Stevie Wonder, all falsetto harmonies and Motown soul,
in the 'shouty' voice that made the record, a folk-bluesy version in a much
quieter voice and finally a 'Cream' style psychedelic blues before pulling out
of another louder vocal a line into a fifth verse. The repetitions make more
sense of this simple song and should have been kept like this, but it's hardly
a candidate for the most thrilling Beatles outtake ever. Find it on: 'Anthology Three' (1996)
EE)Finally, 'Julia' [237b] - the last song taped for 'The White Album' - isn't
that different either, but is highly revealing all the same. John turns in half
a recording that, note for note, is very close to the finished product: the
only difference is that John sings just a guide vocal over the top of his
playing and even gives that up midway through the first verse. John messes up
at the start of the second verse and gets the giggles. Paul comes on the
talkback microphone to offer his sympathies and tells his partner 'you're doing
great!' apart from 'one or two discrepancies!' Find
it on: 'Anthology Three' (1996)
Non-Album Recordings Part #12: 1969 (EMI)
A) A quirk of the dying days of the
Beatles' discography is that the band recorded about the best finale to a
career as you can get: the back-to-basics 'Let It Be' followed by the polished
encore only a few were expecting 'Abbey Road'. However confusion as to what to
do with the mountain of tapes for the former (everything was taped, in the hope
making a film of first a concert, then a documentary on making an album, and
then shots of The Beatles falling out and breaking up before our eyes) meant
that the Beatles' perfect ending somehow got switched round, ending not with
the 'proper' goodbye of the 'Abbey Road Medley' but with the funk of [281a] 'Get Back'. Released as a
single a full 13 months before the later version appeared on the album, it
fooled many people in 1969 into thinking that a retro Beatles album might be
funner than it was. A hard-driving McCartney rocker written to a sped-up
typical blues sequence, it's about the tightest recording The Beatles made during
the sessions and an obvious choice for a single: the cry 'get back to where you
once belonged!' is very 1969 (a year of returning to your roots and making
country and 1950s-style rock records) and the perfect summary of what The
Beatles intended on 'Let It Be' (even if a lot of that idea got changed in
hiatus). However by Paul's high standards the lyrics are, quite honestly,
nonsense: a cast of characters searching for something they never quite find.
This is, by the way, the same take as the 'album' versions but it all sounds
very different. That's in part thanks to a slightly superior mix that forsakes
the period's 'no trickery' rule for a terrific use of reverb on everything
(which makes the Beatles sound like they're playing down a wind tunnel) and a
slightly different ending where, instead of cutting to an edit of speech from
the 'Rooftop' concert, the song doesn't stop at the 'false ending' but kicks
back in again, shuffling its way to a faded close around 30 seconds later. The
Rooftop speech I get - Lennon's hope that the band 'passed the audition' is a
typically ego-deflating Beatles way to
end - but why not use this section again first? First
released as a single on April 11th 1969. Find it on: 'Past Masters Volume Two'
(1988, Re-issued 2009)
B) [282] ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ was another key part of the 'Let
It Be' sessions , which might explain why it was this pair of songs that were
chosen to promote the record. Fair enough, The Beatles had a ‘no singles on
album policy’ in those days, but an alternate version of ‘Get Back’ made the
album and there’s no reason why, say, the excellent Anthology Three version of
this song didn’t make the record too (it might have spared us ‘Across The
Universe’ and ‘For You, Blue’ too as an added bonus). Another of Lennon’s
pained cry from the hearts for Yoko, this is Lennon’s most nakedly honest song
up to his ‘Plastic Ono Band’ primal scream record, setting out all his doubts
on the line because he’s been let down so many times he can’t bear it to happen
again. Just as the huge riff at the heart if ‘I Want You’ makes the
relationship between the two sound like a huge, cavernous unapproachable void,
so this song sounds like a real stab in the heart, with each cry of the chorus
sung staccato, punched by Ringo’s drums on his best playing on the album (as
ever, its Lennon’s most revealing songs that bring out the most in the drummer
– see ‘Strawberry Fields’ ‘Rain’ ‘A Day In The Life’ and especially ‘She Said
She Said’). The middle eight also sounds like an early Beatles song, the hope
and naivety of songs like ‘Ask Me Why’ sung by a man much more experienced and
less sure of himself when he sings ‘I’m in love for the first time...don’t you
know its going to last’. Note, too, how Lennon sounds more Liverpudlian than he
had for years in this song, possibly inspired to be ‘himself’ under Yoko’s
‘tutelage’. Macca’s harmony vocals is the right side of gritty too and his bass
playing thrilling indeed, summing up the bubbling hope and humour that Lennon’s
po-faced vocal is too afraid to accept, meaning that this is another of the
band’s best performances in the period. Lennon’s most inspired song of the
period, its interesting how different this sounds to Macca’s songs of love for
Linda – this is a far less flippant song from a man who spent most of 1969
making wisecracks, compared to the seriousness of McCartney in this year whose
laughter only came when he got home. ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ truly deserves its
place on 'Let It Be', the yin to ‘Two Of Us’ yang, about how deep and fulfilling
relationships can be, even the ones that bring you love and happiness. Frankly it's too good to be a mere B-side,
even one on the back of a single that The Beatles knew would be bought in
droves. Thankfully 'Let It Be...Naked' re-instated it to its proper place where
its pained pleas for truth and support make a lot more sense. First released as the B-side of 'Get Back' on April 11th
1969. Find it on: 'Past Masters Volume 2' (1988, Re-issued 2009) and 'Let It
Be...Naked' (2003)
C)[283] 'The Ballad Of John and Yoko' is a curious little song that makes
you wonder what Lennon meant by it. Written as an angry slap to all the people
who'd spent the past year being rude to Yoko, it tries hard to make the pair
out to be media victims, 'crucified' in the name of peace in the same way as
Jesus. Lennon must have known he was going to get a lot of trouble when he
recorded it just three years after his 'Beatles bigger than Jesus' misquote
gave the Christian centres of the globe kittens. But if so why did he insist
quite so hard on this being a 'Beatles' single rather than a 'Plastic Ono Band'
release (where the point might have been better made?) Why, too, did he decide
to stick his bitter lyrics to such a jolly, ear-catching blend of 50s style
retro rock and contemporary harder-edged sounds. The end result is like a
busker trying to catch your ear and then slapping you around the face for
daring to buy his product. Famously this isn't a 'Beatles' recording at all.
