The Beatles - Now and Then

[With so few projects in the works I would have preferred to hold this post off until next month but I felt it was time sensitive enough to post as soon as it was ready.]

 

Back when I first started my Beatles-What If blog I had a comp that was inspired by this article. This is actually what got me rolling on the whole alt-Beatles timeline thing. But I was never happy with my results and the comp went through a few different iterations. I used several John demos to flesh the album out including Now and Then but the poor quality of that demo and other elements kept the project from being anywhere near satisfactory. When I reorganized the site in 2010 my Now and Then album was replaced with the Anthology highlights disc and the Lennon & McCartney album.

 

Now with the release of the finished version of Now and Then I felt compelled to revisit the project. The quality that the current technology allowed them to achieve is astounding. I still think the song itself is the weakest of the three songs they worked on but it is listenable and enjoyable and it does grow on you the more you hear it. and it does feature all four Beatles so I'm not complaining. Even the weakest of songs by the Beatles is better than some of the best by others. So I reopened the project and reconsidered some choices and swapped the Now and Then demo with the finished track and ended up with a tight 35 minute album with one bonus track that I felt was worthy of sharing. Enjoy.

Tracklist

01 Flaming Pie

02 Real Love

03 Dehra Dhun

04 Grow Old With Me

05 Thinking of Linking

06 King Of Broken Hearts

07 All Those Years Ago

08 Beautiful Night

09 Free As A Bird

10 Now And Then

11 Ain't She Sweet

Bonus Track

12 Stand By Me

Reality Notes

I used several suggestions from the original article but rejected more than I kept. Only Flaming Pie features only one Beatle but Paul plays everything on it and the lyrics are Beatle related. I also prefaced it with the soundbite of John telling the flaming pie Beatles name origin. All the others have at least two or more fabs and most come from around 1980.

Real love and Free as a Bird are the anthology versions. Grow Old With Me is a John demo and was included on the tape delivered by Yoko but was rejected by the three due to it's subject matter. It was later enhanced with an orchestral score by George Martin and appeared on the John Lennon Anthology box set.

George's Derha Dhun is an All Things Must Pass outtake which I prefaced with a bit from the Anthology ukulele jam and might have Ringo on drums (sounds like him and he seemed to remember it during the jam). Also from George is All Those Years Ago which has Ringo on Drums and Paul on background vocals along with Linda and Denny Laine .

Thinking of Linking comes from the acoustic Anthology jam. I edited parts of the two takes into one solid take. Ain't She Sweet is from the garden ukulele jam that I edited in John's vocal from a solo session outtake of the same song to create another track with all four Beatles. In the last iteration of this album I created two medleys from the ukulele jam and the acoustic jam but they never really worked.

King of Broken Hearts is a Ringo tune with a fine slide solo from George. Beautiful Night is a Paul song with Ringo drumming.

I took the suggestion from the article and segued Beautiful Night into Free as a Bird by way of syncing the snare hits before the false ending on BN with the opening snare hits on FAAB but unlike the article I did not return to BN before the false ending on FAAB.

 

Stand By Me comes from a 1974 session that happened while John was producing Harry Nilson's Pussycat album. After the session ended Paul showed up and a jam session occured with John, Harry, Stevie Wonder, Paul (on drums) and others. Sadly Ringo, who's kit Paul was playing, went home for the evening. The session itself did not produce much worth listening to more than a few times, This snippet was the peak moment.

The cover photo was found online to which I added the cloud background.

The Beatles - Get Back TV Special 1969

I've got something very different for you today. I have a few projects simmering on the stove so to speak and will put those up eventually but I've been working on this one for a bit and I feel it is ready to share and get some feedback consider this version one. What makes this different is that it is a video I edited rather than an audio construction. I have been watching fanedits of films for some time now and recently decided to try my hand at the process. I've done some simple editing in the past, mostly limited to joining two or more videos together and maybe some trimming on the beginnings and endings. This was my first foray deeper into some of the more complex parts of the craft.

