The 14th Beatles Album

John Lennon once said in the early-70s that if Beatles fans wanted another album after Let It Be they could just grab songs from each of their solo albums.

The recorded output by the ex-Beatles in 1970 shows that their creative juices were still flowing. For the most part, their singles and albums were hitting the top ten, and some were scoring with the critics, notably John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and All Things Must Pass.

The only problem was that John, Paul, George and Ringo couldn't all be in the same room together, which is a small obstacle to the recording process.

Taking John's idea idea literally, I assembled what could have been the Beatles' fourteenth album which would have been released in late-1970 in time for the Christmas market.

In selecting the tracks and running order, I followed these ground rules as set by previous Beatles albums:

• Tracks had to be recorded or released in 1970. It Don't Come Easy was released in 1971, but recorded in March 1970.
• The same composer could not open both side A and B;
• No two consecutive songs could feature the same vocalist;
• The same composer could not open and close the album;
• The running time had to fall between 40-50 minutes, based on 1970 vinyl standards;
• Singles and album tracks recorded by ex-Beatles were both fine;
• George must have three songs, matching his output on Revolver: Some of you will ask, Why not more? In reality, neither John nor Paul would allow George more songs than them on an album. George's output in 1970 in terms of quantity and quality was so enormous, he could have taken up an entire side.

Ladies and gentlemen, the unreleased fourteenth Beatles album:

Side A

1. Instant Karma (John)
2. Every Night (Paul)
3. It Don't Come Easy (Ringo)
4. Wah Wah (George)
5. Working Class Hero (John)
6. Man We Was Lonely (Paul)

Side B

1. What Is Life (George)
2. Love (John)
3. Junk (Paul)
4. Remember (John)
5. Maybe I'm Amazed (Paul)
6. All Things Must Pass (George)

singles:

Instant Karma / Teddy Boy (Get Back sessions)

It Don't Come Easy / Apple Scruffs

What Is Life / Look at Me

Songs by singer/composer:

John: 4

Paul: 4

George: 3

Ringo: 1

By 1970, John had kicked his heroin habit and was recording more music again. His presence on this album would match Paul's after taking a dip on Abbey Road and Let It Be. George comes to the fore as the third composer of the band after his outstanding efforts on Abbey Road. I gave him added prominence by closing the album.

Selecting a title is difficult. All Things Must Pass would send a signal to fans that The Sixties—and the band—were over, but I know that John and Paul would never name a Beatles' album after a George song. So, I have no name for this album and for my iPod simply call it 1970.

Track-by-track:

Side A:

   
1. Instant Karma (John)

An easy choice. Every Beatles album opens with a bang, a catchy rocker that rightfully was a hit. Also, John's count-in recalls I Saw Her Standing There and Taxman. No other solo Beatles song from 1970 comes close to opening the album.

2. Every Night (Paul)

The second song contrasts the tempo of the opening by relaxing the mood. This beautiful mid-tempo song by Paul is a highlight from his first solo album.

3. It Don't Come Easy (Ringo)

Do I go back to John or introduce George in the third spot? Guess what: Ringo. Per tradition, Ringo has one song on this album and it's his best songs from 1970. No surprise it was a hit single. An unwritten rule is pack side A with the stronger songs and this song maintains this exceptional quality.

4. Wah Wah (George)

Now, George has to appear. He has too many good songs in 1970. Placing him fourth opens the album democratically, with each ex-Beatle getting his turn to stand in the spotlight. The trick was choosing which song off the massive All Things Must Pass to place here. After two mid-tempo songs, I wanted to return to a rocker, the harder the better. This was it with its dense mix of guitars, horns and vocals.

5. Working Class Hero (John)

After George's blistering guitar tour-de-force, we need to change the mood yet offer a song as strong as the predecessors. You could argue that The Beatles, especially Paul, would have never allowed the F-word to be uttered on a Beatles record (excluding Hey Jude where “fuck” was buried in the mix). Then again, John sang “Christ” in The Ballad of John & Yoko with Paul on harmony, and John got Revolution 9 onto The White Album. Some may question the harsh tone of this song, and by far it is the most confessional song on my album, but I argue that WCH is just too powerful to leave off this album.

6. Man We Was Lonely (Paul)

This song closed side A of Paul's solo album and I thought it would work here, too. After Working Class Hero, we need to hear something that'll stop us from slitting our wrists and Paul's refreshing song does the trick. The long extro lowers the curtain on side A.

Side B

1. What Is Life (George)

I needed George back and this perfectly opened side B of All Things Must Pass. Another galloping start.