Taped at the very start of what will become 'Abbey Road' on April 16th 1969
this was the first time any of the Beatles had met up after the week of the
'Rooftop' concert. Lennon called the session at the last minute, while his song
was still fresh in his mind (it must have been too - they only married in Gibraltar
on March 20th, events that are key to the lyrics in this song) but without
realising that George and Ringo were out of the country. Paul was around,
though, and between them recorded everything on this song. Reduced to two
rather than four and with the two old school friends together, alone, for the
first time in many a long year the atmosphere was jovial - something that comes
over in the recording and softens Lennon's snide anger (the original basic
track of John on guitar and Paul on drums has them calling each other 'George'
and 'Ringo' throughout the takes!) That says much for McCartney's continued
support for his colleague as on the one hand the 'Allen Klien' court case had
just gone through (with Paul basically suing John) and 'The Ballad Of John and Yoko' is so unlike one
of his own songs and a step away from even John's past work it must have
sounded highly alien to him: it's built on a riff, not a melody, and is very
much about the 'self' rather than the half-imaginary, half-experienced people
Paul knew. He's really on form for this
song, though turning in a great fat bass line, some terrific sturdy drumming
and some cute backing harmonies that answer Lennon parrot fashion. By contrast
John is having a tough day and his nasal vocal reveals just how quickly this
song was recorded. Bizarrely, despite a 'warning' over the use of the
exclamation 'Christ!', this song wasn't actually banned anywhere and got
nowhere near the fuss Lennon must have been expecting. Even odder is the fact
that in Britain this became the best-selling Beatles single since 'Hello,
Goodbye' (yes it even outsold 'Hey Jude!') and is in fact the band's fourth
biggest seller of all in their homeland ('She Loves You' and 'I Want To Hold
Your Hand' being the other two). While better than many critics say it is
(Lennon's imagery is clever and highly visual: 'eating chocolate cake in the
bath' is a great line) and based around the best Chuck Berry riff neither he
nor Keith Richards wrote, 'Ballad' isn't that good - a 'B' side rather than an
'A' side and one of the weaker Beatle 45s. First
released as a single on May 30th 1969. Find it on: 'Past Masters Volume Two'
(1988, Re-issued 2009)
D) George's B-side [284a] 'Old Brown Shoe' is a neat
mirror: a funky rocker with a retro feel that's deeply personal (it starts off
as a list of the narrator's sexual turn-ons), it features prominent parts for
George and Ringo but no John and barely any Paul (whose bass and harmony vocals
are both buried deep in the mix). Deliberately mixed to sound 'funny', with
lots of bass noises and Ringo's drums uncomfortably loud, 'Old Brown Shoe' does
it's best to put off the listener but eventually draws them in by sounding
quite unlike anything else The Beatles ever recorded. A strangely lustful song ('If
you or me should get together...') that keeps looking for release at the end of
every verse on a long held note ('you should comfort me') but is instantly
trampled underfoot, as if by some giant shoe. The title, by the way, makes no
sense ('I'm stepping out of this old brown shoe' is the full line) and Beatle
scholars have debated for decades now on what the Beatles are singing over the
fade (is it gibberish or, as I reckon, 'Too late! Too late now!') On the other
hand the opening line is one of George's best, instantly setting the scene (or
not, given how weird the rest of the lyrics are: 'I want a love that's right
and love is only half of what's wrong'), topped off by another classic solo -
this one very much in friend Eric Clapton's style. First
released as the B-side of 'The Ballad Of John and Yoko' on May 30th 1969. Find
it on: 'Past Masters Volume Two' (1988, Re-issued 2009)
E) The single mix of [285a] 'Let It Be' - the last ever
release of new Beatles product until the 'Hollywood Bowl' shows in 1977 - is
not all that different to the album version. In fact, once again it's the exact
same take but a different mix (one that includes a rather overpowering Harrison
lead guitar solo, recorded in April 1969 when the band were still hopeful of
getting the album remixed and out in the shops but ultimately replaced on the
album by a second, superior go on January 4th 1970). It must have been strange
for the band to hear the world going mad for this song which was recorded in
the main a 14 months before and most likely written six months before that,
during the trying 'White Album' sessions. A fitting end to a wonderful singles
discography (although not intended as a final 'goodbye', it was written by Paul
under Beatle-induced stress, with his mother Mary appearing in a dream and
telling him to stop letting the band arguments get to him). 'Let It Be' manages
to be both uplifting and sad at the same time, a comforting hymn about letting
the thing you love go when it starts to cause you harm, it's also a pretty neat
statement on why The Beatles just had to end when they did. This mix first released as a single on March 6th 1970. Find
it on: 'Past Masters Volume Two' (1988, Re-issued 2009)
F) George first recorded a demo of his
future classic [267b] 'Something'
on his 27th birthday on February 23rd 1969 before the sessions for 'The White
Album' even started. Those present (this was an Abbey Road demo, earlier than
the Rishikesh 'Esher' ones) were struck even then at how good it was, but
George decided to sit on it for two and half albums before finally recording it
for 'Abbey Road'. As well as the middle eight we know and love ('You're asking
me will my love grow?') there's a second, rather less convincing one that was probably
right to be dropped ('You know I love that woman of mine and I need her all of
the time, you know I'm telling you now woman don't make me blue!') Even by
Anthology standards it's odd hearing this song put back to its bare essentials
without all the extra polish that goes with it but already 'Something' really
sounds like 'something' (in both senses of the word!)