 

So what do I have for you and how does it relate to this blog? Nothing less than the possible answer to the question "What if the Get Back project resulted in a TV special instead of a film?". The concept of the project changed and evolved from inception to completion. Ideas ranged from comeback concerts and films to TV specials and albums. What we got was a film that showed the band bickering and arguing before coming together to make music and an accompanying LP that featured post-production decisions made by Phil Spector that betrayed the bands original intentions of a live in-the-studio recording.

What I did was take the original Let It Be movie - sourced from a VHS ripped from my own copy -  and removed all the behind the scenes discussions and rehearsals leaving just the music. The source was already in standard 4:3 TV format so all I had to do was trim, remove, rearrange and add some opening titles. I hope you enjoy it.

00:00 Intro
01:15 Get Back
04:24 Don't Let Me Down
07:46 The Long And Winding Road
11:20 For You Blue
14:15 I've Got A Feeling
18:05 Two Of Us
21:35 One After 909
24:39 I Me Mine
26:23 Dig A Pony
30:10 Dig It
32:12 Let It Be
36:13 Get Back (Reprise)

I felt using the VHS source would give it a more authentic "as seen on TV" feel. I kept the original audio, my skills are not yet to the level where I can replace and sync the whole soundtrack. It would be interesting to see if this could be recreated using the Peter Jackson version. 

 

As you can see I passed on Across The Universe. Like I Me Mine the film only shows them rehearsing the song but unlike I Me Mine there was no real take that could be called even decent. 

 

I have a link on the downloads page or you can watch it here. I would be overjoyed if somebody chose to mirror this and upload to YouTube/Vimeo or anywhere else. I tried creating a new YouTube channel just for this but the video was denied due to copyrights. Just say you got it from a friend of a friend. A new and final version three is done and uploaded and the link has been updated. Just a couple transition tweaks and the addition of a time appropriate BBC ID and end credits.

The Beatles - Alt-Debut

On the first of January 1962, The Beatles auditioned for Decca Records. During that audition they recorded 15 songs specially selected by their manager Brian Epstein, three of those songs were originals. Decca chose 12 of those songs and licensed two songs the band recorded in Germany during sessions with singer Tony Sheridan.

The record made a few ripples but in the end Decca felt the band had no future and let them go. After changing drummers they were picked up by Parlophone/EMI. Paired with producer George Martin the group skyrocketed up the charts and went on to record 12 more classic albums and numerous singles that dominated the charts and pioneering many now standard recording techniques along the way.

Side One
01 To Know Her Is To Love Her
02 Sure To Fall
03 Like Dreamers Do
04 Besame Mucho
05 Three Cool Cats
06 Hello Little Girl
07 September In The Rain

Side Two
01 Cry For A Shadow
02 Searchin'
03 Take Good Care Of My Baby
04 Crying Waiting Hoping
05 Love Of The Loved
06 The Sheik Of Araby
07 Ain't She Sweet

Reality Notes

So what if Decca had signed The Beatles? Would they have made as many albums? Would they have had the same success and creative output they had working with George Martin? Ultimately Decca turned the band down and Epstein used the tape to shop the band around to other labels. It was common practice at that time for new artists to release a few singles before making an LP so I'm sure some of these songs would have ended up released that way.

I removed three songs from the original 15. Two, Till There Was You and Money, because they appeared on the Parlophone debut and Memphis because I put a better version on the BBC album. Now these songs can sit alongside the rest of the albums with no duplication. I had to fold down the two songs from the Tony Sheridan sessions to mono to sit nicely with the rest of the tracks.

When I was sequencing the album I kept the idea in the back of my mind that Decca was trying to make the band fit in with the balladeers and crooners of the day by putting focus on the lighter and humorous songs. Another reason for removing Money and Memphis from the running.

The cover features an early promo pic with Pete Best, the drummer that would be replaced by Ringo when they made their jump to EMI.

The Beatles - The BEATLES I

So, dig this. In 1966 they introduced a new music format called "Laser Read Music Delivery System" or LRMDS for short. The music industry in general was hesitant to try a new format but the classical and jazz industries quickly embraced the medium for its clean sound, its ability to hold longer playback times and the elimination of the need to turn the disc over halfway through. But not before renaming the format to the Extended Long Player or ELP for short. [Many years later, uninformed journalists often would misquote a certain popular Prog band claimimg this as the origin of their band's name. Silly journalists.]

