BDJ's Cellar Full of Remixes: Recent Episodes

BDJ

Once upon a time (or maybe twice) there were four magicians; and they made wonderful music, and called themselves The Beatles. In BDJ's Cellar, their spirits roam freely, they play and mix with other music, young and old.

'The End' is the last song in the medley of the Abbey Road album, and it is the only song in the Beatles' catalogue that features a drum solo by Ringo Starr. According to EMI engineer Geoff Emerick, who worked on the album, the solo was originally longer, but it was edited down to fit the song's length. Our BDJ engineers have made a remix of the Beatles song 'The End', which features an extended drum solo by Ringo Starr. This solo is based on the original recording that was cut short for the Abbey Road album, as well as the inspiration that Ringo drew from the drum solo in 'In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida' by Iron Butterfly.

'In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida' is a song by Iron Butterfly that is considered one of the first examples of heavy metal music. It was written by the band's vocalist and organist Doug Ingle, who allegedly slurred the words 'In the Garden of Eden' when he was drunk. The song features a long instrumental section that includes a drum solo by Ron Bushy.

We have combined elements of both drum solos and created a remix of 'The End' that showcases Ringo's talent and style. If, at some time,, the original recording of Ringo's solo emerges, then we will know how accurate this version of the solo is.

Here is a new release of Honey Don't, the classic rockabilly song by Carl Perkins that was covered by The Beatles in 1964. In this remix, we have restored the original vocals by John Lennon, who used to sing the song during live performances before Ringo Starr took over the lead vocals on the studio version.
Honey Don't is a song that showcases Lennon's raw and energetic vocal style, as well as his playful interaction with the audience. It is a tribute to one of his musical heroes, Carl Perkins, who also wrote other songs that The Beatles recorded, such as Matchbox and Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby. We hope you rediscover the charm and charisma of John Lennon as a rockabilly singer.

"Let Me Roll It" is a song by Paul McCartney and Wings, released on their 1973 album Band on the Run. The song was also released as the B-side to "Jet" in early 1974, and has remained a staple of McCartney's live concerts since it was first released.

The song is unique in the Beatles catalogue, since it combines contributions from McCartney, Lennon, Harrison and Bob Dylan!
Of course, McCartney is credited as the composer, but he took the title (and the phrase in the lyrics) from "I'd Have You Anytime". And that song was written by George Harrison and Bob Dylan.

The connection with Lennon is clear, but details are still debated; some say that Let Me Roll It was McCartney's version of Lennon's :Cold Turkey". Indeed, the dominating guitar riff is very reminiscent of Cold Turkey.
Others maintain that Lennon used "Let Me Roll It" for his 1974 song "Beef Jerky."

We will probably never know for sure, but what we DO know is what it sounds like if Lennon had covered Let Me Roll It.........

Here is stunning version of the song Good Night with vocals by Frank Sinatra. Good Night is a lullaby that John Lennon wrote for his son Julian, and was the final song on the Beatles’ 1968 album The Beatles. The Beatles recorded the song with an orchestra arranged and conducted by George Martin, and Ringo Starr sang the lead vocals. Lennon was probably embarrassed to sing it himself, as he considered it too sentimental1. Sinatra would have made it a classic hit, with his smooth voice and impeccable phrasing.

Imagine hearing John Lennon sing one of Paul McCartney’s songs that he famously dismissed as “granny music”. Well, you don’t have to imagine anymore, because the BDJ producers have used artificial intelligence to create a stunning version of the song Teddy Boy with vocals by John Lennon. Teddy Boy is a folk rock song that McCartney wrote during the Beatles’ 1968 visit to India, and recorded for his solo album McCartney in 1970. The Beatles also attempted to record the song during the Get Back sessions in 1969, but Lennon showed little interest and often parodied the lyrics. The song was left out of the final release of Let It Be. Now, thanks to the power of AI, you can hear how Lennon would have sung the song!

If you are a fan of the Beatles and their early days in Hamburg, you will be thrilled to hear this amazing AI-produced version of the song Where Have You Been All My Life? with clear vocals by John Lennon. This song, written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, was one of the covers that the Beatles performed live at the Star Club in 1962, but the original recording was of poor quality and Lennon’s voice was barely audible.
The Beatles - Where Have You Been All My Life? (Live in Hamburg) - YouTube

Now, thanks to the power of artificial intelligence, you can enjoy this song as if you were there in the club, listening to Lennon’s passionate singing and the band’s energetic playing. The AI has enhanced the sound and removed the background noise, making this a rare and precious gem for any Beatles lover.

Have you ever wondered what it would sound like if Frank Sinatra sang one of Paul McCartney’s earliest songs? Well, wonder no more, because the BDJ producers have used artificial intelligence to create a stunning version of the song Suicide with vocals by the legendary crooner. Suicide is a piano ballad that McCartney wrote when he was 14 years old, hoping to give it to Sinatra, but for years it didn't happen. Then one day in the 70's, Sinatra called McCartney and asked to write a song for him. McCartney sent him the song Suicide, that he had written much earlier. Sinatra never called again.....Obviously, the title and lyrics make it unsuitable for Sinatra. Had McCartney taken the trouble to write new lyrics, then it might have been a hit for Sinatra.

The song remained unreleased until 2011, when it was included as a bonus track on the remastered edition of McCartney’s debut solo album. Now, thanks to the magic of AI, you can hear how Sinatra would have interpreted the song, with his smooth voice and impeccable phrasing. The result is a beautiful and haunting rendition that pays tribute to both artists and their musical legacy.

Wit a voice like Freddie Mercury's, what else do you need to make music? Not a lot, just enough to support his vocals.

Such is the philosophy of this remix of Bohemian Rhapsody: gone are the 160 layered voices, back is Freddie Mercury's amazing voice in your ears.

Queen rehearsed Bohemian Rhapsody for 3 weeks before even starting to record it. It took us a similar time to deconstruct it and lift Freddie from the mix..........

Listen to Let It Be as you've never heard it before! After brave attempts by Glyn Johns (4x), George Martin and Giles Martin, the definitive mix of the Let It Be album has finally arrived.

True to their motto of "Less is More", the BDJ engineers have taken the songs apart and put them back together - in a surprising way. Discover nuances and subtleties you never knew were there, and enjoy Let It Be as if brand-new.

The Beatles recorded this blues jam on the last day of the Get Back sessions, 31st of January 1969. In 1964 John Lennon had told an English music paper that his favourite album of the year was the great folk album, Lots More Blues, Rags and Hollers by Koerner, Ray & Glover (1963). This album contains the Black Dog Blues. Obviously, the backing track of Koemer et al. comes in handy to spice up the Lennon vocals.

Now slow the Black Dog Blues down a bit, change the lyrics and - presto! - there's Crippled Inside from Lennon's Imagine album (1971). Black Dog Blues is a traditional American country blues dating back to at least 1920. Lennon was clever enough to use a 'traditional' for Crippled Inside, so he could not be sued for plagiarism.

The Beatles are not known as great Blues musicians. Otherwise, they are fine but the blues seems to elude them.

Still, they produced a few attempts at playing an instrumental blues, including ’12 Bar Original’ (Anthology), "Flying" (Magical Mystery Tour), "Cayenne" and "Cry for a Shadow" (Anthology). These are all interesting tracks, and they demonstrate that the blues is not their thing.