2. Love (John)

Similarly, this was the second song on side B of John's album and I thought it would work here, contrasting the frenzy of George's previous song. It was also time to return John to the mix.

3. Junk (Paul)

Back-to-back ballads don't hurt (like the acoustic-heavy side B of The White Album. This is one of the songs from McCartney that I wanted on this album, but didn't feel it was strong enough for side A. (I prefer The White Album demo, actually.)

4. Remember (John)

Back to a rocker. This is the last of John's songs on this album.

5. Maybe I'm Amazed (Paul)

Paul's best song from 1970 gets the penultimate spot.

  
6. All Things Must Pass (George)

Was there any other choice? George never closed a Beatles album, but this tune that he wrote during the Get Back sessions and that the group nearly recorded sums up this album, but also the end of The Sixties and The Beatles themselves. Fade out.

The singles

Instant Karma / Teddy Boy (Get Back sessions)

It Don't Come Easy / Apple Scruffs

What Is Life / Look at Me

I strongly doubt that The Beatles would pull three songs off the same album as singles. Typically, they pulled one to give the fans' their money's worth (excluding Please Please Me where the singles were released before the album). Most likely from this album, the band would have paired Instant Karma and It Don't Come Easy as they did with Come Together and Something. FM radio stations played Maybe I'm Amazed like a single back in the day, but Paul resisted the demand to issue the song (until the amazing live version in 1976).

That said, the singles above are more like potential singles with B-sides that fell short of making the album. Of course, the A-sides were in real life singles that charted well back in the day.

What Songs Were Left Off and Why

John: Mother, Hold On John, I Found Out, Well Well Well, God, My Mummy's Dead

Of all the solo Beatles albums in 1970, John's was the most personal, self-referential and extreme. The songs on this fantasy album had to possibly been recorded by The Beatles, and these tunes about John's dead mother and the end of The Beatles miss the mark by a mile. Could you imagine John singing I don't believe in Beatles on a Beatles album (though I'm sure he would've tried).

Paul: The Lovely Linda, Oo You, Momma Miss America

I love the McCartney album. It's refreshing and unpretentious, full of fine songs. I admire the stripped-down production. But these songs are a little too unpolished for a Beatles album and contrast too much with George's Wall of Sound to belong on the same album.

George: My Sweet Lord, Awaiting on You All

Could you imagine John and Paul singing Hare Krishna in back-up?

Ringo: Sentimental Journey, Beaucoups of Blues

Ringo has one spot on any album, and that spot belongs to the hit It Don't Come Easy. These old standards and country tunes are too left-field for this fantasy album.

Beyond 1970:

Richard Linklater's Boyhood suggested The Black Album (compiled by Ethan Hawke) which gathers solo-Beatles songs post-1970, but that doesn't work for me. After 1970, the styles of the four Beatles diverge too far already. 1970 is pushing the limits as it is, but 1982? Forget it. 

John's political activism and midlife crisis don't blend with Paul's sentimentality and George's holy preachings. Imagine and Mary Had A Little Lamb on the same album? The Guv, one half of the team here at The Rowboat Syndicate, agrees. His take on The Black Album can be found here.

If nothing else, 1970 proves that if John, Paul, George and Ringo wanted to, they had enough powder in their collective cannon to fire off another great album. The songs were there. The records charted high upon release and the music stands the test of time. What was missing what the chemistry of the four of them playing together. What's missing from all these songs—as good as they are—is The Beatles' trademark harmonies and the sound of them playing together. By 1970, the dream was over.

A Splendid Alternative?

There's no doubt Sgt. Pepper is a landmark album. The music, the writing, the instrumentation, the cover, the concept, the studio trickery - all these elements combined to usher in a new era of album as more than just a collection of songs. And while Sgt. Pepper is still rightly considered to be a brilliantly conceived and constructed piece of art, some have questioned what could have been.

Many of us are familiar with the artwork created for this album by The Fool which was ultimately rejected in favour of Peter Blake's iconic masterpiece. And, of course, there are alternative shots from Blake's photo session featuring the lads in varying poses. Some of these photos still include extra characters such as Mahatma Gandhi in the background, who were later airbrushed out at EMI's insistence. But what about potential variations of Sgt. Pepper that includes different tracks and running orders?