The pop market was slow to catch on to the format due to its higher cost for the consumer. But as 60s consciousness expanded and pop groups became pop artists the format's appeal grew. Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde was tailor made and specifically targeted to the ELP. Frank Zappa exploited the format to its limits on a regular basis.

The first Beatles product released on the format was when Capitol decided to expand EMI's Magical Mystery Tour double EP soundtrack to fit on the ELP adding all the non-LP singles and B-sides not yet released in any long playing format.

But in 1968 The Beatles themselves decided to see how far they could push the format and released not one but two separate but simultaneously recorded ELPs. Averaging 70 minutes each the record companies were worried that the buying public would feel overwhelmed by such an abundance of music from one artist all in one go. But of course Beatles fans couldn't get enough of it.

The contents of each album was a wide cross section of the band's influences stripped of the psychedelia of the past year we got everything from soft folk songs to rousing sing-a-longs to weird abstract soundscapes and straight up rockers, most likely an after effect from their recent meditation retreat in India. Two abbreviated LPs were also released for those on a tighter budget.

Eventually debates and discussions arose over which collection was the better one or whether or not two sets were even necessary. Some fans even went so far as to compile their own single ELP versions.  Imagine that.

01 Back in the USSR
02 Dear Prudence
03 Glass Onion
04 Sour Milk Sea
05 Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
06 Wild Honey Pie
07 The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill
08 While My Guitar Gently Weeps
09 Happiness Is a Warm Gun
10 Los Paranoias
11 Martha My Dear
12 I'm So Tired
13 Blackbird
14 Revolution
15 Piggies
16 Hey Bulldog
17 Rocky Raccoon
18 What's The New Mary Jane
19 Circles
20 Don't Pass Me By
21 Why Don't We Do It In The Road
22 I Will
23 Julia

Reality Notes

I go into a little more detail in the post for part two below. I used the 2009 stereo remaster as my base and for the most part kept the songs in their original order and slipped the new songs where I felt they fit in. The sources for the additional material mostly comes from the 2018 deluxe package unless otherwise noted. I also followed George Martin's plan of not having more than two songs in a row by a single writer, George's songs are spread out evenly between the two discs and all of the "animal" songs are on one disc.

Songs and edits of note are as follows:

Sour Milk Sea: This outfake comes from the 22 disc bootleg series The Lost Album. This is one of the better versions of this outfake that syncs George's Esher demo with the backing track from the Jackie Lomax version that George produced and features Paul on bass and Ringo on drums as well as Eric Clapton on guitar.

Los Paranoias: This is my edit of the impromptu jam between Paul, John and Ringo recorded during the I Will session. This is a new edit and is different from the edit I did on my Paul solo album version.

Revolution is the single version (Hey Jude appears on the second disc).

Hey Bulldog: This was recorded before the trip to India along with Across The Universe during the Lady Madonna sessions so could be considered outside the timeline but the Beatles didn't like to leave things in the can and in spite of it being slated for use in the upcoming animated film they also used it here.

What's The New Mary Jane is the Anthology mix.

Circles is the Esher demo.

Don't Pass Me By: I prefaced this song with the A Beginning orchestral piece as originally intended. I transitioned from one to the next by having the piano intro of the song start to appear while the orchestra is winding down creating a nice natural join of the two parts.

Why Don't We Do It In The Road: I prefaced this song with an additional verse from the previous take to extend the song a little bit more. This is a recreation of the edit I did to the song on my solo album version.

Where ever appropriate I created transitions between the songs to match the flow between songs on the original release.

The Beatles - The BEATLES II

Released on the same day as its sister ELP, The BEATLES II was another full collection of songs covering the same range of styles as its companion album.

While containing fewer songs, this disc is actually longer than the first disc. Two tracks here are almost epic in length. Hey Jude is 7:12  and Revolution 19 clocks in at 10:32!

While initially the more popular of the two albums, most fans would eventually purchase both sets to even out the sales. Future editions would package the two discs together along with bonus discs of out takes and demos.

