The Beatles - Band version of White Album

Well, all good things must eventually come to an end. Back when I started, I had ideas for about a dozen albums, and I never dreamed that it would continue for seven years with more than 150 albums! For the final entry, I decided to end this blog with the way it started: a take on The Beatles' "White Album." 

Way back in the good ol' days of 2017, I reimagined the White Album as three separate albums that I felt better organized the songs:

• A Doll's House
• The Beatles
• Back in Your Safely Beds

There are many ways you can slice and dice the album. But I find it both surprising and enlightening that of the 30 tracks that make up the White Album, only 16 (slightly more than half) actually feature all four band members performing.

And there doesn't seem to be any consistency of one member missing from a track. John Lennon is the only no-show on Ringo Starr's "Don't Pass Me By" and George Harrison's "Long Long Long." Paul McCartney and Starr collaborated as a duo on "Why Don't We Do It in the Road?" while Lennon and Harrison were the only Beatles on "Revolution 9." Songs such as "Julia" and "Blackbird" are basically solo efforts for Lennon and McCartney respectively, and so on.

So, I put together the tracklist below if you want an actual, true "Beatles" White Album, with the full band contributing. The only problem is that one track had to go if you want to keep within the time constraints of a vinyl album.

SIDE A
1. Glass Onion
2. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
3. The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill
4. Birthday 

5. Happiness is a Warm Gun
6. Piggies

7. Rocky Raccoon
8. Cry Baby Cry

SIDE B
1. While My Guitar Gently Weeps
2. Yer Blues
3. Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey
4. Honey Pie

5. Sexy Sadie

6. I'm So Tired

7. Helter Skelter

Interestingly, Lennon's songs dominate this version of the album. So much so that when it came time for me to determine which track to leave out, I chose one of his: "Revolution 1." I figured that "Revolution" was released as a single, so jettison the slow version. Maybe it could have been the B-side of a single.

No band member performs on all 30 tracks of the White Album. McCartney leads with 24, followed by Starr with 22, and both Harrison and Lennon with 20 each.

The familiar album opening with a jet plane sound on "Back in the U.S.S.R" is not included because Starr walked out in a huff during the recording sessions, and McCartney handled drums instead. The same goes for "Dear Prudence." So, I ended up starting this album with tracks three and four.

I mixed up the order a bit, using "Cry Baby Cry" with its "Can You Take Me Back" closing tag as a nice way to end the first side. "My Guitar Gently Weeps" is given more of a spotlight as the opening track of the second side. And I closed the album with the metal "Helter Skelter"—the "I got blisters on my fingers!" line is a great way to end the album as a whole.

Overall, it's an interesting twist and mix.

And so we end the blog. Thanks to all of those who've taken the time to read the entries and post comments. I'll leave the blog as is for the foreseeable future so that newcomers can find it and maybe be inspired.

The Beatles - "Yellow Submarine" complete soundtrack

 

It’s strange to me that two attempts were made to make a soundtrack for The Beatles' animated film “Yellow Submarine,” and yet neither version contains a complete tracklist.

The original soundtrack released in 1969 included six Beatles songs along with seven tracks by the George Martin Orchestra.

In 1999, a new version titled Yellow Submarine Songtrack was released. It included all but one of the Beatles songs that appear in the film, but none of the George Martin Orchestra music.

So, I have taken everything that I could find that I think should make up the “complete” soundtrack, and compiled what could have been issued as a double album.

SIDE A

1.       Pepperland

2.       March of the Meanies

3.       Yellow Submarine

4.       A Beginning

5.       Eleanor Rigby

6.       Love You To

SIDE B

1.       A Day in the Life

2.       All Together Now

3.       Sea of Time

4.       When I’m Sixty-Four

5.       Only a Northern Song

6.       Sea of Monsters

SIDE C

1.       Nowhere Man

2.       Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

3.       Sea of Holes

4.       Yellow Submarine in Pepperland

5.       Think for Yourself

6.       Pepperland Laid to Waste

SIDE D

1.       Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

2.       With a Little Help from My Friends

3.       All You Need is Love

4.       Baby You’re a Rich Man

5.       Hey Bulldog

6.       It’s All Too Much [long version]

Using what I think are the best sources, I compiled 24 tracks that include both Beatles songs and George Martin instrumentals into one complete album and put them in the order they appear in the film. I sourced all The Beatles songs (except “A Day in the Life” and “It’s All Too Much”) from Yellow Submarine Songtrack. For the George Martin Orchestra tracks (except “A Beginning”), I used the 2009 remastered version of the original soundtrack album.