Find it on: 'Anthology Three' (1996)
G) The 'Anthology' take of [296b] 'I've Got A Feeling' is the
one originally marked for release by engineer (and future Who producer) Glyn
Johns and - like most of his ideas, rejected by The Beatles for being a little
too 'rough' - is spot on. Slightly quicker than the finished version and not
quite as gung-ho The Beatles actually sound as if they're having a 'good time'
here. George gets to play some extra guitar frills, Lennon's in much better
voice on his 'Everybody Had A Hard Year' section and only a mistake that causes
a breakdown into the grand finale (the bit where John and Paul sing together,
something that could easily have been edited in from another take) prevents
this from being 'the one'. This early take comes not from Twickenham (where the
'Let It Be' film was recorded) but from earlier sessions at Apple's recording
studio ('designed' by Magic Alex and 'repaired' by Abbey Road engineers at some
expense and only used by The Beatles this once). The song is already tight and
together, which makes you wonder why the band struggles so much with just a few
weeks later (did the film cameras put them off?) Find
it on: 'Anthology Three' (1996)
H) [276b] 'She Came In Through The Bathroom Window' is merely
a 'rehearsal' of a song so new even its author isn't quite sure what to do with
it yet (and appearing here a good nine months before appearing on 'Abbey Road'),
but if you take away Ringo's rather in-the-way drumming this version is
actually better. The slow stately pace suits this sleepy, hazy song of robbery
and betrayal and George's wah-wah guitar is delicious. Paul's vocal, here in
his 'normal' rather than his 'shouting' voice, is also vastly superior, full of
so much character that even Lennon's gifted backing vocals can't throw him off
the scent. There's a neat false ending too before the band go back round the
chorus for a final time. Oh and there's no 'oh yeah' at the end of each chorus
here either. Always the perfectionist, Paul already has some new ideas by the
time the band have finished playing, which are sadly cut off short before we
get the rest of the band's reply (Lennon probably said something rude!) Find it on: 'Anthology Three' (1996)
I) [292b] 'Dig A Pony' is my favourite of the 'Let It Be'
recordings and while not quite as playful as the 'Rooftop' version that made
the album, this 'Anthology' recording finally undoes all the worst meddling
that producer Phil Spector did to this poor song. There's now an opening of
'All I want is...' from Paul and George back at the start of this song which is
really effective, the take is slower and bluesier and it ends with not one go
round the song's exaggerated angular riff but three or four before finally
ending where we started on another 'All I want is...' John is right on the
money vocally and sounds hurt when George Martin sounds surprised at how tight
they are ('You're not talking to Ricci and the Red Streaks you know!'; a
favourite pseudonym of Lennon's, Paul will borrow it when he needs a good name
in a hurry for Linda's song 'Seaside Woman', credited originally to 'Suzi and
the Red Stripes'). Another rare case of an Anthology version improving on the
finished version. Find it on: 'Anthology Three'
(1996)
J) There are some terrific versions of [291b]
'Two Of Us' in The
Beatles' vaults. The song's close harmonies between John and Paul (reminding
them of their acoustic days as the duo 'The Nerk Twins') resulted in lots of
jokes including a great version where the pair try out every accent under the
sun (before settling on a rather broad Scots!) Alas the Anthology take isn't
one of them and the only real variation is the lack of whistling and more Ringo,
neither of which are necessarily a good thing. Once more this song is very
together considering how early in the album sessions we are (we've gone back in
time, in true Anthology style, this time to the second day at Apple
headquarters) and you wonder why the band had so many problems with such a
simple song later on. Paul jokingly tells Lennon to 'take it Phil!' after the
middle eight - a reference to The Everly Brothers, whose work this song closely
matches. Find it on: 'Anthology Three' (1996)
K) The Anthology style version of [298b]
'For You, Blue' is,
amazingly, even rougher than the take that made the 'Let It Be' album. George
sounds as if he has a cold (it's all those early mornings in drafty Twickenham
in January!), while the whole song gets slower and slower towards the end
(perhaps to enable John to cope better with the slide guitar part he's still
learning!) There's a much bigger part for Paul's piano accompaniment though and
a nice opening soft-shoe drum shuffle from Ringo that really sets the tone, so
the end result is probably a draw. Find it on:
'Anthology Three' (1996)
L) [286] 'Teddy Boy' is the second song from 'McCartney' that
could have made a Beatles album. As Macca put it in his 'questionnaire' handed
out with the record 'something happened' and it never came out. Anthology
reveals what that something was: Lennon in a wicked mood. Picking up on the
'square dance' rhythms of Paul's new and rather repetitive song, John is
merciless, parroting lines (as Teddy Boy's mother) in a falsetto voice and
ending with a series of call signs. Paul does his best to keep the enthusiasm
up but you can almost hear the cogs whirring in his head thinking 'hmm, maybe
not'. In truth it's not the strongest McCartney song of all time but it's
better than a lot of 'Let It Be' and if my theory composed for our review of
the 'McCartney' album is correct (that it was written about John and his
relationship with his mother - perhaps 'Julia' had set Paul thinking? The fact
that the Beatles had recently attended a premiere of Yellow Submarine with a
fancy dress party where Lennon dressed up as a 'teddy boy rocker', effectively
re-creating his teenage look, may have set Paul down this path of thinking). Perhaps
the song touched a raw nerve? Or perhaps Lennon simply didn't think it was very
good?! Find it on: 'Anthology Three' (1996)
M) There are many many jams on old rock
and roll classics sitting in the Beatles' vaults from the 'Let It Be' sessions.