01 Helter Skelter
02 Yer Blues
03 Mother Nautre's Son
04 Not Guilty
05 Junk
06 Sexy Sadie
07 While My Guitar Gently Weeps II
08 Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey
09 Birthday
10 Hey Jude
11 Long, Long, Long
12 Heather
13 Honey Pie
14 Child Of Nature
15 Across the Universe
16 Savoy Truffle
17 Cry Baby Cry
18 Can You Take Me Back?
19 Revolution 19
20 Good Night

Reality Notes

A big shout out and infinite thanks go to SonicLoveNoise for his amazing sync up of the full version of Revolution 1 and Revolution 9 to create his Revolution 19, without which this comp would not have come out as good. The syncing of the two songs transformed the track from an abstract soundscape to a long freak out jam. He created this mashup for his recent April 1 post of a crazy single WA disc. Please go there and check his blog out. He has some wonderful constructions and his attention to detail is impressive.

This project is my attempt to expand the White Album by including everything of note possible in as a polished and complete form as I could. As with many of my constructions I did more than just compile the tracks. I did many edits and transitions to create a flow to match the original album and dropped no tracks other than the merging of Rev 1 and Rev 9 (thanks again Sonic).

At the heart of this comp is the White Album we all know and love and debate and argue about and bond over. I kept the original tracks for the most part in their original order slipping in new songs where appropriate. I did extend a few songs but refrained from using any alternate versions such as the earlier version of Ob-La-Di which I think is just as good. The idea was to expand the album rather than change it up completely. Think of it as an extended movie director's cut with all the deleted scenes put back in.

Songs and edits of note are as follows:

Not Guilty: Take 102 from the 2018 remix bonus disc.

Junk: This is an edit I did for my Paul '68 solo album. I took the instrumental version from the McCartney album and slipped the vocal version inside it to extend the song to over three minutes. Even though this was recorded in 1970, the primitive way Paul recorded the tracks at home helps it fit in with the '68 tracks.

While My Guitar Gently Weeps II: This is the Love version of George's demo with George Martin's orchestral score. The first of two repeated titles across both albums but both alternates are so different they can coexist. This is one of the elements passed down from the Use Your Illusion timeline as those albums each contained a different version of Don't Cry.

Hey Jude: The single version. Maybe having the full version on a record they would have edited the single version down some.

Heather: From a tape of Paul and Donovan trading songs. While not from the WA sessions themselves, it is contemporary so why not include it? We have the room. I did do some cleaning and editing to polish it up a bit.

Child Of Nature: This is my enhanced Esher Demo. Normally when I do these I have all of the songs in front of me in a sequencer. The program I use is flexible enough to do some simple but creative editing but this song and Goodnight were worked on individually before being brought into the project as a whole. The editing I was doing wasn't anything complicated but became frustrating when in the context of the full project. I added more birds from Across The Universe which follows the song and flew in some crashing waves from my sound effects library for the intro. This song was later reworked by John for the Imagine album as Jealous Guy. A better song for sure but this is still an interesting listen.

Across the Universe: I used the Wildlife version from Past Masters but transitioned the song out of the previous song by having the bird sounds before they take off appear during the fade out of Child of Nature.

Can You Take Me Back?: I took a bigger chunk from the full take one to justify its own track listing.

Revolution 19: Sonic's masterpiece. This was the catalyst for this comp (the story came later). I was perfectly happy to enjoy the 2018 deluxe White Album and everybody else's constructions until I heard this. By syncing up Revolution 9 with Revolution 1, we were able to eliminate a redundancy that allowed us to include the single version on disc one and improve the overall flow of both discs. Without this we would have to make a choice on which Revolution to eliminate (most likely keeping the single version as a single only and moving Rev 1 to disc one) even if No. 9 sounds little like the song it was built upon.

Good Night: I added on the guitar version with harmonies before seguing into the finished orchestral version extending the song to over three and a half minutes.

This is now my preferred way to listen to The White Album. Even though we have more music, by separating the tracks into two groups makes for a more manageable listen to me. I liken it to having a double scoop ice cream cone taken away from me but given back two full bowls. And thanks to the 2018 remixes of the Esher demos which, while still rough, improved them enough that I felt no qualms including the ones I did. In fact I feel they fit in nicely in this format.

I modeled the covers on the original of course but now we have a white album and a black album.