In particular, it highlights that they struggled to play an interesting blues solo. Understandable, since they were raised on Rock & Roll and Tin Pan Alley songs. This contrasts with other groups in the British Invasion, such as the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds etc. which were essentially Blues groups branching out into pop music.

The most bluesy track that the Beatles played never appeared on vinyl or CD. It is an improvisation recorded during the sessions for the Let It Be LP, on January 23rd, 1969. And it was Billy Preston on keyboards who lifted this jam session from the quality of a ‘4 guys making noise together’ to a pleasant blues instrumental. McCartney plays a decent but uneventful bass guitar to support Billy, Lennon is a constant timekeeper on rhythm guitar, and poor George struggles to come up with a solo on guitar. Several times during the jam, you can hear Billy Preston briefly pausing, waiting for a blues solo, but it never comes, so Billy plays on.

Here, salvaged from the cutting room of the new Get Back film, in stereoish, is this unknown Blues Jam w Billy Preston.

The so-called Medley occupies most the Beatles' final album, Abbey Road. It is collection of Lennon and McCartney songettes, artfully strung together by arrangements of McCartney and George Martin.
The whole album Abbey Road stands out for its beautiful and complex vocal harmonies, sometimes extending into 3-part harmony.

We were treated to a 'vocal isolation' of Because on the Anthology CD, and teased by a reversed vocal of Sun King. But there is so much more to enjoy in the vocals of the Medley. Therefore, BDJ's engineers set to work to isolate the vocals from the complete Medley, starting with Because. Where possible, they created (world premiere!) stereo versions of the vocals, and emphasized the harmonies and backing vocals.

So here you, 18 minutes of harmony singing by our favourite American vocal group!

The 'Moonlight Sonata' by van Beethoven was made famous by John Lennon, when he said that his song 'Because' was inspired by Yoko Ono playing this sonata backwards. While debunking this myth, I found that van Beethoven himself never referred to this composition as the 'Moonlight Sonata"; for him, it was a 'quasi-fantasie'. After van Beethoven's death, a music critic wrote an article in a newspaper in which the critic said that the sonata reminded him of moonlight, shining on a lake. The label has stuck ever since.

However, listening to the sonata, I'm not reminded of moonlight on a lake at all; instead, it is as if I hear a bell tolling, and a procession of people slowly passing by. On their way to a funeral?

I tried to mash the sonata with a church bell, and found that the big bell at the Waalsdorpervlakte matched the sonata (in Cminor) perfectly. A coincidence?

The Waalsdorpervlakte is an open place in the dunes in the Netherlands, where more than 250 prisoners were executed by the Germans in World War II.
It is one of the main locations where on 4 May "Remembrance of the Dead", a yearly commemoration of victims of World War II and other victims of war, is held by tolling the bell at 8 PM.

“Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” is a rock song with dark, eccentric lyrics about a person named Maxwell who commits murders with a hammer, although the lyrics are disguised by the upbeat, catchy, and rather “childlike” sound of the song. Paul McCartney has never played this song in concert. However.....McCartney read the lyrics as a poem, once. Enough for the BDJ engineers to construct this 'Avant-garde' version.

We all know Come Together, it is one of the most popular tracks on Abbey Road. Due in no small part to the tremendous bass line, the riffs on the electronic piano....all McCartney contributions to a Lennon song.
We know that Lennon started out with Come Together as a much faster song, inspired by a Chuck Berry Song: You Can't Catch Me.
We have no recordings or demos of this Ur version of Come Together, but that didn't stop the BDJ engineers to produce such an Outfake. A very different Come Together resulted.......

It is the time of the year to remember those who escaped from this virus ridden Earth. We present a few of those departed who played a role in the Beatles history. Paul McCartney improvises on the piano on a theme by Samuel Barber, "Adagio for Strings'.

Peter Green, guitarist of Fleetwood Mac and composer of 'Albatross' is remembered by Mac Fleetwood. Albatross was the inspiration for the Beatles song 'Sun King'.

Simon Posthuma: co-founder of 'The Fool', the small group of artists who designed the clothes for the Beatles (and many others) in the Sgt Pepper era, decorated the Apple Store, George Harrison's house, Lennon's Rolls Royce and McCartney's piano. The name the Fool inspired McCartney to write Fool on the Hill.

Spencer Davis: Leader of British band that scored with the Steve Winwood-sung “Gimme Some Lovin'” and “I’m a Man”. He befriended the Beatles and made a cameo appearance in The Beatles’ “Magical Mystery Tour” film.” He played Norwegian Wood in memory of his friend Lennon.

Terry Doran. Doran first met the Beatles in Liverpool, through Epstein, and sold the band their first car, as well as the van in which they travelled to gigs around the North of England. He went on to work at Apple. He is often cited as the inspiration behind the line "Meeting a man from the motor trade" in the Beatles' 1967 song "She's Leaving Home".

Ivry Gitlis. Israeli classical violinist who played with Yoko Ono on The Rolling Stones Rock ‘n’ Roll Circus.

Astrid Kirchherr. Photographer known for early Beatles images.

Little Richard. Rock n’ roll pioneer whose influence spanned generations. The Beatles covered many of his songs.

Chad Stuart. Half of the British Invasion-era duo Chad and Jeremy: scored a hit with the McCartney composition From a Window.

Sean Connery. Bond; James Bond.

Louis van Dijk. Dutch pianist. In 1970 he recorded 'Louis van Dyke plays Lennon-McCartney' in one day on the church organ of the Reformed Church in Loenen. Listen on Spotify.

Tom Mulder: Dutch radio show host (Veronica, TROS, Radio 10 Gold) of long running documentary series about the Beatles, such as Poster and the Beatles Story.

It was forty years ago today (more or less), so a good moment to commemorate Lennon's final single. Woman was chosen by Lennon to be the second single released from the Double Fantasy album.

The lyrics are not among Lennon's best, but it is nicely Beatlesque that the last words are "I love you, yeah, yeah".....

The lyrics seem to be inspired by McCartney's song 'Woman', which was made a hit by Peter and Gordon. In particular, each sentence beginning with the word 'Woman' comes straight out of McCartney's lyrics.

'Woman' is a catchy tune, but musically, it is not one his most original compositions. It 'borrows' its chord progression from McCartney's 'Here, There and Everywhere'. And it contains the "truck driver's modulation": shifting up a half-step in key half way through gives the song a badly needed push. The truck driver's modulation has been a pop music cliché since the 1950s.........

We are therefore very pleased with the excellent cover version, sung by Dutch singer/songwriter Yorick van Norden, performed 'live' on Dutch radio:

https://www.nporadio1.nl/cultuur-media/28188-moord-op-john-lennon-veertig-jaar-geleden-nog-steeds-een-van-de-grootste-misdaden-van-de-mensheid

The BDJ engineers set to work to convert his simple rendition into a real cover song. Yorick just made his first number one!

NB for more van Norden, order his latest album here:
https://www.amazon.com/Jester-Yorick-van-Norden/dp/B08BRCYYSY

The Jester

“Just Fun” is one of the very first songs written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon, in late 1957 or 1958.

It remained rather obscure for decades. The Beatles played a rough version during the 'Get Back' sessions in January 1969. It only lasts for 20 or 30 seconds.

As part of the John Lennon 80th birthday celebrations on 9 October, Paul McCartney has announced that he would play the unreleased Beatles song to mark the day. And he actually sang a single verse, strumming his guitar, as part of the BBC special ‘John Lennon at 80’, which aired on October 3 and 4 between 9 and 10pm London time.