Some (like 'Suzy Parker' 'Save The Last Dance For Me' and even The Beatles' own
'One After 909') are rather good; some, however, were simply rolled out so that
the band can have a rest and can delay getting back to work for a few more
precious minutes (The Beatles were great procrastinators when they wanted to be
- just listen to the way Lennon cuts in with the last third of this trilogy
after everyone has shrugged their shoulders and tried to get back to work). The
Anthology medley [287] of Little Richard's 'Rip It Up' Bill Haley's 'Shake Rattle and Roll' and Carl Perkins' 'Blue Suede Shoes' is
unfortunately in the latter category. Unlike their equally hurried and rough
BBC sessions The Beatles are no longer on the same wavelength and John and Paul
keep crashing each other's lines while George and Ringo seem to be jamming to
different songs entirely. 'Blue Suede Shoes' works best, George getting one
last chance to ape his favourite ever guitarist and John and Paul seem to know
all the words to this one (the former adding a typically Lennonish lyrics
change to reflect the 'brown suede boots' he's wearing!) Billy Preston, though
sounds unusually out of his comfort zone despite the fact that, as a key member
of Little Richard's touring band for years, he must have known at least the
first song off by heart. However most of
this jam is torture and even this section isn't good - why did this make
Anthology compared to other, superior jams? (like the made-up-on-the-spot
'Watching Rainbows' and 'Zero Is Just Another Number' ). Lennon will return to
'Rip It Up' on his 1975 'Rock 'n' Roll' album, to even less success to be
honest. Find it on: 'Anthology Three' (1996)
N) When 'Anthology' was first announced
and fans were speculating about track selection there were a few songs that
seemed inevitable: 'My Bonnie' 'Ain't
She Sweet?' some of the
Royal Variety and Ed Sullivan shows and this: the basic take of [297b] 'The Long and Winding Road'
that Paul intended to go out in a version recorded the last day of the Let It
Be sessions. When the tapes sat for months and Lennon gave Phil Spector
permission to do what he liked with it, Paul was horrified by this track in
particular: the lush and over-orchestrated strings are so un-Beatles and the
antithesis of everything the 'Let It Be' project stood for. Many say it's the
moment when McCartney realised The Beatles were over - which is unfortunately
rather apt for a song that's all about missed opportunities and broken paths on
the road of our lives. However Paul fooled us all: he saved the 'Let It Be'
take sans horns for 'Let It Be...Naked' in 2003 - this is an earlier, only
subtly different recording that features more Ringo and less John, who makes a
rather better stab at filling in on bass on this version than he does on the
record. Find it on: 'Anthology Three' (1996)
O) It's a puzzle why Paul's [269b] 'Oh! Darling', recorded first
for 'Let It Be' but abandoned till 'Abbey Road', didn't make the record because
it's clearly at one with the other retro rockers on that project. Considering
that most of the tracks on the record were done to death, this one doesn't seem
to have had much of a look in and though rougher than the final product fared
no worse than other songs from the record on their first rehearsals. While the
performance is rough and Paul hasn't quite reached his 'screaming' level yet,
the arrangement of this version is actually better: there's a fine Billy
Preston keyboard part that moves this track closer to soul, Ringo adds more
'Ringo'-style drumming than what made the album (where Paul might possibly have
played instead?) and best of all
Lennon's sly harmony vocal is a delight (he later claimed to have been
upset that he didn't get to sing on this one which he felt was more compatible
with his style than many of his colleagues' recent songs).There's also a key
moment of historical importance at the end of the track, Lennon celebrating the
fact that Yoko's divorce from second husband Tony Cox had just gone through.
'I'm free at last!' he sings, perhaps already plotting for the pair's sudden
marriage two months later, and kick-starts a new version of the song probably
aimed in Yoko's direction: 'I'll never do you no harm'. Quite what the
Twickenham camera crew made of all this is another matter! Find it on:
'Anthology Three' (1996)
P) Another future classic tried out at
the 'Let It Be' sessions is George's gorgeous [288] 'All Things Must Pass', soon to be the title
track of his first 'proper' solo album in 1970. This version of 'Pass' is as
stripped-down and basic as all the other 'Let It Be' era recordings and clearly
doesn't suit the song as well as Phil Spector's whoops, whistles and strings,
but it's already a terrific song about how everything - good and bad - has a best before date. This demo was taped
on George's 27th birthday, the same day he taped demos for 'Old Brown Shoe' and
'Something' scattered across the Anthology set (why couldn't they have been put
together?) Sadly Anthology uses the 'wrong' version - this one features George
alone with someone else (John? George overdubbed?) randomly picking guitar
lines alongside him. Bootlegs reveal that for a time this was a real contender
for the album and featured full John and Paul harmonies and a clattering Ringo
drum part softened for the final version (on which Ringo also plays). It would
have been perfect (well, better than 'For You, Blue' and 'I Me Mine' anyway),
given added poignancy by the fact that The Beatles story is drawing to a close
('I must be on my way to face another day...') and these four men will rarely
be in the same room at the same time again (with much of 'Abbey Road' made
through overdubs). Find it on: 'Anthology Three'
(1996)
Q) [289] 'Mailman Bring Me No More Blues' is another unwanted
jamming session from 'Let It Be'. A Buddy Holly song taken surprisingly
seriously compared to other period songs it features some rough and ready
harmonies between John, Paul and George and a real country-western influence.