During the past 30 years I've seen a number of alternative tracklists, either actual possibilities that may have been considered by The Beatles and George Martin at some point, or fanciful suggestions from fans. The first time I became aware of any of these was probably in the liner notes to the 1987 CD release, where it was suggested George Martin had, at some point, considered the following:

Side 1:

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
With A Little Help From My Friends
Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite
Fixing A Hole
Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
Getting Better
She's Leaving Home
Side 2:
Within You Without You
When I'm 64
Lovely Rita
Good Morning Good Morning
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (reprise)
A Day In The Life

I can see how this might work, although I particularly like With A Little Help From My Friends leading straight into the psychedelic opening of Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds. Separating Getting Better and Fixing A Hole, both McCartney songs, makes some sense, since they have more rhythmic and tonal similarities than contrast. Having re-created this disc for my own listening pleasure, I find it doesn't flow as well as the actual release. This, however, could simply be my own prejudices from being so familiar with the original song order after all these years.

George Martin gave Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane to EMI for single release, something he has since stated he regrets doing. The first two tracks recorded for the Sgt. Pepper sessions, they were deemed ineligible for inclusion as they had previously been released. There are quotes from George Martin and the band suggesting they felt it was unfair to fans to sell them the same product twice. Apparently they had forgotten Love Me Do, Please Please Me and other songs which had earlier appeared on both singles and albums. And Sir Paul most definitely ignored this sentiment in the 90s when he released multiple versions of the same single from Off The Ground, each with different bonus tracks. The only other track recorded during these sessions to be considered for Sgt. Pepper was Harrison's Only A Northern Song which the rest of the band felt was sub-standard, despite the amount of effort they put into its creation. (There were further tracks recorded during this time period, such as Carnival of Light, but they were always intended for other specific purposes.)

Some fans have suggested the possibility of a double album, although this would never have been seriously considered at this stage of their career. EMI was quite concerned at the mounting expense. No other album in history had ever consumed five months of studio time, and they were actively pushing for the band to release anything. Soon. If they had continued recording for many more months to create four sides, tracks such as All You Need Is Love, Hello Goodbye, Baby You're A Rich Man, and The Fool On The Hill would surely have forced their way in. Although they commenced recording some of these only weeks after the Sgt. Pepper sessions ended, none were on tape in time for the 1st June, 1967 release date. While it's tempting to imagine a double album, I fear the result would have been a sprawling mess.

Everyone has their least favourite tracks on Sgt. Pepper. And I've seen suggestions which drop various combinations of She's Leaving Home, Getting Better, Within You Without You, Lovely Rita and When I'm 64 to fit all or some of these other songs. Altering Sgt. Pepper is a delicate operation, calling for precise planning and thought. The record could have lost more than it gained by losing any of these tracks, all of which added light and shade to the album's flow.

In an article published in 2007, on the eve of the album's 40th anniversary, one reporter claims to have received the inside story on Martin's preferred lineup. Getting Better would have been dropped for Penny Lane, while Within You Without You, which Martin has publicly stated is too long, would have been shortened to make room for Strawberry Fields Forever. Now this is an interesting tracklisting. (Of course we don't know whether Martin would have changed the running order.)

Side 1:

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
With A Little Help From My Friends
Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
Penny Lane
Fixing A Hole
She's Leaving Home
Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite
Side 2:
Within You Without You (edited)
Strawberry Fields Forever
When I'm 64
Lovely Rita
Good Morning Good Morning
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (reprise)
A Day In The Life

One of the major problems with this suggested order is that suddenly side one becomes very Paul heavy. The Doc, one half of the team here at The Rowboat Syndicate, has created his own tracklist to counter this. He most certainly believes that omitting Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane was a huge mistake. Alongside A Day In The Life, they are the best compositions from the 1966-67 Sgt. Pepper era in terms of lyrics, arrangements and performances. They all push the envelope in recorded music, and they still amaze almost fifty years later. A shortened Within You Without You and the removal of Lovely Rita permits room for their inclusion. While he would be happy for Lovely Rita to have remained, in his opinion it feels like a throwaway compared to weightier songs.

The Doc would retain side one as it is. Within You Without You (removing the instrumental break) would open side two, and be followed by a surreal visit to Liverpool's past and The Beatles' childhood through Strawberry Fields Forever. Harrison's song is philosophical, but also reflective and looks inward. Lennon's is just as reflective though in a far more personal way. The outro of George's song fades and Strawberry Fields Forever immediately cuts in, making these two songs feel seamless. Penny Lane, being more upbeat and faster in tempo, continues the build from the slower, introspective pieces. And the two tracks belong together. They're two sides of the coin. Maintaining the Liverpool flashback, When I'm 64, their homage to English music hall, dovetails beautifully behind Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane. It works. It's organic.  The contrast in feeling is perfect. 

With the final notes of When I'm 64 fading, The Doc suggests a return to the official sequence of the album. The transition to Good Morning, Good Morning again feels seamless, and it's good to bounce back to a John song after enjoying back-to-back Paul songs. The Reprise leading into A Day In The Life is as close to a perfect conclusion as we could have.