Finally, I took “A Day in the Life” from the 50^th anniversary remastered Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album and “A Beginning” from Anthology 3. I also used the extended 8:13 version of “It’s All Too Much,” which is so far only available on bootlegs.

In some cases, the film only includes excerpts of certain songs, but I chose to include the full versions here.

I particularly liked how the four album sides began and ended naturally with their six equal tracks. While searching online, I found this interesting alternate cover on Pinterest posted by petdevaney.

Sources:

• A1, A2, B3, B6, C3, C4, C6 – Yellow Submarine (soundtrack), 2009
• A3, A5, A6, B2, B4, B5, C1, C2, C5, D1, D2, D3, D4, D5 – Yellow Submarine Songtrack, 1999
• B1 – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band: 50^th Anniversary Edition, 2017
• A4 – Anthology 3, 1996
• D6 – bootleg from YouTube

And here's a YouTube playlist of the album.

The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band [double album version]

 

Free of the confines of being a touring band and refreshed after several weeks of vacation, The Beatles began work on the band's eighth album. Initially, the group thought about creating an album with songs reflective of their childhood in Liverpool. This resulted in the songs "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane." Other early tracks included "When I'm Sixty-Four" and "Only a Northern Song." 

However, the need for a new single resulted in the first two tunes being used as a double A-side. And since The Beatles normally kept singles separate from albums, neither "Strawberry Fields Forever" nor "Penny Lane" made the album and the childhood theme was abandoned. Since then, some folks -- including producer George Martin -- have lamented that those two songs didn't make the album's tracklist. But even if they'd had a change of heart at the time, at least two, and maybe three, other songs would have to have been cut to make room. As it was, "Only a Northern Song" didn't show up for record buyers until the Yellow Submarine soundtrack the following year.

There was another alternative -- The Beatles could have made Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band into a double album. Here's my track list for what could have been:

SIDE A

1. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

2. With a Little Help from My Friends

3. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

4. Fixing a Hole

5. She's Leaving Home

6. Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite

SIDE B

1. Good Morning Good Morning

2. When I'm Sixty-Four

3. Getting Better

4. Lovely Rita

5. Within You Without You

SIDE C

1. Only a Northern Song

2. Penny Lane

3. Strawberry Fields Forever

4. You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)

SIDE D

1. Carnival of Light

2.  Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)

3.  A Day in the Life

To double the size of Sgt. Pepper's, I included the two songs from the single, a few outtakes and one fake. Added tracks here include "Only a Northern Song," "Penny Lane," "Strawberry Fields Forever," "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)" and "Carnival of Light."

I've always thought that "Good Morning Good Morning" would have made a better opening track for the second side rather than "Within You Without You," which I moved to the end of the second side.

"You Know My Name..." was unfinished during the Pepper sessions and attention was not returned to it until 1969 before it was released as a single B-side the following year. How much of the track was completed in 1967 is unknown, but presumably, it could have been polished off at the time. "Carnival of Light" was a 13-minute sound collage that The Beatles recorded for the Million Volt Light and Sound Rave. It was heard in public that one and only time and has never been commercially released. Fake versions exist on YouTube (and frankly might actually turn out to be better than the real one).

I like how although each album side is close in length, the actual number of tracks progressively decreases by one. It wasn't deliberate, but seems so Pepperish anyway.

For the cover, I used the album's original artwork, created by the Dutch design collective The Fool, and added titles.

The Beatles - "Beatles Again"

In 1969, new Beatles manager Allen Klein negotiated a new contract with Capitol Records that required one compilation album per year. I don't know how they planned to have a new compilation every year for the five-year span of the contract, but the plan for the initial one was to use songs that hadn't appeared on albums (only singles).