Slower and sadder than the original version, it's as if the record is playing
at the wrong speed at times - something which actually suits the song really
well. You can tell the band's hearts aren't really in this, though and that the
song will be forgotten once they return to 'Get Back' (the song they were meant
to be rehearsing that day!) Interestingly the song makes for a neat contrast
with 'Please Mr Postman', perhaps the biggest Beatles peak of excitement and
energy: this time the news the narrator is expecting is potentially devastating
and the band sound depressed; how far we've come in just five years. The fact
that the song fades both in and out - and quickly at that - suggests that this
version may have 'presented itself' from a random jamming session and turned
into another one pretty quickly after Lennon stopped singing. Find it on: 'Anthology Three' (1996)
R) Predictably, 'Anthology' played safe
and didn't released the most controversial Beatle outtake - the 'comedy' first
take of [281c] 'Get Back'
when it was still known as 'Don't dig no Pakistanis taking all the people's
jobs' (a spoof of Enoch Powell that they soon realised people might take
seriously and so got changed). However the Anthology version is still about the
best alternative to the one we know and love from the 50-odd taped during the
sessions - it's the version taped at the very end of the 'Rooftop' mini-concert
as seen in the film (this was the most
rehearsed song of the 'Let It Be' period), played slightly softer but slightly
faster even compared to the version they'd played at the beginning of the show
just 40 minutes earlier. Everyone sounds as if they're having fun, Billy
Preston adds another soulful touch to the song and Paul is on terrific form,
yelping his way through the recording and adding the marvellous quip 'You've
been playing on the roofs again, mama doesn't like that - she's gonna have you
arrested!' as a bunch of burly policeman wander around behind them looking
confused. It's a marvellous moment from a marvellous band having temporally not
that marvellous a time of things. Find it on:
'Anthology Three' (1996)
S) The piano demo of [284b] 'Old Brown Shoe' is the third
taped on George's 27th birthday. While the weakest of the three songs laid down
that day there's real magic in the demo, which is more thought out and less
tentative than 'Something' or 'Pass'. As well as thumping a piano, George
overdubs guitar and 'Shoe' sounds rather less 'heavy' here and actually a
little bit better (the finished version is a bass heavy platform on whereas
this 'Shoe' is a sandal!) You can even hear the words on this version which is
an added bonus! One of Anthology Three's real highlights. Find it on: 'Anthology Three' (1996)
T) [270b] 'Octopuses' Garden' is, once again, here more to
give Ringo a share of the Anthology royalties than because it's all that
different or all that interesting. Understandably rougher and with George
playing a rather more frenetic guitar part (especially on the solo which he
hasn't quite worked out yet and bails out from before the end), this take is
interesting like all early takes of something we know backwards but on its own
standards is pretty dreadful: Ringo struggles to sing or play drums and you
really miss the production sound effects and Beatles harmonies. Find it on: 'Anthology Three' (1996)
U) [268b] 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer' is another less than
adored Beatle song and again seems here merely to make up the numbers than
because it offers any real revelations. The overdubs aren't in place yet and
Paul is merely giving a rough guide vocal rather than singing properly. He even
sings some 'vocal noises' where the electric guitar parts should go (which are
nothing like the parts George played on the record by the way) and sings
gibberish in the third verse which he might not have yet (the line should run
'PC 31 says 'we've caught a dirty one', Maxwell stands alone, painting
testimonial pictures, oh-oh-oh', while the final version has 'Rose' and
'Valerie' 'screaming from the gallery' - only the second name is in place for
this version). I never thought I could hear a worse version of this terrible
song but somehow 'Anthology' managed to find one that made the 'Abbey Road' one
look good. Thanks, I think. Find it on: 'Anthology
Three' (1996)
V) An early version (take one!) of [266b]
'Come Together' is a
little more interesting , sounding much tougher and angrier in this early
version. Shorn of the later overdubs and production gloss and held together by
Lennon pushing his voice to its limits, it's as if we're hearing an alternate
universe version of the song from the 'Let It Be' sessions. Interestingly while
everything else here is only sketched in (Paul, George and Ringo are all very
tentative in their parts, as if Lennon hasn't given them to his colleagues
yet!) the nonsense lyrics are already nearly word-perfect, with the addition of
Lennon singing the opening verse once more over the solo. The one line that is changed is the one that
cracks Lennon up laughing: 'Got to get some hobo he's just ho-ha please!'