The Beatles - "Double" Rubber Soul - 1965

This post pushes the "What if" motif of this blog to it's limits. Even more, I suspect that it will raise an eyebrow or two of those that are familiar with my opinion of double albums but this story was too good to let it pass me by (no pun intended Ringo).

In 1965 The Beatles came off the road to work on new material and begin filming their next, still untitled movie. During the long days of filming the boys spent their downtime "having a laugh" and writing more songs. By the time they finished filming they had more than enough songs for an album with seven songs to be used in the movie and by the time they finished recording they had more than 20 more songs to deal with. Combined with the songs from the movie they had over 30 songs!

George Martin's plan was to let United Artists have the soundtrack songs and release another album, one or two EPs and some singles over time but the boys had other plans. Using their newfound clout as England's biggest hit-makers they managed to convince EMI/Parlophone to release everything as a double album!

In spite of its size, this comp will fit on a single CD.

Side One
1 I've Just Seen A Face
2 Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
3 Think For Yourself
4 The Word
5 It's Only Love
6 Girl
7 In My Life
8 I'm Looking Through You

Side Two
1 Nowhere Man
2 You're Going To Lose That Girl
3 You Like Me Too Much
4 Michelle
5 If You've Got Trouble
6 You've Got To Hide Your Love Away
7 Drive My Car

Side Three
1 Day Tripper
2 What Goes On
3 Wait
4 Run For Your Life
5 If I Needed Someone
6 Another Girl
7 The Night Before
8 We Can Work It Out

Side Four
1 Dizzy Miss Lizzy
2 You Won't See Me
3 That Means a Lot
4 Act Naturally
5 Tell Me What You See
6 I Need You
7 Yesterday

Reality Notes

I have heard George Harrison say that Rubber Soul and Revolver are sister albums. Personally, I have always connected Rubber Soul with the Help! album. The two albums have a similar feel and production. Especially as someone who grew up with the US version of Rubber Soul, hands down my favorite Beatles album and the only one which I prefer the US version over the UK version. If they had replaced Michelle (my least favorite Beatles song) with something else it would have been perfect.

My one big complaint is the length. The US albums always clock in at around 30 minutes. Because of this I started to expand the album by reinstating the songs Capitol removed and adding more songs from the Help! album. It was while listening to my latest version that this story started to emerge.

I used the 2009 mono remasters as my baseline. Previous versions used the stereo mixes but due to the odd mixing of putting vocals on one side and instruments on the other, I would always switch the playback to mono, especially if I was working nearer to one speaker than the other in my listening room.

I did use the US stereo version of I'm Looking Through You to have the false start but folded the song down to mono to fit in with the rest. When the original CDs were released I never even noticed that the false start was not there. My brain filled it in for me every time. I also included the two outtakes from the Help! sessions, If You Got Trouble and That Means A Lot and included an unlisted snippet of 12 Bar Original for good measure.

Side one is my condensed version of the US Rubber Soul. This is the core of the album to me and the sequence that evokes the greatest amount of nostalgia when listening. From there I sequenced each side for maximum flow and impact as well as making sure that each side would flow into the next on CD.

I kept Help!/I'm Down and Ticket To Ride/Yes It Is aside for non-LP singles. We Can Work It Out/Dizzy Miss Lizzy are still released as a single on the same day as the double LP. The Yesterday and Nowhere Man EPs are still released as planned to give the buyers a choice.

This post is more than a simple "what if" scenario. The idea here is to take a timeline and lay it on top of another timeline to see how one affects the other. The two timelines do not have to be from the same person or band. In essence, I take one or two elements from the overlay and apply it to the current events.

I have another project like this one where I lay the timeline of the recording of G'N'R's Use Your Illusion over the events of the White Album. This project takes the events from the time The Beatles went to Rishi Kesh through the completion of the White Album and layers them on top of the events from the filming of Help! to the completion of Rubber Soul. The elements from '68 that are shadowed in '65 are the downtime of Rishi Kesh and the glut of songs that led to a double album.

The Beatles - Rock and Roll (At The Beeb) Volumes 1 & 2 - 1976

In 1976 The Beatles' contracts with EMI and Capitol expired. One of the side effects of this was that the labels were now free to recompile and release new albums. These new albums had the stipulations that the band members had final say in how their music was used. The details were vague but they did specify no remixes although that was not adhered to.