That was a great disappointed for true Beatles fans, who expected a real Beatles version that would have remained hidden in the EMI vaults. But no such recording probably exists. And that is the kind of challenge that the BDJ engineers like: re-create a long lost song from the scraps found at the bottom of the stairs of the Abbey Road studios. Our version has a 'Wings' feel to it, although it is possible that George played slide guitar.

'Her Majesty’ was first performed at the Get Back/Let It Be sessions in January 1969. McCartney brought the song to the band in Twickenham on 9 January.

But it lasted until July 2nd before McCartney recorded the takes on Abbey Road that we all know and love. Or do we? Her Majesty is the least popular Beatles track on Spotify. In defence of Her Majesty, the statistics may lead us astray since Her Majesty is only 23 seconds long, not long enough to be consistently registered by the Spotify statistics......

Still, I haven't met many Beatles fans who name Her Majesty as their favourite track. It certainly has an unfinished feel to it: it consists of only one verse, there is no intro, chorus, middle eight.... Did McCartney consider it to be a finished song? On the one hand, he recorded 3 takes of it, suggesting that it was finished. On the other hand, Her Majesty was intended to be included in the Medley on the B-side of Abbey Road, which consist of half-finished songs.

Because of its place in the medley, McCartney may have felt there was no need to come up with a second verse and a middle eight; but in the end, he rejected Her Majesty altogether for Abbey Road. It was only because junior technician John Kurlander refused to discard the tape, that Her Majesty was included on Abbey Road at all.

This makes it interesting to think about what would have happened if Kurlander had followed McCartney's instructions to discard the tape. It is my assumption that McCartney would have resurrected Her Majesty for his first solo album, McCartney; he did so for several other songs composed in his Beatles era, but not included on any Beatles album. For the McCartney Album, he would have made a proper backing track (woodwind and slurpy cello arrangement) and composed a middle eight.

And here we have it, as a world premiere, what Her Majesty might have sounded like on the 'McCartney' album.

So what is Her Majesty about? The easy answer would be the British Queen, and that is what McCartney himself has hinted at in interviews. However, the lyrics don't seem to fit Queen Elisabeth at all: no disrespect, but Elisabeth is not a 'pretty nice girl', nor does she stay quiet, or changes every day......So the subject must be someone else, who can't be named. Once you hear the name, it is quite obvious, but I'll leave that for some other occasion. Feel free to comment if you have suggestions!

McCartney sang Yesterday accompanied by his Epiphone Texan guitar on the evening of 14th June. A score for string quartet — George Martin's first major arranging contribution to The Beatles - was over-dubbed three days later.

A string quartet, in the pop world of those days, was quite a step to take. It was with ‘Yesterday’ that George Martin started breaking out of the phase of using just four instruments and went into something more experimental.

Unfortunately, the recording was still very much focused on MONO. The STEREO mix of Yesterday has the guitar on the extreme left, and the string quartet in the extreme right. This makes for an awkward listening experience. Here, we present a more balanced stereo version of Yesterday, with the string quartet in stereo. Quite some work for the BDJ Spectral Demuxers, since there is no stereo recording of the string quartet available. We thought we would do credit to Tony Gilbert, Sidney Sax (violins), Kenneth Essex (viola) and Francisco Gabarro (cello) by rendering them in glorious stereo.

We can now hear the string quartet better; they had to play listening to the recoding of vocals + guitar of 3 days earlier, and at some points they are a bit out of sync. But the beautiful arrangement (score by George Martin) easily makes up for these imperfections.

The highlight of the arrangement is the little cello phrase in the middle eighty (1:25-l :27), and the violin's held high A in the final verse. And that must have been frustrating for poor George Martin; George Martin had asked McCartney to comment on Martin's score; and it was McCartney who added the cello in the middle eight and the violin's held note! Frustrating no doubt, since Martin had studied music at university, and was an accomplished arranger. McCartney couldn't read music and had never scored a string quartet before.......

It doesn't happen every day that you get to hear a new Beatles song; but today is that day! We proudly present the premiere (as a complete song) of 'You Won't Get Me That Way', as recorded by the Beatles on 27 January 1969 in Apple Studios, Savile Row.

You Won't Get Me That Way is a swinging blues, in classic McCartney rocker style. Soulful vocals by McCartney, in excellent voice that day. Some neat drum playing by Ringo, and bluesy guitars by George and John. With a bit more work, this could have turned into a track on 'Let It Be' (compare with 'For You Blue'!), were it not that the Beatles had run out of time to rehearse new songs; Ringo was scheduled to take off at the beginning of February to appear in The Magic Christian with Peter Sellers, so they had to finish the sessions soon. They had not come to a conclusion about the finale for the sessions yet, but they realized there would have to be some kind of live performance, and that an album should be assembled from what had been recorded. Later of course, this would culminate in the live performance on the rooftop of Apple studios on 30 January.

Anyway, on 27 January it was high time to put the finishing touches on the songs that had been rehearsed since January 2nd.

We can only conclude that the Beatles were in a good mood that day, perhaps they were happy that the rehearsal sessions were coming to an end? This Monday was the 16th day of the Get Back/Let It Be sessions. The Beatles recorded a total of 32 takes of Get Back in a single day, experimenting with different tempos and styles – including mock Japanese and German versions and alternative lyrics. One new song to be introduced on this day was George Harrison’s Old Brown Shoe, which would become the B-side to The Ballad Of John And Yoko later in 1969.

Towards the end of the day, they were in the middle of rehearsing I've got a Feeling, when Billy Preston (on keyboards) played a classic blues intro. All 4 Beatles picked up on it, Paul improvised the vocals and the lyrics, and You Won't Get Me That Way was born. They then played a little of Jimmy McCracklin's song "The Walk" before returning to I've Got a Feeling. A pretty disciplined rehearsal session, for Beatles standards in those days.....

Still, the lyrics may betray some of what was on Paul's mind in these final days of January. The lyrics mainly consist of 'no, you won't get me that way, you're gonna have to go it on your own', with some additional lyrics at the very end: "you won't get what I can give you. No why should I give you what I gotta give, the way you treat me like you do.'

The easiest explanation would be to label the lyrics as some pretty nonsense, produced on the spot. However, when improvising on the spot - as Paul was doing here - some inner thoughts might pop up that otherwise might have remained suppressed. Is it a coincidence that these lyrics emerge in the middle of rehearsing 'I've Got a Feeling, a feeling deep inside'? Let's find out what these lyrics could relate to!

The first thing that comes to the attention, is the negative form of the lyrics; it is mostly 'No you won't'. This is unusual for McCartney, whose lyrics are usually upbeat. One of the few McCartney songs with lyrics in the negative form is 'You Never Give Me Your Money'. This song was written 2 months later, in March 1969. Could these 2 songs be related?

'You Won't Get Me That way' seems to be a reply to a request to give something to somebody. Paul will not do that, because of the way 'you treat me like you do'. In fist instance, we may imagine that this would be about some 'love' relationship of Paul's, but that doesn't agree with his actual situation. He had met with Linda (Eastman), was deeply in love, and would marry her soon afterwards (March 1969). It is highly unlikely that he would be singing about refusing Linda what she would ask of Paul.

Therefore, the refusal could relate to business, or money matters. And that fits nicely with the lyrics of You Never Give Me Your Money; McCartney has said that this song was written with Allen Klein in mind, saying "it's basically a song about no faith in the person'. A notoriously brash character and tough negotiator, Klein invented the role of business manager, taking a stance as the outsider siding with the artists, the enemy of the record companies.