turning into the much superior line 'Got to be good looking - 'cause he's so
hard to see!' Find it on: 'Anthology Three' (1996)
W) Paul's demo of [269] 'Come and Get It' for
Badfinger is often hailed as the highlight of 'Anthology Three' and treated as
a long-lost McCartney original. It certainly shows off just how quickly and
completely Paul could work, dashing this whole demo (played completely solo)
off within a single hour when Apple signings Badfinger politely asked him if he
had any songs spare. However for me this song is an example of just how empty
Paul's music can be when he's not made to stretch himself: the song says little
and goes nowhere, with no variety from the verse-chorus-instrumental cycle it's
locked into. The lyrics, too, are the nastiest Paul ever wrote, more like
something George would write (this song would have fitted in well on the
latter's 'Living In The Material World' album) and in the context of Apple's
business problems seem to be sneering at the world: Ok so I'm rich, but do you
all have to want a piece of me? The company's financial problems may have inspired
the line 'you better hurry 'cause it's going fast' too, although Paul has
always denied any 'hidden meaning' - this was just a song that rolled around
his subconscious and came out when he needed a song in a hurry. Had Badfinger
been the sort of group to pull this off it would have been no problem: but if
anything Badfinger (still called 'The Iveys' when they first recorded this
song) have a gentler sound than The Beatles (only the first album contains any
hard rock and then it palpably doesn't suit them, suggesting they took their
cue from this, the biggest in their
lifetime). Paul, for the first time in his songwriting life, has mis-understood
the brief he was assigned. You could be charitable and say he wrote this song
after seeing the rushes for the 'Magic Christian Film' although Beatle scholars
reckon its just 'coincidence' it fitted so well and wasn't actually written
about anything (starring Ringo and Peter Sellers, about a millionaire who gives
away money to people in return for doing the daftest and sometimes nastiest
things). But if it was then Paul unusually got that wrong too: Badfinger don't
belong in this uncharitable universe and the actually pretty funny (if only
sporadically) film needs a 'theme song' with a lighter touch than this. Of
course it shows off just how brilliant a multi-instrumentalist and clever,
quick composer Paul is but we knew that anyway; at best 'Come and Get It' is a
song not good enough for The Beatles - at its worst it's a loaded comment
intended for someone somewhere (John was present at the session but stayed in
the control room throughout barely saying a word) that Paul - uniquely - wasn't
brave enough to say to their face. Find it on:
'Anthology Three' (1996)
X) We come full circle with [7b] 'Ain't She Sweet?' What once
was a towering performance by a band nobody knew demanding for attention and
knocked off during an idle moment at the end of the Tony Sheridan sessions has
become a slow, lazy blues jam tossed off by a bunch of bored millionaires who
no longer have much left to say. Lennon comes up with a few amusing words so he
can 'bluff' his way through the gaps in his memory ('I ask you
very...hydrofolicky!') but the difference in just eight years shows what a
long, hard journey The Beatles story had been. What the band would have once
done better than anyone else is now just too much like hard work. Find it on: 'Anthology Three' (1996)
Y) For some reason I don't quite
understand, 'Anthology' go back in time for a [285c] 'Let It Be' outtake from, erm, 'Let It Be'. The
bad atmosphere of that album's sessions compared to 'Abbey Road' is immediately
obvious from Lennon's nasty opening remark 'Are we meant to giggle during the
solo?' John hated this song, perhaps
because it's such a Paul song and beyond his ability to write; Hopeful,
uplifting and saying a lot without saying much at all its anathema to Lennon's
work until his 'break through' in Paul's style on 'Imagine' (which is like this
song but not half as good). The sentiment too is very un-Lennon: always one for
changing things for the sake of change, he never really 'let things be' (did he
see this as a comment on his split from Cynthia?) It was also John who
mischievously added the vocal clip of him announcing 'we'd like to 'Hark The
Herald Angels Come!' before this track on the album - a dig at the 'gospel'
feel of the song. You can't really go far wrong with a song that just features
Paul's vocal and piano for most of the song but the band try anyway, with
George fluffing a solo he worked on hard across the space of several months but
still never quite got right and Ringo playing some heavy-handed drums. Lennon
apparently doesn't play anything and was probably glaring from the control box,
adding the sarcastic comment 'I think that was rather grand!' followed by his
pithy comment on the current 'no overdubs' policy: 'Let's track it - you
bounder! You cheat!' For once the others aren't laughing with him. It's his
loss: one of Paul's prettier songs perhaps he should have learned to 'let things
be'. Find it on: 'Anthology Three' (1996)
Non-Album Recordings Part #13: 1970 (EMI)
A) And finally - and we really do mean
finally whatever the entries still to come in this book - the last ever
official Beatles session till the 1990s takes place on January 3rd 1970.