Sgt. Pepper in its released form is more lopsided than other Beatles' albums like Rubber Soul and Revolver. Including the Liverpool songs adds far more muscle to a weaker side two and balances the album. It also elevates a very good album into a true masterpiece. One more subtle, but essential improvement: Sgt. Pepper is no longer dominated by Paul's voice but more equally weighted with John's. The Doc prefers Revolver, Rubber Soul and The White Album, simply because of that balance between John and Paul, and that is something he misses with Sgt. Pepper.

Doc's tracklisting:

Side 1: 

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
With A Little Help From My Friends
Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
Getting Better
Fixing A Hole
She's Leaving Home
Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite
Side 2:
Within You Without You (edited)
Strawberry Fields Forever
Penny Lane
When I'm 64
Good Morning Good Morning
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (reprise)
A Day In The Life

Besides the above hypothetical exercises, there were legitimate variations of Sgt. Pepper released. The nature of 8-track cartridges meant each of the four programs (similar to vinyl sides) were most effective when they were of approximately the same length. For this reason the song order for the 8-track version underwent some shuffling. A Day In The Life no longer closes the album. That honour goes to Sgt. Pepper's (reprise), which has also been edited to artificially extend it by ten seconds.

Program 1
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
A Little Help From My Friends (sic)
Fixing A Hole
Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite
Program 2
Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
Getting Better
She's Leaving Home
Program 3
Within You Without You
A Day In The Life
Program 4
When I'm Sixty-Four
Lovely Rita
Good Morning Good Morning
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (reprise)

There are two legitimate Sgt. Pepper oddities that require mentioning. Both were Asian releases.

Malaysia and Hong Kong, like the BBC, banned three songs for supposed drug references. And so the Far Eastern version of this record was unique, and obviously created several months after the album's initial release. I've never heard an actual copy of this, so I have no idea on whether the tracks have different edits. I suspect not. For my own enjoyment I re-created this record on CD, taking the time to crossfade Sgt. Pepper into The Fool On The Hill, and the Pepper (reprise) into I Am The Walrus. And while I would never replace my regular copy of the album with this version, it is one that I find charming and listen to from time to time. (If anyone can supply me with a needledrop of this record, please contact me.) The rear cover of the album was altered to reflect the unusual tracklist.

Side 1:

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
The Fool On The Hill
Baby You're A Rich Man
Getting Better
Fixing A Hole
She's Leaving Home
Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite
Side 2:
Within You Without You
When I'm 64
Lovely Rita
Good Morning Good Morning
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (reprise)
I'm The Walrus (sic)

In 1977 South Korea issued a version of Sgt. Pepper which completely removed Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds and A Day In The Life. Neither track was replaced, which must make for a very short and incomplete listening experience. The artwork on both the front and rear were drastically altered as well. As McCartney sang, very strange.

Side 1:
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
With A Little Help From My Friends
Getting Better
Fixing A Hole
She's Leaving Home
Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite
Side 2:
Within You Without You
When I'm 64
Lovely Rita
Good Morning Good Morning
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (reprise)

But let's return to the possible inclusion of Only A Northern Song on the album.

I have yet to see any alternative listing with this track that I find satisfying. I thought I saw one suggested by Mark Lewisohn many years ago. Now, however, I can't find it, and can't recall from where he may have sourced that information. Of course my mind may be playing tricks, it might not exist and it's possible I imagined the whole thing.

I really quite like Only A Northern Song, Harrison's first full-on attempt at psychedelia. (Mind you, I also have a soft spot for It's All Too Much.) My gut feeling is it would never really fit properly. It's big, brassy and loud, and would need to be placed exactly so, should it be included. The Doc agrees. While he also likes Only A Northern Song and has sequenced It's All Too Much into his Sgt. Pepper mix a few times, neither fits. The former is too weak a song and the latter takes the album on a tangent with its freakout feedback, which he actually likes. Both tracks, however, disrupt the flow, whereas Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane meld into the overall mix organically. Think of it this way: each song on Sgt. Pepper is like a sequence in a film. Each song must occur at the right place for the whole album to flow, for songs to contrast each other in feeling and idea and complement each other when needed.

As we know, Only A Northern Song was not included on Sgt. Pepper. In fact it was rejected from the album so early that on April 20, 1967 Martin played it for the producers of the Yellow Submarine cartoon, informing them it was the first song for their forthcoming movie soundtrack. This was prior to the song's final mixes and while the Sgt. Pepper sessions were still underway. Obviously there was never any real intent to include Only A Northern Song on the album. At least the filmmakers made sure it received a stunning animation sequence.