And this Allen Klein would have very much been on McCartney's mind already in January 1969. Klein had been trying to become the Beatles financial manager since 1964. Epstein and Klein had met face-to-face, in London, Klein offering to help with handling the Beatles’ finances. Brian Epstein was royally offended at the suggestion that someone else should do his job for him, and he had Klein shown to the door.

After Epstein's death in 1967, Klein renewed his efforts. He had spoken with Lennon during the recording of on 11 December 1968 of The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, where Lennon performed Yer Blues. A December 1968 article in Disc and Music Echo in which Lennon worried that the Beatles were nearly broke (Apple losing around 20000 pound each week) lent an air of urgency to Klein’s appeal for Lennon to meet with him to talk Beatles business, and Klein continued his contact with Lennon from the US.

He managed to set up a meeting with John & Yoko on January 26, in the Harlequin suite of the Dorchester Hotel, London, where Klein was staying. Klein served them “a carefully researched and prepared vegetarian meal—exactly the macrobiotic dishes John and Yoko preferred.” Klein had studied the music and lyrics of Lennon and spoke sensibly about the meaning of Lennon’s songs. John & Yoko were very impressed with him, and John decided on the spot to make him his personal adviser. There and then he wrote to Sir Joseph Lockwood, the chairman of EMI: "Dear Sir Joe: From now on Allen Klein handles all my stuff." Lennon wrote a similar letter to Dick James, who ran Northern Songs to publish the Beatles songs.

After meeting with John & Yoko, Klein set up a meeting with all four Beatles on 27- or 28 January. Paul McCartney preferred to be represented by Lee and John Eastman, the father and brother respectively of his fiancée, Linda. In fact, the Beatles had appointed Lee Eastman as their financial advisor earlier in January. But now, George and Ringo sided with John & Yoko, and Paul walked out of the meeting.

Although we have no direct evidence, it seems likely that Paul was aware of Klein's presence and intentions on January 27th, when they recorded 'You Won't Get Me That Way'. Klein would have had to invite Paul to his meeting sometime during January 27, and they recorded You Won't Get Me' towards the end of the recording session.

It was clear that the Beatles could not continue this way; John Eastman came over but could not convince the other 3 Beatles. Eastman felt he could not represent the Beatles if they did not have confidence in him. On 3 February the Beatles met again. Allen Klein was charged with examining their finances and finding a way to stop NEMS from bleeding them of a quarter of their income. As a compromise to Paul, Linda's father and brother were appointed as Apple's General Council, to keep an eye on Allen Klein's activities.

However, Klein’s assignment would turn out badly for the Beatles: Dick James, their music publisher, owned a controlling 37.5% of Northern Songs. Lennon and McCartney owned 15% each. After Epstein's death on 27 August 1967, Lennon and McCartney sought to renegotiate their publishing deal with James. In 1968 they invited James for a meeting at Apple Records and it became clear to Dick James that Lennon and McCartney would not renew their contract with Northern Songs. With no new songs being published, Dick James expected that the value of Northern Songs would plummet, and he would lose millions as the major shareholder. In January, Dick James noticed the arrival of Klein through Lennon’s letter. James knew that Klein was a hardball player not averse to questionable business deals; he had a string of lawsuits behind him pending in the States. James feared that Klein would pull some scam that would suddenly leave James out in the cold with nothing.

Dick James could no longer offer to sell his shares to Lennon and McCartney, because he expected that they would not pay the full price - threatening to write no more songs when their contract ran out. Therefore, Dick James sold his share of Northern Songs without informing Lennon and McCartney (or Klein), so they had no time to announce their intentions in public. Klein was unsuccessful in buying back NEMS or blocking the sale of Northern Songs, despite his intense efforts. Allen Klein's strategy became to sell Lennon and McCartney’s shares quickly and make some cash before news of the Beatles' breakup leaked - after which the shares would tumble in value. This is why, in the meeting at Apple in October of 1969, where John officially told Paul the Beatles were over, Allen Klein pressured everyone to keep quiet about the situation for at least the next few months.

Thus Klein was a factor in Lennon and McCartney losing control of their songs, and they would only regain it decades later; thanks to a revision of copyright laws in the US, the copyright returns to the composer after 56 years, so only now do the first songs return to McCartney and Lennon's estate (Yoko Ono).

Klein was successful in other business: sorting out the financial mess of their ill-fated Apple Corps venture. He put an end to the Apple Boutique and got rid of the charlatans and hangers-on.
The Beatles’ existing deal with EMI and Capitol gave them 17.5% of the US wholesale price – a considerable amount already. Klein was able to increase to 25%. He argued that, should the label object, The Beatles would cease to record for them.

Klein also gained Apple Corps the right to manufacture and sell The Beatles records in the US. EMI would retain the recordings, but Capitol would manufacture the releases on Apple’s behalf. Apple would then profit from the difference between manufacturing and retail costs. The new terms gave The Beatles the right, for the first time, to determine the ways in which their music was manufactured and sold. By 1971 the group’s entire back catalogue was made available on Apple Records.

Klein also made sure Let It Be was released as a motion picture rather than a TV film, therefore fulfilling the group's contractual obligations with United Artists.

So, the positive contribution of Klein was that The Beatles’ personal incomes were greatly improved, and Apple was guaranteed a regular income until at least 1976.

Still, it was downhill from there for Allan Klein and the Beatles. Klein held on to the proceeds from the Concert for Bangladesh, the charity event he organized with Harrison at New York's Madison Square Garden in 1971, delaying the release of the funds to UNICEF for years, and was investigated by the US authorities. After Klein’s contract with Lennon, Harrison and Starr expired in March 1973, they opted not to renew it. The group eventually paid Klein an estimated $4m when all litigation was finally settled in January 1977.

Klein was the subject of veiled references in the Harrison song "Beware Of Darkness" – from 1971's All Things Must Pass – and the Lennon composition "Steel And Glass" – on 1974's Walls And Bridges album.

In 1979, Klein was sentenced to two months in jail for tax evasion after helping himself to the proceeds from the sale of promotional copies of the Concert For Bangladesh triple album. Klein died 4 July 2009.

Of course, McCartney did not know all of this on 27 January 1969, but he must have seen troubles coming his way in the form of Allan Klein. And his sub-conscious pushed the lyrics to his lips: "You won't get what I can give you. No why should I give you what I gotta give, the way you treat me like you do."

A three-minute sample from a tape auctioned in the '90s and purchased by the Beatles, featuring selections from various 1962 TV appearances has hit the Internet in December 2019. The samples consist of songs performed on October 17th, October 29th, and December 29th, 1962 — “Some Other Guy,” “Love Me Do,” A Taste of Honey,” and “Twist and Shout.”

As this performance went out live on TV, it wasn't taped at all. As luck would have it, the audio of these Beatles' appearances on Granada TV's People and Places were recorded by Adrian Killen, a 16-year-old fan from Kirkdale, on a reel to reel deck wired to the TV Speaker. It was sold at an auction and purchased by Apple for around £2000 per track.

Unfortunately, only brief samples are available, form the tape that was used to advertise the auction of the complete recordings. For instance, the Love Me Do sample lasts only 48 seconds.