Looking back at the rushes of the first edit of the 'Let It Be' film, director
Michael Lindsey-Hogg sent off a panicked memo to the band when he realised that
he'd included a clip of George bringing a 'new' song called[293b] 'I Me Mine' into the sessions and didn't have a complete song to
go with it. Paul, George and Ringo duly turned up but John - recently hurt in a
car crash on a day out in Scotland with Yoko, Julian and Yoko's daughter Kyoko
- cried off, meaning that the last official Beatles session doesn't even
feature all four members. That's the reason behind George's dry opening
discussion that 'Dave Dee is no longer with us - but Beaky, Titch and I would
like to carry on the good work that's always gone down at number two studios',
quoting the mid-60s pop band named after their nicknames as he does so (check
them out if you like mid-period Beatles, three of their songs are great - the
others less so, but then that's still three more than The Dave Clark Five or
Herman's Hermits). A typical Harrisong about problems of the ego, this version
is the song in its original form: dashed off quickly so the band can fulfil
their obligations and go home. The song lasts a mere 90 seconds with George's
opening chat removed - Phil Spector lengthened the song by another minute
thanks to some careful editing and made the track sound 'bigger' thanks to epic
string overdubs (which worked better on this song, a warning against excesses,
than it ever did on 'The Long and Winding Road'). The song sounds slighter here
but is still played well with one last rallying cry of harmonies in the chorus
('I I Me Me Mine!'), the band perhaps getting out their frustrations over Apple
via this song's wild staccato jabs. It's an unusual end, but a good one even if
Spector was probably right to meddle with this recording as he did, the
Beatles' career ending via a muted single organ note that suddenly swells up
and disappears down a black hole. Find it on:
'Anthology Three' (1996)
Non-Album Recordings Part #14: 1982 (EMI)
A) With 'hit medleys' all the rage in
the early 1980s, someone at EMI hit upon a novel way of plugging their latest
pointless Beatles compilation 'Reel Music' with a combination of that album's
songs. [299] 'The
Beatles Movie Medley' features nothing new and had no Beatle input but
is worth mentioning for being the first time someone went back to the original
Beatle tapes to create something 'new'. Like most of the later 'Love' remixes
album, it's a rather pointless affair that sits on the borders of Beatles
canon: they didn't hate it enough to denounce it but nor did they help plan it
either. Still, unlike 'Love', this single promoted a few lesser known gems from
The Beatles catalogue rather than the ones everybody knows backwards
(literally, now, in the case of some of the 'Love' mixes!) For the record the
songs edited together are 'Magical Mystery Tour' 'All You Need Is Love' 'Got To
Hide Your Love Away' 'I Should Have Known Better' 'A Hard Day's Night' 'Ticket
To Ride' and 'Get Back'. Well, it's better than the 'Stars on 45' monstrosity
that inspired it anyway, with a session musician who sounded vaguely Scouse if
your ears squinted a bit doing a fairly poor impression of Lennon as several
Beatle songs are strung together to the same insistent drum beat and which
wasn't given official sponsorship by The Beatles or EMI. Fans are actually
keener on the original B-side, a snatched conversation on the set of 'A Hard
Day's Night' which was swiftly removed for unknown reasons (probably legal
ones) and replaced with the song 'I'm Happy Just To dance With You'. Someone
must have liked it because this second version of the single made #12 in the US
and #10 in the UK, better than the band had done for a while! To date the
single has never been re-issued or appeared on CD.
Non-Album Recordings Part #15: 1990s (EMI)
A) Here we are, twenty years on from the
Beatles reunion we thought we'd never see and we're still not quite sure what
to make of the band's two 'new' releases, nicknamed 'The Threetles' by fans
wanting to distinguish them from the 'proper' canon. The project dates back to
the Lennon's entry into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, when Yoko
passed on a number of John's unfinished demos to special guest Paul from his
house-husband days in the late 1970s. Speculation was rife as to what classics
might be turned up: the much-bootlegged archive radio series 'The Lost Lennon
Tapes' (which ran for two years and 218 episodes in America and could have run
another two Lennon recorded so much material) featured several classic songs
that either turned up later (on the 'Lennon Anthology' of 1999) or still have
yet to be heard; goodness knows there are enough to choose from: great tracks
like the skiffley medicine-cabinet rummaging 'Pill', the jaunty 'A Case Of The
Blues', the sweet McCartney-ish ballad 'When A Boy Meets A Girl', the frenetic
'Don't Be Crazy', Buddy Holly-ish 'Gone From This Place', the reflective 'JJ'
and the funky gay-scene solidarity song 'She Is A Friend Of Dorothy's (Lennon
at his most David Bowie-ish).
Out of all of these Yoko chose three
songs. The first that Paul, George and Ringo worked on (and liked the most) was
[300] 'Free As a Bird', a rather turgid Lennon piano
ballad which - like a lot of his early work - says one thing lyrically
(Freedom! At last!) and another thing entirely musically (much of the song is
stuck to the same plodding chords). A strange choice for a song to release in
such a blitz of publicity, 'Free As A Bird' was always going to fall short of
the Beatles' legacy and was probably chosen not because of Lennon's great ideas
but because his sketchy demo left enough room for Paul and George to contribute
their own parts and turn this into a 'collaboration' (a quick middle eight,
written by Paul, and a blistering Harrison guitar solo - by far the highlight
of the track, offering the release the narrator can only dream of). Despite all
the talk in the press of picking up where the band left off during 'Abbey Road'
the result is curiously un-Beatles: Lennon's plodding time signature, the
simple metaphors - light years away from the nuances of 'Blackbird' - the lack
of any sense of joy; this is more where The Beatles ended up with 'Let It Be'.
Jeff Lynne's heavy-handed production embellishes the little that existed on
Lennon's demo but without adding any of the interesting additions George Martin
would have come up with (struggling with his hearing, he was asked first but
turned the gig down - that might explain how the Martin-sponsored 'Love' turned
out as badly as it did). The ending, played by George on a ukele, is a
typically Beatles 'fake goodbye' ending though, capped off by a recording of
John announcing 'I'm John Lennon' from a 'Pop Go The Beatles' radio broadcast.