Are there any other ideas out there? Any variations I've missed? I'd certainly be thrilled if anyone could source further alternative tracklistings. Your personal suggestions are also most welcome in the comments.

Remember, Sgt. Pepper was originally released in the days of vinyl and neither side would have extended much beyond 22 minutes or so.

For further information on Sgt. Pepper, I recommend this page at The Beatles Internet Album.

Waiting For The Scruffs

Musicians have fans - that's nothing new.  Many of these fans are dedicated beyond belief, buying concert tickets across whole tours, taking unpaid vacations to go to every show, collecting expensive memorabilia. Fandom is a passion almost impossible to explain to someone who doesn't get it.

Even compared to the most rabid fans of other groups, the Apple Scruffs were special, and I doubt we'll ever see the likes of them again. These fans, mostly young women, spent years simply waiting outside the offices in Savile Row and the Abbey Road Studios. Many had given up their jobs. Others juggled waiting with work. They'd sleep on the concourse outside the studio in winter, often until early morning, waiting and watching, waiting for a sighting, waiting for a few words from one of the four. They had a network so well organised that The Beatles were always stunned to find Scruffs already waiting at places like Trident Studios when they arrived.

George even wrote and recorded a song about them on his All Things Must Pass album. (As a side note, when I was in High School, a friend submitted the lyrics to this song to our English teacher for a poetry assignment. Even then I was impressed he was smart enough to choose a more obscure song with which to cheat. For the record, George Harrison received a B.)

It took me a long time to locate a copy of Waiting For The Beatles at a reasonable price. Long out of print, this book by Carol Bedford tells her version of what it was like to be an Apple Scruff. Bedford was an American, a long time Beatle fan who moved to the UK in order to visit The Beatles. She was successful, visiting most of them at their homes, making friends with other fans, and so ended up staying. Like the other Scruffs she was on first name basis with the fabs, and was even invited into the inner sanctum a few times.

I looked forward to this book, to reading an account of what it was like to have the kind of dedication it took to be a Scruff.

This book isn't as insightful as I would have liked.

Bedford comes across as a self-centred petulant pre-teen, although she was several years older than that. A young woman who arrives in the UK, befriends some of the other fans, (they weren't called Scruffs until much later), then anoints George as her chosen one, apparently for no other reason than there were fewer girls chasing him. George, in fact, is portrayed as being privileged to have her as his fan. She has a nemesis, another George fan, who is up to all kinds of dirty tricks to thwart her efforts. This whole sub-plot reads like a high school romance novel.

George is seen as a caricature, a cardboard cutout who is chastised and berated by Bedford when he doesn't pay her enough attention. And then when George apparently makes a series of advances towards her, she rebuffs him, acting coy and shocked, declaring the past years of flirting were all innocent.

Incidents seem to be embellished to give the author a starring role. I'm almost surprised she didn't include herself present at the business meeting where Lennon declared himself to be the reincarnation of Jesus. She was there when John went to Cavendish Avenue and threw the brick through McCartney's window. She was watching through the window when Paul announced he was quitting the band. And she was the one who, reluctantly and at the spurring of others, climbed through the bathroom window to take Paul's possessions. Of course once inside Paul's house, she wouldn't touch anything. No, that was the other girls.

Interestingly, other Scruffs insist she wasn't even there at the time.

I read somewhere George was angry about the book. Other Scruffs question the author's motives and narrative honesty. But I didn't need those opinions to form my own. This book needs to be taken with huge shovels of salt.

Even at the end, when Bedford decides to stop following George around, she declares that it's her gift to him, relieving him of the responsibility of their friendship. She writes a letter explaining all this, then within a week contacts him when she's heard he's had an accident.

Apparently Bedford passed away a few years ago after a long illness. Still in London and, I suspect, still dreaming of George.


Despite all this, I enjoyed this book. Yes, read between the lines. Separate the fact from fantasy. There's enough at its core to give some insight into this kind of fandom.

It's the only Apple Scruff's book I've managed to find thus far. I've read that at least one other Scruff has thought about writing her story. And I'd love to see a bound collection of all their newsletters reproduced.

In the meantime, I'm grateful for this one. I'm just waiting for another Scruff to write a better one.

Sacred And Most Holy Relics

John Lennon's acoustic guitar, used on early recordings and missing for more than fifty years, has been located and is being offered for auction. The Gibson, purchased in 1962 at Brian Epstein's insistence after the boys were mocked at their Decca audition for having substandard equipment, was used on recordings such as Love Me Do and P.S. I Love You. The guitar mysteriously disappeared during The Beatles 1963 Christmas Show at Finsbury Park before surfacing in San Diego where it was bought by an American in the early 70s for a few hundred dollars. Apparently it's only recently he has realised what he has, and is now expected to earn around $800,000 from its sale.