Here, as a world premiere, we present a complete version of this Love Me Do as played on 17 October 1962. Love Me Do is highly repetitive, consisting of just 3 chords, and the verse is repeated four times! This enables us to re-constitute the complete song from the sample, with only minor fudging of the intro and outro.

The Love Me Do performance of 17 October is a revelation: not only was it the first Lennon-McCartney song to be played on television, it also differs from the version of Love Me Do on the single (and Please Please Me LP)! The difference is subtle, but it helps to resolve a mystery around the sacking of Pete Best as drummer. While the Beatles were rehearsing Love Me Do in Hamburg (with Pete Best on drums), Best made a suggestion for the arrangement: "The idea was to make the middle-eight different from the rest of the tune, and I said, 'OK, we put the skip beat in.'" The 'skip beat' was a fluctuation in tempo, an acceleration to lead into the vocal bridge and again later, before the instrumental middle-eight. It sounded good enough for John and Paul to accept. And when the Beatles went into the studio - with Pete Best - to record Love Me Do on June 6th, 1962, they included the skip beat (on Anthology 1). Later, the drumming of Pete Best was criticized, and the skip beat section was highlighted as being particularly poor. However, the critics do not consider that Lennon and McCartney accepted this skip beat in all performances until then.

Next, when Ringo recorded the song with the Beatles (September 4th, 1962), they did not play the 'skip beat', but added handclaps during the solo section to liven things up a bit. The version with Andy White on drums (September 11th, 1962) similarly omitted the skip beat, and featured Ringo on tambourine instead.

Therefore, it is amazing that Ringo played the skip beat on October 17th, just over a month after recording Love Me Do - without the skip beat. Apparently, Lennon, McCartney and Ringo didn't think it was such a bad idea (of Pete Best!) after all. This suggests that it was probably George Martin who objected to the skip beat, not Lennon or McCartney.

In subsequent TV and radio performances (recordings available after January 1963), Ringo never played the skip beat again! I suppose they wanted to remain consistent with the version out on the record.

So here we go, a truly unique live performance of Love Me Do!

The Abbey Road box released in 2019 marks the first time that Beatles songs are released in ATMOS format (on the Blue-ray disc). Since the 'One' DVD, all subsequent releases featured Dolby 5.1 mixes, but these were mostly rather underwhelming. But the 5.1 and Atmos mixes of Abbey Road mark a turning point; I can imagine that these mixes will become the preferred way to listen to Abbey Road, relegating the stereo mix to older audiophiles....

What is Atmos? It is a surround system like 5.1, but with sound coming form above as well. True 3-dimensional sound. Home Atmos systems are becoming affordable, but are not yet as widespread as 5.1 systems. To give some feeling for how amazing the Atmos mixes are, we have isolated the (8) Atmos channels and used them to produce remixes of the tracks on Abbey Road.

3 of these tracks are full remixes (Come Together, Something, I Want You), the other tracks are just short highlights of the Atmos channels. To showcase the way it works, we start with Her Majesty. This song starts with a chord, which actually was the closing chord of Mean Mr Mustard. We play 4 ATMOS channels (each twice) so it becomes clear that the instruments playing the chord are distributed over the channels. Listening to a real Atmos system, a different instrument would come at you from each corner of the room. Most of these remixes are just samples of what can de done with the Atmos channels. Don't worry, we have already produced full remixes of the major tracks, which will appear in the Cellar on a later date.

The vocals shine in this remix. Does Paul sing on Come Together? Sure he does, harmonizes with John during the first half of the song. In the latter half, John harmonizes with John. The vocals in the outro can be heard clearly, perhaps it was a good thing they were no so clear in 1969?

This remix just begged to be produced. The vocals from the centre channel, as pure as you can get (no reverb), supported by the (stereo) orchestra from CD3.

We scan through the channels to highlight piano, guitars, and - yes- the Moog synthesizer.

Paul playing his characteristic Piano style. The Oooh aah chorus stands out well.

George's solo guitar is right in your face, and then John joins in with his telltale "Julia riffing".

Great guitar amplifier sound, funky and bluesy shines clearly now. The Hammond Organ -- played by Billy Preston -- is super clear now! His previously buried-in-the-mix solo is fantastic.
Lennon's voice rasps supercool when he comes in with "Yeeaaaaaaaah" (without the distortion that spoiled the 2009 remasters version).

We can now fully appreciate George's singing. The Moog Synthesizer comes in with a bang, and the acoustic guitar sounds lifelike.

We scan through the channels and hear some beautiful vocals, and the Moog Synth. Still, the feeling lingers that Giles Martin could have done more with this track, e.g. separate the vocals more?

Listen to Paul's vocals up close. Double tracked. Then some honkytonk piano by George Martin. The rhythm guitar could be John,. the solo guitar probably George? Some nice aaaahh's and oooh's, followed by the countdown 1234567.

Guitars on the brink of distortion, round bass, and heavenly voices. Of course, this track was popular on Love remixes as well.
In the ATMOS mix, the Spanish lyrics suddenly become intelligible!

A lot of effort has been put in this short track; instruments and vocals are distributed over all channels.

The back up harmonies are super impactful. Ringo's drumming sounds uberloud. At the very end, you can hear (Paul) speaking,apparently, Giles Martin couldn't fix this speech leakage.

"Listen to that Mal"......Doubletracked vocals by Paul.

This features great strings and horns. The backing vocals come out well, Ringo's drums pound away.

Ringo's drums sound bigger than ever before. The "Love You" chants at the end sound clearly from the rear surrounds.

We have all now bought the 50th Anniversary Abbey Road box, and explored the 3 CD's.

CD's 2 and 3 contain the outtakes, and these are interesting.

With a little critical look, the outtakes would have fitted on a singe CD, which makes the harvest of new outtakes for Abbey Road rather meagre.

Therefore, we decided to produce more outtakes, by cleverly remixing the outtakes in the Abbey Road box. Here, we present the extra outtakes for CD3.

By interlacing the Fourier transforms through our proprietary spectral demuxers, we could isolate the instruments and obtain these additional tracks.

01 Come Together (Take 5): guitar, no drums
02 The End (Take 3); guitar L
03 Come And Get It (Studio Demo): piano version
04 Sun King (Take 20): no drums
05 Mean Mr. Mustard (Take 20): bass and guitar
06 Polythene Pam (Take 27): acoustic guitar
07 She Came In Through The Bathroom Window (Take 27): acoustic guitar
08 Because (Take 1 - Instrumental): Moog
09 The Long One (Comprising of ‘You Never Give Me Your Money’ ’Sun King’-’Mean Mr Mustard’ ‘Her Majesty’ ‘Polythene Pam'.: Piano and guitar
10 Come Together (Take 5): drums and bass
11 The End (Take 3): Guitar R
12 Come And Get It (Studio Demo): drums and bass
13 Sun King (Take 20): guitar
14 Mean Mr. Mustard (Take 20): guitar
15 Polythene Pam (Take 27): electric guitar
16 She Came In Through The Bathroom Window (Take 27): electric guitar
17 Because (Take 1 - Instrumental): electric guitar
18 The Long One (Comprising of ‘You Never Give Me Your Money’ ’Sun King’-’Mean Mr Mustard’ ‘Her Majesty’ ‘Polythene Pam': guitars

We have all now bought the 50th Anniversary Abbey Road box, and explored the 3 CD's.

CD1 is Giles Martin's remix of the album; I suppose it is intended for the younger generation, and I'm perfectly happy with the 1969 mix......