Allan Steckler was given the task of deciding which tracks should be included. Ten tracks were chosen, put in chronological order, from 1964-69, and issued (only in the U.S.) as Hey Jude in 1970. With the inclusion of the group's most successful song ever (the title song), the album promptly sold more than 2 million copies.

The problem with the album is that the Beatles' sound had changed so dramatically from the time of their mop top days of 1964 and their hippie days of '69. With a little more care, a compilation album could have been produced with a more contemporary sound using more recent songs, including some still unreleased.

SIDE A

1. Revolution

2. Lady Madonna

3. The Inner Light

4. What's the New Mary Jane?

5. Not Guilty

6. The Ballad of John and Yoko

SIDE B

1. Hey Jude

2. Old Brown Shoe

3. Don't Let Me Down

4. You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)

The first four tracks of Hey Jude are the ones I have the problem with: "Can't Buy Me Love," "I Should Have Known Better," "Paperback Writer" and "Rain." Removing these, I needed a new opener. "Revolution" -- which closes side one on Hey Jude -- seems like the obvious choice to me. I then moved "Lady Madonna" from track 6 to track 2. 

I added three songs to the first side not on the original album: "The Inner Light," "What's the New Mary Jane?" and "Not Guilty." All seem like obvious tracks to include. "The Inner Light" didn't show up on an American or British album until 1978's Rarities and the stereo version wasn't released until 10 years after that on Past Masters, Volume 2. Both "What's the New Mary Jane?" and "Not Guilty" were White Album outtakes that weren't released until Anthology 3 in 1996.

For the final song on the first side, I moved the Hey Jude album closer "The Ballad of John and Yoko" here instead.

The first three tracks of the second side are the same as Hey Jude, but I closed the album with "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)." Originally the b-side of the then-upcoming "Let It Be" single, this track wasn't released on an album until Rarities in 1978.

There were three other tracks I considered: the single edit versions of both "Let It Be" and "Get Back," and the "wildlife" version of "Across the Universe" that had only been released previously on the World Wildlife Fund compilation No One's Gonna Change Our World. But since all three songs in different versions would appear on the Let It Be album released later the same year, it didn't seem to make as much sense as the other options. 

And there you have it, what I consider to be a superior compilation album than Hey Jude. For a cover, I used the shot of the group that was on the back side of the Hey Jude album, and I titled it Beatles Again, which is rumored to have been the original album title. I found this album mock-up on the web.

The Beatles - "Back in Your Safely Beds"

Here's an album you can't have—at least not yet, as of this writing. In the past couple of weeks, I've posted two versions of albums in which I used most of the tracks of The Beatles' "White Album." But I deliberately left off "Wild Honey Pie" and "Revolution 9." I just don't think they fit well with the other tracks.

The Beatles—specifically Paul, John and George—experimented extensively with music and wrote pop songs. George released Electronic Sound, and John and Yoko released Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins, Unfinished Music No. 2: Life with the Lions and the Wedding Album. Paul also created experimental music but didn't release it commercially.

Back in Your Safely Beds is what might have happened if The Beatles released their more experimental songs together on one album.

However, one of the tracks I propose for this album, "Carnival of Light," a nearly 14-minute sound collage, has yet to be released. It was originally recorded by the band in 1967 for the Million Volt Light and Sound Rave event. It has never appeared on any Beatles release and has only been heard by a select few since the rave event. Paul wanted to put it on The Beatles' Anthology 2 album, but George vetoed the idea. Paul occasionally teases the possibility of releasing it someday in the future. The rest of the tracks on this proposed album are all commercially available.

"What's the New Mary Jane?" was completed during production of the White Album, but was not officially released until 1996 on Anthology 3. "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)" was released as the B-side to the "Let It Be" single. The final recording work on this song was in April 1969 (the last of these five tracks to be completed), and so I see Back in Your Safely Beds as a summer of '69 release that wasn't.

SIDE A
1. You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)
2. Carnival of Light

SIDE B
1. What's the New Mary Jane?
2. Wild Honey Pie
3. Revolution 9

My simple album cover is stark white, with the title in big, fat letters and the logo of Zapple Records—the avant-garde and spoken-word subsidiary of Apple Corps. The title comes from one of Ringo's malapropisms (aka Ringoisms), like "A Hard Day's Night" and "Tomorrow Never Knows," which the band has previously used for titles. Maybe the band wouldn't even include their name on this record. Maybe they'd make up a fake name. Who knows?