So if it was stolen, why isn't it being returned to its rightful owner? Surely Yoko, or Sean, or Julian should have it.

Of course, that's not to say I'd love to own this guitar.

Memorabilia fascinates me. The extent to which fans will go to possess artifacts, souvenirs, and other items with some connection to their idols. It's as if they're holy relics, as though ownership will endow enlightenment, a kind of Beatles nirvana. For me, mortgages and grown-up priorities (food, insurance, car, etc.) limit my abilities to collect. I have some inexpensive items; mostly recent merchandise and a few old Beatles Monthly magazines. But there are some collectors who will go to great expense to possess rarities. And the closer to the boys, and the rarer it is, the better.

Studio tapes are missing from the archives. There are rumours of collectors holding these for themselves in private collections, not willing to return them, not willing to share them. Instruments, gold records and awards, clothes, notes and song lyrics; all stolen at opportune moments and secreted away. She Came In Through The Bathroom Window.

And from there we cross to the completely sick and twisted side of collecting. A copy of The White Album, signed by Charles Manson and members of his family, is currently offered for sale at $50,000. There's definitely something wrong with that.

McCartney had some fun at the expense of memorabilia collectors in his 1989 video for My Brave Face in which a Japanese collector goes to extraordinary lengths to steal items such as a Sgt. Pepper suit. But for my money one of the funniest moments was a Saturday Night Live skit from the 80s where Ringo Starr (playing himself) is offered up for auction as a piece of memorabilia.

I love reading about this stuff. Books with information and images on collectibles, instruments, and every variation in record releases from a round the world fascinate me no end.

Now, if I ever won the lottery I'd be in serious trouble. My wife would kill me. The money wouldn't last. I understand collectors. I understand their passion. And I'd love to possess my own pieces of Beatles history.

Beatlegs

Although it would be another few years until I saw an actual bootleg for real, my first knowledge of their existence was in the excellent The Beatles: An Illustrated Record.

A double spread towards the back of the book gave me a tantalising taste of what was out there in the wider world. Song titles I'd never heard of before, exotic to a thirteen year old who only knew their hits. I Got A Woman, I Just Don't Understand, Please Don't Ever Change, A Shot of Rhythm and Blues, Have You Heard The Word?, Peace Of Mind, and even Johnny B. Goode. These were songs I could only try to imagine. I was as much a fan then as I am now. If it existed, or was even rumoured to exist, I wanted to hear it.

I'm pretty sure I'd never even heard of Chuck Berry at that stage, but for some reason I recall being aware that bootleggers often had to guess at the song title. And so I wondered whether Johnny B.Goode was actually a mislabelled Bad Boy. (The line, Now Junior, behave yourself, suggested the connection).  OK, I was reaching, but I was also thirteen at the time.

Now, of course, I have all these tracks. And many, many more. Some of them are mistitled, some of them aren't even The Beatles. Many people weren't aware exactly how much and how often The Beatles recorded for the BBC and so all the non-live tracks were presumed to be studio outtakes. And since this was before the major studio hemorrhaging that occurred in the mid 80s through John Barrett and Roger Scott, there are very few actual outtakes amongst these titles.

There are a few live shows here. Hollywood Bowl (for once not labelled as Whiskey Flats), Tokyo 1966, even a Shea film transfer, oddly labelled as 1964 rather than 1965. There's also a bunch of Let It Be outtakes, although these all seem to be audio transfers from the film and tracks lifted from the Glyn Johns Get Back acetate which had been broadcast on American radio before Apple issued cease and desist letters.

It's also kind of interesting to see my fourteen year old self scrawled 'Released' underneath Hollywood Bowl 1964, presumably just after the legitimate vinyl was released. Little did I know then that the record was actually a mix of shows from both 1964 and 1965.

Here are some excerpts from the page on bootlegs.

"The practice of bootlegging is immoral, illegal and - despite pressures brought to bear by the established recording companies - still very much a flourishing and lucrative business."

"Though one or two gems are to be found on bootlegs, the sound quality is invariably of exceedingly poor fidelity, excepting in those very rare instances have gained unauthorised access to the master tapes or acetates."

"Beatlegs are hard to come by and, if buying such product, it is more than probable that one won't be able to preview it before purchase. Therefore it's a question of 'yer pays yer money and yer takes yer chance.'Whatever the morality and the arguments for and against bootlegs' existence, the fact remains that, with little in the way of overheads and production costs to pay - and definitely nothing in the way of copyrights to be passed on to the artists and composers - the astute bootlegger stands to make anything up to 500 per cent profit on every album sold."