CD's 2 and 3 contain the outtakes, and these are interesting, although quite a number of them were already available in good quality as bootlegs. Furthermore, the demo's for Goodbye and Come and Get It seem out of place, since these songs never appeared on any Beatles album.

With a little critical look, the outtakes would have fitted on a singe CD, which makes the harvest of new outtakes for Abbey Road rather meagre.

Therefore, we decide to produce more outtakes, by cleverly remixing the outtakes in the Abbey Road box. First, we present the extra outtakes for CD2.

By interlacing the Fourier transforms through our proprietary spectral demuxers, we could isolate the instruments and obtain these additional tracks.

I Want You (She's So Heavy): without the distortion
Something (Studio Demo): piano only
Something (Studio Demo): guitar only
The Ballad Of John And Yoko (Take 7): guitar only
Old Brown Shoe (Take 2): piano version
Old Brown Shoe (Take 2): guitar version
Oh! Darling (Take 4): piano version
Oh! Darling (Take 4): guitar version
Octopus's Garden (Take 9): solo guitar version
Octopus's Garden (Take 9): rythm guitar version
You Never Give Me Your Money (Take 36): no drums version
You Never Give Me Your Money (Take 36): piano version
Golden Slumbers Carry That Weight (Takes 1-3 Medley): piano version
Golden Slumbers Carry That Weight (Takes 1-3 Medley): guitar version
Here Comes The Sun (Take 9): no drums
Maxwell's Silver Hammer (Take 12): rythm section
Maxwell's Silver Hammer (Take 12): piano version

Having to fulfil a three-picture deal that John, Paul, George and Ringo had with United Artists, Brian Epstein had been looking for one last project to make the third film (after A Hard Day’s Night and Help!).

The group had no interest in making another movie, however. They weren’t fans of films after making Help! Plus, they had started work on the White Album, which was taking up a lot of their attention.

So, Epstein went to Al Brodax, a producer who had been involved with the animated TV adventures of the Beatles, wondering if a feature-length cartoon might do the trick. This alienated the four Beatles even more, as they hated the TV series, but at least they didn’t have to be involved. But it fulfilled their contract with the production company, so they went along.

The Beatles involvement in the film was limited to a live-action cameo appearance in the final scene, which was filmed on 25 January 1968 prior to the band's departure to India. This was to fulfill their contractual obligation of appearing ‘live’ in the film. The cameo was originally intended to feature a post-production psychedelic background and effects, but because of time and budget constraints, a blank, black background remained in the final film.

The Beatles decided to supply the music of the film with some leftovers and rejected songs. Only 4 songs were not released earlier. John Lennon’s song, “Hey Bulldog,” stands out, a true rocker would have fitted well on the White Album. Ironically, this song was cut from the American release altogether.

The film ‘Yellow Submarine’ would also feature a lot of new orchestral music from Martin, filling the complete Side Two of the soundtrack album!

Martin was no mean composer himself, as displayed in his cleverly constructed score for Yellow Submarine. As well as quoting JS Bach, the score also showed touches of Ravel, Stravinsky and Holst. After serving in the Royal Navy during World War Two, he had consolidated his grounding in music, studying composition, conducting and orchestration at the Guildhall School of Music. He also took up the oboe to ‘earn a bit of living’ – in later years.

The score for the film was recorded at Olympic Sound Studios with the London Symphony Orchestra, but I could not find the date for those sessions. Anyone? It must have been in the period February - July 1968, since the movie was released in July 1968.

Note that the actual soundtrack of the film is a different recording altogether from what we hear on the LP/CD “Yellow Submarine”: Martin re-recorded the soundtrack with a 41-piece orchestra on 22 and 23 October 1968 in the EMI studios. Stereo mixing and editing were done 24 and 25 October, with Martin producing, Geoff Emerick as engineer and Mike Sheady assisting. “It was more convenient to do so,” George Martin explains, “and no more costly since the original orchestra would have had to be paid twice anyway if we had used the soundtrack for the record.”

The seven pieces of music Martin provided for the soundtrack (combined in six tracks on the US album), are in order:

‘Pepperland’ - a string section breakdown, harp, and an arrangement. that just slides along and sounds like classic movie music.
‘Sea of Time’ - Full of references to Within You, Without You’ and using some Indian instrumentation. The song devolves into a Mary Poppins like breakdown before breaking into a lovely waltz.

-‘Sea of Holes’ - Has an ‘Underwater’ feel and backwards effects, something you don’t normally (ever) hear on classical recordings.

-‘Sea of Monsters’ - Ominous yet happy, trilling flutes dueling with moaning cellos, then coming back to the ‘Pepperland’ motif, then to what sounds like an Elgar march, into a crazy western theme. Wild backwards effects end it out. There’s also a reference to J.S.Bach’s Air on the G String.

‘March of The Meanies’ - A march theme, with surging strings and horns, very evocative and ...cinematic?
‘Pepperland Laid Waste’ - Sad and dreamy strings that explodes into a staccato Bernard Hermann - Hitchcockian type thing.
‘Yellow Submarine in Pepperland’ – is an arrangement of the Beatles song. A pretty upbeat and glorious ending. Yellow Submarine was recorded by the Beatles much earlier, on May 26, 1966 at Abbey Road, London, England with special effects overdubbed June 1, 1966. It was included on the US and UK versions of Revolver. It was also a double ‘A’ side single with ‘Eleanor Rigby’ released in 1966, so to the Beatles did not give much away……

The George Martin arrangement on the soundtrack has gained admiration as time passes. However, Lennon didn’t much like it: “Brian made a mistake by letting George Martin put in all those fills in 'Yellow Submarine,' the 'Sea Of Holes' shit,” remarked Lennon at the time. “He recorded all this terrible shit that went out with our LP, you know. If you check it out, it's a whole sort of joke. George Martin is on one side of our album. Oh, we didn't notice that.”

But the public disagreed with Lennon. The “Yellow Submarine” soundtrack album soared up the charts. It peaked at the #2 position on the Billboard album chart during the final week that the “White Album” was at #1. The soundtrack album stayed on the Billboard charts for a total of 25 weeks and was certified as a gold record selling over a million copies.

And with George Martin's orchestral score on side two of the album, it undoubtedly proved to be his biggest money maker as far as royalties are concerned, not to mention that the album became a permanent fixture in the Beatles catalog throughout all repackaging reissues and box sets. In 1999, United Artists and Apple Records digitally remixed the audio of the film for a theatrical and home video re-release. A soundtrack album for this version was also released, which featured the first extensive digital stereo remixes of Beatles material. The film's rights have reverted to Apple who reissued the film in June 2012 on DVD and Blu-ray. And 2018 saw the release of The Beatles Yellow Submarine (50th Anniversary) edition.

And now in 2019, we present here a brand-new remix of ‘Yellow Submarine in Pepperland’. Paul-René Lee suggested to combine Ringo’s vocal version with Martin’s instrumental track. This works surprisingly well, showing that Ringo sang this well, and Martin made a beautiful arrangement. We also added the ‘effects’, even some that were not included on Revolver. A pretty upbeat and glorious remix!

On Thursday, 30 May 1968, George Martin and The Beatles started to work on their next album, following Sgt Pepper. As the session got underway on 30 May, Lennon debuted a new song that would come to be known as “Revolution 1”, a standout composition from the Esher demos. With Martin and a whole array of people up in the booth, The Beatles perfected a rhythm track in eighteen takes, including Lennon’s lead vocal, McCartney’s piano, Harrison’s acoustic guitar, and Starr’s drums. As the longest performance of “Revolution 1”, the eighteenth and best take clocked in at more than ten minutes.
The following days, they continued to work on Revolution 1, and finally split off the ‘outro’ of Revolution into a new track, Revolution 9.