With this blog entry, I'll move on to other proposed albums that don't involve The Beatles. Stay tuned.

"The Beatles" by The Beatles

In my last post, I created a single-disc concept album using 14 tracks from The Beatles' "White Album." In this post, I'm using most of the leftover tracks to create a good, standard rock album.

While A Doll's House could have created a good bridge from the Sgt. Pepper's/Magical Mystery Tour era, this album would have been mostly a return to basics. The Summer of Love was so last year; the Vietnam War and Civil Rights protests were everywhere, and music was changing. Using the official title of the White Album, I call this one simply The Beatles. 

SIDE A

1. Back in the U.S.S.R.

2. Sexy Sadie

3. Not Guilty

4. Julia

5. Honey Pie

6. Don't Pass Me By

7. I'm So Tired

SIDE B

1. While My Guitar Gently Weeps

2. I Will

3. Yer Blues

4. Why Don't We Do It in the Road?

5. Happiness is a Warm Gun

6. Long Long Long

7. Revolution 1

8. Helter Skelter

Again, like A Doll's House, there is a balance of vocals: six by John, five by Paul, three by George, and one by Ringo. All of these tracks are from the original "White Album," except "Not Guilty." A short version of the song is on Anthology 3, but I used a longer 4:17 version. For an album cover, I used one-half of the proposed artwork for the inner gatefold of the "White Album" that wasn't used.

NOTE: You may have noticed certain songs from the White Album that I've left off from both this and A Doll's House: "Wild Honey Pie" and "Revolution 9." I consider "Wild Honey Pie" to be akin to nails on a chalkboard. I really hate it. Maybe the worst Beatles song I can think of. As far as "Revolution 9" is concerned, I was fascinated with it when I was a teenager, but these days, it just seems like one long noise track. I think maybe these two tracks as well as a few other odds and ends could appear on yet another Beatles album, which maybe I'll get to in the future.

The Beatles' "A Doll's House"

A lot has been written about creating a single album from The Beatles' "White Album." Online, you'll find numerous attempts, public polls, arguments, etc.

My personal feeling is that there is a great concept album lurking in the "White Album" begging to come out. It's fairly common knowledge that The Beatles originally planned to call the album A Doll's House after playwright Henrik Ibsen's play. However, when the group Family used the title Music from a Doll's House for its debut album, The Beatles' title was scrapped.

To me, A Doll's House conjures up the idea of childhood, and there are plenty of songs on the "White Album" that connect with childhood themes. With that in mind, I put together a single disc concept album that I think really works.

SIDE A

1. Glass Onion

2. Dear Prudence

3. Birthday

4. Savoy Truffle

5. The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill

6. Mother Nature's Son

7. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

SIDE B

1. Martha My Dear

2. Piggies

3. Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey

4. Blackbird

5. Rocky Raccoon

6. Cry Baby Cry

7. Good Night

Kicking off Side A is "Glass Onion." It's the perfect song to link previous Beatles songs with what is to come and serves as an introduction to this album. "Dear Prudence," an invitation to come out and play, follows. Then the party starts with "Birthday" and everyone can indulge in sweets with "Savoy Truffle." Then there follows storytime and singalongs -- "...Bungalow Bill," "Mother Nature's Son" and "Ob-La-Di...."

The second side of the album begins with an "Animals Suite," which harks back to the album cover: "Martha My Dear" (about Paul's sheepdog), "Piggies," "...Me and My Monkey," "Blackbird" and "Rocky Raccoon." "Cry Baby Cry"—it's nap time, and you sing the lullaby "Good Night."

Not only do all of these songs fit in well thematically, but there is also a good balance of contributions: five vocals by John, six by Paul, two by George and one by Ringo.

All of these tracks are available on the "White Album." Slight trimming is needed on "Dear Prudence" at the beginning to remove the jet sounds that bleed in from "Back in the U.S.S.R."

Here's a YouTube playlist to listen to this "lost" concept album.