"As there are well over sixty Beatlegs in existence, the authors choose to offer a selection."

My, how times have changed. A whole sixty bootlegs? All sounding like rubbish?

It seems to me as though the authors weren't particularly well versed with the dark side of recording. While bootlegs may not have been so easily accessible in the UK, my understanding is they were much more readily available in the US. As for the huge profit margins supposedly made by bootleggers, from all I've read many made little or no money from them. Mostly they were fans, and shared the music for the love. In reality there was hardly anything here that was 'smuggled' out of studios - it was virtually all from radio or movie broadcasts.

And really, images of Live at Shea and L.S. Bumblebee were the best the authors could manage? At least on the opposite page they had a stunning yet bizarre cartoon image of The Beatles Rock N' Roll, enigmatically labelled as 'Artwork for a record that was never made.' I always presumed this was early artwork for the official Rock 'N' Roll compilation, although now I suspect the authors meant for a bootleg record that was never made. Oddly, this artwork was later used for a John Lennon bootleg.

But thanks to the bootleggers, I've enjoyed more than the record company has given us. Apple has been notorious for not sharing what it has locked away in its vaults. Apple rarely asks the opinion of fans and generally ignores what we desire. If it wasn't for bootleggers I'd never have seen Let It Be, the Shea Concert, or most of their TV or promotional films.

God Bless you, bootleggers, wherever you are.

Can It Be The Beatles?

Klaatu were a Canadian band, a trio of musicians who recorded together in studio downtime. John Woloschuk, Dee Long and Terry Draper wore their influences obviously. And yes, The Beatles were one of their major influences. They released a couple of singles between 1973 and 1976 which didn't really do much. They also chose anonymity; not including their names, photos or details on these releases.

In 1976, they released their debut album, 3:47 E.S.T (simply retitled Klaatu in the U.S.) which received a number of positive reviews but didn't sell particularly well. All that changed when Steve Smith, a music journalist in Rhode Island, suggested the album was far too Beatlish not to have participation from some or all of the fab four, and so he announced it as a reunion. Sales in Rhode Island exploded and Capitol had to ship 20,000 extra copies to meet demand.

Capitol chose not to refute this, instead making cryptic and vague statements, probably figuring the bonus sales were a surprise benefit. The band, who were in London recording their second album, (which continued the Sci-Fi themes on some of their earlier tracks) heard about the rumours but did not regard them seriously. Nor did anyone in the U.K. Even the New Musical Express published an article in response to the theory, under the headline "Deaf Idiot Journalist Starts Beatle Rumour."

On the back of this unexpected popularity, Capitol released Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft as a single in 1977 and it did reasonably well. A cover version by The Carpenters performed even better. Things were looking good for the band.

But not all publicity is good publicity. A program director at a radio station did a quick search of copyright registrations and easily determined Klaatu had no Beatle involvement. This then turned into a backlash against the band as the public seemed convinced Klaatu were a deliberate hoax. Sales of subsequent albums slipped until Capitol dropped them from their roster after forcing them to record vocals for tracks recorded by session musicians.

Even now most believe the band was behind "the hoax". And there are some who are still convinced Klaatu is actually a Beatles reunion. Much like the "Paul is Dead" rumours, there are a number of 'clues' to be found in the music, the lyrics, the artwork and in real life. And a number of clues in Beatles music. There are far too many to mention here, and they can be found all over the internet. But here are some of the more obvious Beatles connections.

The cover for Ringo's Goodnight Vienna album has Ringo dressed as the character Klaatu in a scene from the 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still. In 1976 stories started circulating that McCartney had left the stage at one show with the farewell, "I will see you when the Earth stands still". He'd released the album Venus and Mars - a title with a sci-fi connection. Lennon, in the liner notes for Walls and Bridges, included the message "On the 23rd August 1974 at 9 o'clock I saw a U.F.O. - J.L." Out the Blue mentioned UFOs. Discarded artwork for the album cover included drawings of spaceships.

It's fun, but it's all a bit silly, really, simply proving that if you look hard enough for evidence you will end up manufacturing it.

In truth, 3:47 E.S.T. is an excellent, largely forgotten album. Their next two albums are also worthy of repeated plays. Hope is a full length orchestral space opera while Sir Army Suit has a number of strong tracks. Sir Bodsworth Rugglesby III, on the first album, sounds like the children's singalong that McCartney spends so much time trying to create. The vocals on Sub Rosa Subway and A Routine Day could be McCartney's. And Hope not only sounds like Harrison, but the lyrics are philosophical enough to be his. All in all these albums sound far more British than North American.