Th following Tuesday, June 4th, 1968, Yoko Ono attended these rehearsals and recorded them on a portable tape recorder. Unfortunately for Beatles fans, she also recorded her own voice, talking to herself, mainly about her relationship with John. She had met John not long before, and this was the first time she accompanied him into the studio. The one place where the Beatles had some privacy….. Although Yoko Ono was not the first (girl) friend that the Beatles had admitted there; McCartney had brought Francie Schwartz, Harrison had admitted his wife Pattie, and musicians such as David Crosby and Brian Jones had been invited. But in general, the studio was a place for the Beatles only.

Although it is not entirely clear, it seems likely that Yoko sat in the control room on that day, listening to the Beatles through the speakers there. We can hear others (including George Martin) on the tape, who appear to go about their business as usual, not bothered by Yoko or even noticing her. Later, she would go into the studio, and sit on McCartney’s amplifier and stroke Lennon’s hair while they were recording……..

In total, Yoko recorded more than an hour of these rehearsals. The Beatles went through Revolution 1 and played some jams in between. As far as I know these rehearsals have not been released or bootlegged elsewhere; possibly, these rehearsals were not even recorded by George Martin and his team.
Yoko’s voice obliterates the music in many places, but technology has now progressed so far that we can separate Yoko’s voice from the music and reveal these unknown White Album Rehearsals. At some later time, we may collect Yoko’s ramblings and analyse these; it might make Yoko blush to hear these today…….

For the moment we focus on the music of the Beatles. The jams (that seem to go on forever) are very repetitive and not very interesting. But the early rehearsals of Revolution are worthwhile. It is not entirely clear exactly on which date these recordings were made. Yoko says at some point “ This is Tuesday, sixth of June 1968”. That doesn’t help us much, since June 6 was a Thursday (not a Tuesday) in 1968. It seems likely that this part of the tape was recorded on June 4th, since it is less likely that she would make a mistake in the day of the week. Furthermore, Robert Kennedy was shot and killed on June 5th, so she would probably have commented on that. Yoko does mention the shooting of Andy Warhol, which took place on June 3rd.

During much of Yoko’s tape, the Beatles are remixing what would become the sound collage Revolution no 9. At this stage, it is still the outro of Revolution 1. Recently, these early takes of Revolution no 9 have become available in good quality. Listen to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XIRWpmqQV0 how Yoko captured the mixing of Revolution 1.

Although some part of the tape was probably recorded on June 4th, it is possible that some of the tape was recorded earlier. Yoko started to come along to the studio as they began work on the White Album, on May 30th. On May 31, they recorded much of what would become Revolution 9, and Yoko was in the studio to add some vocals (“if I become naked…”). According to Lewisohn, organ and vocal overdubs (with John lying on his back on the studio floor) were done on June 4th, suggesting that the instrumental part of Revolution 1 was more or less finished on May 31st.

Since some of Yoko’s recordings appear to be of an earlier version of Revolution 1, these fragments were probably recorded on May 30 or May 31st. Unfortunately, the usual reliable sources (Lewisohn, Emerick) don’t mention Yoko making any recording in the studio at all. Emerick remarks: “For the next couple of hours Ono just sat quietly with us in the control room. It had to have been even more uncomfortable for her than it was for any of us. She had been put in an embarrassing situation, plunked right by the window so that George Martin and I had to crane our heads around her to see the others out in the studio and communicate with them. As a result, she kept thinking we were staring at her. She’d give us a polite, shy smile whenever she’d see us looking in her direction, but she never actually said anything.”

Therefore, we looked closer at the rehearsal of Revolution 1 itself. There is a prominent organ part, probably played by Paul. At some point, he tries some different chords (probably to avoid too much repetition) but these did not make it onto the finished take. The organ plays long chords, as in – later – Pink Floyd style. The guitar part (played rather loud) is probably Lennon; he has not arrived yet at the ‘boogie-woogie’ rhythm that would characterise the finished take. But overall, the structure of the song is pretty much there.

There are no vocals on the tape, and since Paul played organ, there is no bass either. So we lifted the bass and vocals from the released version, maintaining the loosely played character of the rehearsal as much of possible.

So here it is, a hitherto unknown rehearsal of Revolution 1. We should be grateful to Yoko Ono for preserving the session for posterity.

In 2018, we again had to say Goodnight to a few famous names in Beatles history. The best known casualty is Geoff Emerick, so we begin and end this 'in memoriam' mix with Geoff.

Second to be heard is Tony Calder, the music manager who promoted the Beatles’ debut single Love Me Do, died on 2 January at the age of 74. The British record executive, producer and manager worked with acts including Marianne Faithfull, Black Sabbath and Fleetwood Mac.Calder was hired by Beatles manager Brian Epstein to promote the band in the early 1960s. Soon after, Calder and Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham – whom Calder had met while working at Decca Records – formed a PR company called Image. It managed the Rolling Stones and promoted the Beach Boys.

Then Ken Dodd. He was a comedian, singer and occasional actor. He was described as "the last great music hall entertainer", and was primarily known for his live stand-up performances. He also had 18 singles in the British Top 40, including a no. 1 ("Tears"). The Beatles' appeared only once on Ken Dodd's BBC radio show.
Friday, February 16, 2018

We then hear Kenneth Haigh, cast member in 'A Hard Day's Night'.He played the role of Simon Marshall in one of the best scenes. He was the man who didn't recognize George Harrison as he lectured him on how he was supposed to be hip to "Susan." "Oh, that posh bird who gets everything wrong," George snapped at him. But his other roles included playing Brutus in "Cleopatra" with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

Grammy Award-winning audio engineer Geoff Emerick, who worked on several of the Beatles' most important albums, died from a heart attack. He was 72 years old.Emerick is credited as being an innovator, willing to do anything to help his demanding clients craft their sound. When John Lennon said he wanted to sound like the "Dalai Lama singing on a mountain" for the 1966 song "Tomorrow Never Knows," Emerick and other sound engineers fed his voice through rotating speakers to distort it. "I remember the surprise on our faces when the voice came out of the speaker. It was just one of sheer amazement," Emerick said, according to Beatles chronicler Mark Lewisohn.
Emerick joined EMI at the age of 15 in 1962, sitting in on the Beatles' first session for the record label during his first week of work.
"It was the right place at the right time," Emerick told CNN in a 2006 interview about his time with the Beatles. "It could have happened to anybody," he said.
"At the time of doing those albums we never realized it was going to develop into what it developed into."
He became the right-hand man to late producer George Martin, working the board through the '60s for seminal Beatles' albums like "Revolver," "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," "Abbey Road" and much of "Magical Mystery Tour" and "The White Album."
After the Beatles split in 1970, Emerick continued to work with Paul McCartney, producing his third studio album "Band on the Run." He also worked with Elvis Costello, The Zombies and Johnny Cash.
His work won him four Grammy Awards, including Best Engineer for "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," "Band on the Run" and "Abbey Road." He won the technical Grammy in 2003 for "pushing the boundaries of studio recording techniques to new frontiers of creativity and imagination," according to his website.
In 2006, he released the book, "Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles," which received criticism for its dismissal of the work of George Harrison and Ringo Starr.