Until the release of the first BBC set followed by the Anthology series the only album of unreleased material we got was the Live at the Hollywood Bowl album. EMI/Capitol did come close to releasing an LP of unreleased studio recording called Sessions but once the band found out about the project the album was dropped. We also got the Star Club tapes but that was released on a different label.

Capitol was the first one to release new product. That album was Rock and Roll Music. A two disc set (later rereleased as two separate discs as Volume one and Volume two) that contained previously released songs with a rock and roll feel. I bought the album and enjoyed it but what if instead of rereleasing old material they dipped into the BBC vaults and gave us all new songs.

Side One
01 I Got A Woman
02 Too Much Monkey Business
03 Keep Your Hands Off My Baby
04 I'm Talking About You
05 Young Blood
06 A Shot Of Rhythm And Blues
07 Some Other Guy

Side Two
01 Sweet Little Sixteen
02 Lonesome Tears In My Eyes
03 Nothin' Shakin'
04 The Hippy Hippy Shake
05 Glad All Over
06 Beautiful Dreamer
07 That's All Right (Mama)

Side Three
01 Soldier Of Love
02 I Just Don't Understand
03 So How Come (No One Loves Me)
04 Carol
05 I Forgot To Remember To Forget
06 Clarabella
07 I'm Gonna Sit Right Down And Cry (Over You)

Side Four
01 Lend Me Your Comb
02 I Got To Find My Baby
03 Memphis, Tennessee
04 Ooh! My Soul
05 Sure To Fall (In Love With You)
06 Lucille
07 Don't Ever Change

Reality Notes

I thought I had posted this as part of my Alt-Beatles timeline. Apparently I didn't so I'm posting it here.

The Beatles in the early days were a top notch rock and roll band. Before the madness of Beatlemania the band made numerous appearances on a variety of programs for BBC radio. They even had their own weekly show for a while. During those performances they would dip into their setlists and play songs that they would never record for their albums. Especially once they stopped including cover songs on their LPs. This is an attempt to gather as many of those never recorded songs in one place. I used the original album as a template (yes, it's still a double album! but of course, reissues were released as separate volumes) but adhered to the following criteria:

• No original songs
• No ballads or showtunes
• No cover songs that appeared on a previous album.

My intention here was to present only those songs that have never appeared on a Beatles album before. To have an album of new material in 1976 was every Beatles fan's dream even if it was an album of "moldy oldies". The bulk of these songs come from the first set of BBC recordings released in 1994. The rest are from the second volume with a couple more coming from the unofficial Complete BBC Recordings.

I first heard of the BBC recordings while listening to the radio show The Lost Lennon Tapes. I taped every episode I could and compiled my own personal bootlegs from all of the unreleased tracks that they would play. This included some BBC material but being a Lennon focused show they only played songs that featured a Lennon lead vocal. I also had a small handful of BBC songs on the few vinyl Beatles bootlegs I had.

The cover was made at a time when I was making best-of comps for my 30gb iPod. I wanted to be able to read the text on the small screen so I was using a lot of large block type fonts.

Sources
Live at the BBC
On The Air (BBC Volume Two)
The Complete BBC Recordings (10 CD bootleg)

The Beatles - Out The Blue 1973

In late 1972 the four former Beatles gathered in a secret recording studio in upstate New York (the location was chosen due to John's immigration problems) to record what was to be their comeback album. After several years of solo efforts and hit singles by each the time had come to regroup and give the world what it really wanted.

Recording went smoothly and by early 1973 the album was finished, and a fine album it was. But at the last minute the project was shelved and the fab four again went their separate ways. Why we'll never know, it's not like the results were anything to be ashamed of. Almost all of the material was released on upcoming solo projects with little or no added production and no attempts to hide the fact that these songs were Beatles songs. But then they didn't advertise that they were either.

Some have suggested that the reason for scrapping the project was that none of the four were willing to sacrifice a song to bring the almost 60 minute LP (pushing the vinyl LP way beyond time limits) down to a more manageable 40-45 minutes (although a couple of the songs could have been slated for a non-LP single). Others have hinted at a heated discussion between John and Paul over songwriting credits and publishing.