This being a Beatles message enterprising fans turned it round to look for
clues and discovered Lennon also saying '...turned out nice again', a George
Formby catchphrase that would have tickled George and probably inspired his
ukulele backing. The fact that we're talking about hidden messages rather than
the song, though, shows what a depressingly ordinary piece 'Free As A Bird' is,
its composer safely locked away in a bedroom trying to escape a boring day by
trying to remember what his day job used to be. The fact that Lennon himself
used virtually nothing of his mammoth collection of demos pre-1979 on his 1980
comeback says much about his opinion of them - a shame The Beatles didn't
follow suit, as this is a song and performance not worthy of their great name. First released as a single on December 4th 1995. Also
appears on 'Anthology One' (1995)
B) [301] 'Real Love' is much better, not because it's a great
song (it isn't, being an even simpler re-write of 'All You Need Is Love') but
because it sounds like The Beatles. Released to less publicity and largely
treated with indifference by the world on release, I'm surprised that this
single didn't do better - while true fans recognise Lennon on auto-pilot when
they hear it, casual fans would have heard a pretty uplifting tune, classy
harmonies (which fit better here than on 'Bird') and lyrics about love -
exactly the sort of thing people would have picked up from their parents and by
now possibly grandparents' generation. 'Real Love' was already one of Lennon's
better regarded 'lost' songs after appearing on the 'Lost Lennon Tapes' and -
bizarrely - as the one rare track on the 'Imagine' documentary soundtrack of
1988 (which sounds better than the 'basic take' used here, branching out to
incorporate the lyrics from an early draft when the song was known as 'Real
Life', Lennon hedging his bets between the two). Speeded up slightly to make Lennon sound more
'vibrant' and his piano treated with echo to sound more 'Lennony', the result
is a pretty neat pastiche of the Beatles' sound, played by men who can't quite
remember how they used to go about things. In short, it's a rather good ELO
recording (with lots of Jeff Lynne's characteristic touches) but still only a
minor Beatles one, whatever the promise in the song. The sessions were
apparently rushed and they sound it (the harmonies need at last another take to
gel and Ringo, never a drummer who liked being rushed, is strangely
non-committal throughout). Had Paul, George and Ringo been given more time,
though, 'Real Love' could have been a minor gem in the Beatles' catalogue
instead of a sorry postscript to it. First released
as a single on March 4th 1996. Also appears on 'Anthology Two' (1996).
C) You may have noticed that there are
three Anthology sets and each of the first two begins with a 'Threetles'
recording. Fans were expecting a third single to prop up the final part of the
trilogy and that seems to be the original plan, with Yoko handing over three
tapes to Paul in 1994. We don't know what the third tape - and potentially the
last ever new Beatles recording - might have been. Most books quote this as 'Grow
Old Along With Me', which seems odd given that a demo recording of this had
already been included on 'Milk and Honey' and was a song very close and
personal to Yoko's heart, unlikely to be handed over to her husband's 'old'
band (it was written in reponse to a dream she had that she and John were
re-incarnations of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning and a 'reply' based on
Robert's poem of the same name directly in reply to her song based on
Elizabeth's poem 'Let Me Count The Ways', also included on 'Milk and Honey').
Other candidates are two mysterious songs reported in the press as 'Miss You'
and 'Now and Then' (possibly mistakes, possibly mis-hearings of real unreleased
songs mentioned above). I'd like to think that Yoko chose the highly suitable demo
'Memories', an early version of 'Grow Old Along With Me' (featuring roughly the
same tune but with very different lyrics that wouldn't have had the same
connotations). This mighr explain why 'Old' is sometimes quoted because the two
songs share distant DNA. But how can this gorgeous 'missing' song have been
passed by for the occasion? The narrator, nostalgic against his will, barks
'Memory oh memory release me from your spell, you haunt me when I thought I'd
let you go, I hear your voices whispering...' - a highly fitting end to a
project based on nostalgia and being unable to let the past go. Of course this
is only speculation, as if the reason the 'third song' was turned down. Most
sources, though, point to George who only got involved in 'Anthology' against
his better judgement when his Handmade Films company ran into financial
problems and supposedly hated all three of Lennons' songs and being pushed into
working with Paul and Ringo (which might be why McCartney backs down and gives
his guitar such a prominent role on both recordings; that might be why George's
good friend Jeff Lynne was hired too). If true, a sad second end to the Beatles
story which left George Martin's 1968 string arrangement 'The Beginning' to
start the last outtakes set in less than fitting style. Released...probably never!
A now complete list of Beatles links
available at this website:
'Yellow Submarine' (1969) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-beatles-yellow-submarine-1969.html
The Best Unreleased Beatles Recordings http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/what-we-want-to-see-on-beatles.html
A Complete AAA Guide To The Beatles Cartoons http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/an-aaa-guide-to-beatles-cartoons.html
The Beatles: Surviving TV Appearances http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/the-beatles-surviving-tv-appearances.html
A 'Bite' Of Beatles Label 'Apple' http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/a-bite-of-apple.html
The Beatles: Non-Album Songs Part One: 1958-63 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/the-beatles-non-album-songs-part-one.html
The Beatles:
Non-Album Songs Part Two: 1964-67 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/the-beatles-non-album-songs-part-2-1964.html
The Beatles: Non-Album Songs Part Three: 1968-96 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/the-beatles-non-album-songs-part-three.html
The Beatles: Compilations/Live Albums/Rarities Sets
Part One: 1962-74 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/the-beatles-compilations-live-sets-and.html
The Beatles: Compilations/Live Albums/Rarities Sets
Part Two: 1976-2013 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/the-beatles-compilations-live-albums.html
Beatles Bonuses: The Songs
John and Paul Gave Away To The World/To Ringo! http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/beatle-bonuses-songs-given-awayringos.html
Essay: The Ways In Which The Beatles Changed The World For The Better https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/the-beatles-essay-ways-fab-four-changed.html
Five Landmark Concerts and
Three Key Cover Versions https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/the-beatles-five-landmark-concerts-and.html