And yet to my ears none of it actually sounds enough like The Beatles to be The Beatles.

Dee Long tells of later meeting McCartney.  

"I actually spent an hour or so chatting with Paul McCartney about Klaatu. He was asked by the host of a TV talk show about Klaatu and responded that he had never heard of the band. When he mentioned this to George Martin, George said "one of the chaps from the band works at Air Studios". I received a message from him the next day saying he was going to "do me", British for "beat the crap out of me". He showed up in studio 5 later and we had a great conversation about the whole story. Very nice!"

I don't believe McCartney had never heard of Klaatu for a moment. 

McCartney was always the most media savvy of The Beatles. He was also the one who was most in touch with publicity and public perception. MPL, his production company, was a well oiled machine. If there were rumours of a Beatles reunion, his office would have kept him aware of them and delivered him the press clippings.

Klaatu Beatala Nikto.

Cover Art Down Under

Australia generally replicated The Beatles' UK album releases during the 60s, although there were a couple of oddities along the way. Two albums in particular had quite different covers from the UK canon.

With The Beatles, the second album, had uniquely Australian artwork. Printer union rules would not permit negatives to be imported for printing purposes, although the negative from a photograph of an original sleeve could be used. Attempts to replicate the qualities of the UK sleeve failed, and so original artwork needed to be created. And it certainly was original; four heads floating on a black background, with a bright pink, curling font. I've read that Lennon in particular hated the cover and made it known at the time he toured Australia. This is the sleeve I grew up with, and the only With The Beatles I owned until the 1987 CD release.


Beatles For Sale also had a very different sleeve to the UK version. The Australian release had individual photos of the four lads at their Sydney concert set on a bright yellow background, apparently with little artistic thought. In fact Ringo's photo only showed the back of his head. A generally amateurish effort all round. I suspect this alternate imagery may have been due to the same union rules as per With The Beatles. The grainy quality of the UK version may not have photographed well enough, or perhaps after the local record executives felt some local content following the 1964 Australian tour would boost sales. Either way this is far less attractive than the Australian release of With The Beatles which, at least, holds an early 60s charm. But as a teenage I remember being stunned by the beautiful image on the UK version when I first saw a photo of it.

Magical Mystery Tour was not released as an album in the UK or Australia, instead being issued only in EP format. It was Capitol Records in the US who had the common sense to combine these tracks into a single album. Here in Australia the World Record Club made this disc available to its members through mail order catalogues under the title Magical Mystery Tour and Other Splendid Hits.  And, just to be different, they used an alternate sleeve design, a shot taken from within the booklet of the UK EP. My friend's dad owned this, and taped a copy for me in the mid 70s. But within a year or so I had actually joined the record club just to buy this album, as it was not until 1979 that EMI Australia produced a local version. Even then it was only with the CD release in 1987 that this record became commonly available here.

During the sixties, EMI Australia compiled and released two greatest hits albums, Greatest Hits Volume 1 and Volume 2. The artwork for both these records borrowed heavily from the US albums Beatles VI and Beatles '65. By the time these albums were released in 1966 and 1967, The Beatles on the cover art in no way resembled The Beatles who had already released Revolver and Sgt. Pepper respectively.

Considering these two albums were released so late in the decade, it's strange they included nothing past 1965. Nothing from Revolver, no single only tracks like Rain. Surprisingly they even included a few album tracks like Anna and Til There Was You that weren't hits, or even B-sides of singles.

These collections sold very well, and remained in print until the CD releases in 1987 were well established. As an interesting aside, the UK release A Collection of Beatles Oldies, which probably would have made these issues superfluous to anyone who had all their albums anyway, wasn't released in Australia until 1968, two years after its UK release.

Both were released in mono and stereo, and included some tracks which appeared in stereo for the first time anywhere in the world.

There's one other Australian cover variant that requires mentioning. A minor misprint that would barely be noticed by most, it played an important part in late 60s pop-culture. The first Australian edition of Abbey Road had a printing problem, resulting in an odd reddish hue. If you look carefully between Ringo and John, there appears to be a large red bloodstain on the road surface. Corrected in time for the second pressing, this misprint played into the hands of the whole "Paul is dead" theory which was just gaining traction around the time of this album's release.

Post 1970 there were a couple of local releases, such as The Essential Beatles, but apart from a few minor variations, Australian versions aligned with the UK canon.

For further details on Australian releases, may I recommend I Am the Platypus, a great website and resource, and the excellent book, An Overview of Australian Beatles Records.