In the end the session tapes were divided among the four for inclusion on solo projects while the final master tape was whisked away by Paul, but before the tapes could be taken away an engineer made safety copies of the master and hid them away. All involved were sworn to secrecy and ordered to forget that the event ever happened but those engineer's copies would eventually come back to haunt them. So sit back, put the headphones on, close your eyes and dream of what might have been if this treasure had been released in 1973.

1. Here We Go Again
2. Big Barn Bed
3. Don't Let Me Wait Too Long
4. I Know (I Know)
5. I'm The Greatest
6. Living In The Material World
7. One More Kiss
8. Out The Blue
9. When The Night
10. Bring On The Lucie (Freeda People)
11. Step Lightly
12. Get On The Right Thing
13. You Are Here
14. Hands Of Love/Power Cut
15. Be Here Now

Reality Notes

This is the album that got me started. Many years ago I made a tape containing Beatle solo songs from 1973. Inspired by the fact that 1973 was the only year after 1970 that all four Beatles released albums within the same calander year (Paul released Two). I thought, "what-if instead they collaborated on an album together".

The sad thing in all of this is that this could have and almost really happened. Before John reconciled with Yoko he had plans, with encouragement from May Pang, to join Paul while he was recording his Red Rose Speedway album. Once they got back together Yoko convinced John that it was not a good idea.

By taking the most Beatle sounding songs and avoiding better known songs and a small amount of editing I put together what I felt was a convincing album. I would play this for friends who claimed to be Beatle Fans telling them it was a lost Beatles album and would fool 9 out of 10 people. I created packaging with liner notes and proper song credits which helped the illusion.

When I first compiled "Out The Blue" my goal was to make a believable "unreleased" Beatles album. When I first made this compilation, all I had was a 60 minute cassette tape to fill. Rather than having five to ten minutes of blank space at the end of each side, I chose to fill the tape to capacity. In the context of the back story of an unreleased album, this was okay. One of the reasons given for shelving the album was that no one would sacrifice a song to trim the length down to vinyl time limits.

Songs were chosen for their Beatlesque attributes which included drum, bass guitar and background vocal styles. Singles and popular album tracks were avoided or kept to a minimum to keep the album fresh sounding. It is for this reason that I avoided Paul's "Band On The Run" album which has its own life, sound and personality, and because most casual Paul or Beatles fans know very well.

Eventually this album became the jumping off point for an entire alternate time line beginning with the "White Album" through 1980. You can find that here at my other blog..

The songs were taken from the following albums:

Menlove Avenue - John Lennon

Here We Go Again  -  I had a hard time tracking info about this song (the original demos are undated). I knew it was produced and co-written by Phil Spector which meant it could be from anywhere between 1970 and 1974. I later confirmed that it indeed comes from 1974. I included it because it fits both lyrically and musically, also, being an obscure song (left unreleased until the 80's) it adds to the "freshness factor" of the overall product.

Mind Games - John Lennon

I Know (I Know)
Out The Blue
Bring On The Lucie (Freeda People)  -  I chopped off the short spoken intro which says "Alright boys, this is it, over the hill." and saved that for later use.
You Are Here  -  Edited out the spoken word "nine" at the very beginning but kept the percussive taps as a count in.

Red Rose Speedway - Paul McCartney

Big Barn Bed
One More Kiss  -  Edited out the count in.
When The Night
Get On The Right Thing
Hands Of Love/Power Cut  -  This track closes paul's album and is part of a four song medley. I took advantage of a natural break between the 2nd and 3rd parts, discarded the first half and faded out early before the reprise of the 1st song occurs.

Living in the Material World - George Harrison

Don't Let Me Wait Too Long
Living In The Material World
Be Here Now  -  Closing the album I added 15 seconds of silence to the end of the song then added the spoken intro fron Bring on the Lucie to give the album closure.

Ringo - Ringo Starr

I'm The Greatest  -  The most authentic Beatles song on the album. Written by John who also plays piano and sings backing vocals, Ringo plays drums and sings, George plays guitar, Billy Preston (who appears on the "Let It Be" album) plays organ and long time Beatles associate Klaus Voorman plays bass.
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