My own Claim to Fame came last year: while attending a concert of the famous Beatles cover band 'the Analogues' I noticed that Emerick was sitting in the row behind me. After the concert I approached him, but I didn't have the courage to speak to him. The opportunity will not offer itself again......

Keyboard player Billy Preston is another excellent candidate to be called the Fifth Beatle. In April 1969 the Get Back single was credited to "The Beatles with Billy Preston", as was its b-side, Don’t Let Me Down. Along with Tony Sheridan, he was one of just two non-members to receive top billing on a Beatles single.

On the Beatles albums ‘Let It Be’ and ‘Abbey Road’ we can listen to Preston’s keyboard playing. Here in the Cellar, for the first time ever, we have a recording of Preston singing, accompanied by the Beatles. He really makes ‘I’ve Got a Feeling’ his own!

Billy Preston is also associated with the history of the Beatles in many ways over the years. Billy Preston first met the Beatles in Hamburg in 1962. Preston was playing keyboards for Little Richard, and the Beatles were huge fans. Harrison, the youngest of the Beatles, bonded with the 15-year-old Preston, and they remained life-long friends. They met again in 1969, during the sessions for the Let It Be album and film. According to George Harrison, George had walked out of the studio and gone to a Ray Charles concert in London, where he saw Preston playing the organ. George brought Billy in to play keyboards on some of the Let It Be tracks, as the original idea of Let It Be was to be a "live" recording with no overdubbing, which left none of them to add things like a keyboard part. According to others, George invited Billy to say hello to the Beatles when they were recording in the Apple studios, and Paul invited him to jam along. Anyway, they probably all felt that bringing in an outsider would make the others behave nicer and make the Let It Be set a happier place to be, and it worked, albeit temporarily.

Billy worked with The Beatles from 22-31 January 1969, playing Fender Rhodes electric piano and a Lowrey DSO Heritage organ (not Hammond organ!). The Beatles were happy to have Billy in the studio, and after 2 days John suddenly said that he’d like to see Billy join The Beatles. Feeling that two days involvement is rather too short an apprenticeship for membership in the world’s most influential band, Paul half-jokingly stated that it’s bad enough with four of them. George settled the matter by saying that he then would invite Bob Dylan to join The Beatles! If only………..

Preston performed with The Beatles during their 42-minute performance on the rooftop of Apple, on 30 January 1969, which was the band's final public performance.

Billy Preston also played on the Abbey Road album. He performed on the songs I Want You (She's So Heavy) and Something, though was not credited.

Billy's relationship with the Beatles continued even after their breakup. George Harrison co-produced two albums for Apple with Billy. His greatest hit single, That's The Way God Planned It, was produced by George Harrison.
Billy performed with George at the Concert for Bangla Desh at Madison Square Garden, and played on these George Harrison albums: All Things Must Pass, Extra Texture, Dark Horse and 33 1/3. He also played on John's Plastic Ono Band and Sometime in New York City albums (and is reputed to play on Instant Karma!), and with Ringo on the ‘Ringo’ and ‘Goodnight Vienna’ albums. Billy Preston performed at the Concert For George, the 2002 tribute concert for Harrison at the Royal Albert Hall, where he played My Sweet Lord and Isn't It A Pity.
In 2003 he was heard on Let It Be... Naked, the de-Spectored version of the 1969 Let It Be sessions.
His final public appearance was at a 2005 in Los Angeles, for the re-release of the Concert for Bangladesh film. Afterwards he performed Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth), My Sweet Lord and Isn't It A Pity with Ringo Starr and George's son Dhani.

Preston was the first to record My Sweet Lord, for his 1970 album Encouraging Words, and this would come to haunt poor Harrison; Harrison wrote “My Sweet Lord” in 1969, while he, Eric Clapton, and Billy Preston were on a European tour backing Delaney & Bonnie and Friends. Harrison had been listening a lot to the chart hit “Oh, Happy Day,” a gospel recording by the Edwin Hawkins Singers. George continued to develop the composition over the next few days, including a recording session during which Billy Preston recorded “My Sweet Lord,” featuring backing vocals from the Edwin Hawkins Singers. Billy Preston’s version was issued on Apple just prior to George's.
Preston's version didn’t chart, but George took his version all the way to the top, becoming a major smash over Christmas of 1970. It remains his biggest chart hit to date.

Unfortunately, My Sweet Lord sounds rather similar to another song: the Chiffons' 1963 hit 'He's So Fine'. A liability trial over “My Sweet Lord” began on February 23, 1976 in Manhattan. District Judge Richard Owen was also a trained pianist who composed publicly performed operas, sometimes sung by his soprano wife, Lynn. Harrison was accused that the songs were so similar that Harrison could have only written his by copying “He’s So Fine.”
In court, the Judge had both versions (Harrison and Preston’s) played, to compare with ‘He’s So Fine’. Surprisingly, the Judge found that Preston’s version included a few notes that made it more similar to He’s So Fine than Harrison’s own! This probably contributed to the Judge’s ruling: My Sweet Lord was copied from He’s So Fine.
In a strange twist, the legal battle over financial compensation continued for decades, and saw Harrison opposed by his former manager, Alan Klein (who had bought the rights to He’s So Fine). The matter was finally settled in 1998. A few notes can have big consequences!

Preston passed away in 2006. Intriguingly, in the years preceding his death Billy worked on a collection of Beatles cover versions, which remains unreleased……….

With thanks to P.R. Lee for the idea.

This Harrison composition has a recording history that is far longer than the song itself....it was written during the All Things Must Pass period as "Whenever", after which it was copyrighted with the title "When Every Song Is Sung".

Harrison originally intended the song for Shirley Bassey, who had a hit in the summer of 1970 with a cover version of "Something".

Harrison recorded a demo of "When Every Song Is Sung" during the sessions for All Things Must Pass; some of the outtakes are available and show that his voice sounds tired, and he doesn't have all the words yet. The song is performed in a jazzy style, and Harrison is often barely audible above the instruments.
We managed to isolate the vocals for this remix.

Obviously, the track "Whenever" was not included on All Things Must Pass. He went on to produce recordings of the track by Ronnie Spector in February 1971, and Cilla Black in August 1972, but neither version was completed for release. Mary Hopkin and Leon and Mary Russell also attempted the song during the first half of the 1970s. A later version by Black – produced by David Mackay and titled "I'll Still Love You" – appeared on her 2003 compilation Cilla: The Best of 1963–78.

The song was finally released in 1976 by Ringo Starr on Ringo's Rotogravure.
The musicians on "I'll Still Love You" included pianist Jane Getz and a rhythm section comprising Starr and Jim Keltner (both on drums) and Voormann (on bass). Lon Van Eaton, a former Apple Records signing, played lead guitar on the track. Harrison was "not pleased" with Starr's version of the song and took legal action against him, which was soon settled out of court.

We used Ringo's instrumental track for this remix.

Musically, I Still Love you combines features of Harrison's greatest compositions. The verses have the same descending pattern as in "Something" and the middle eight is harsher compared to the verses, just like the middle eight in Something. And then the chords are very similar to those of While My Guitar Gently Weeps.

Now, you can judge for yourself if I'll Still Love You is the greatest Harrisong that never was.

Many thanks to Paul-René Lee for alerting me to this possible Synmix.

The BDJ engineers at North End Music Studios seized upon the opportunity to release a new Beatles EP, in Dutch. Two Ductch authors, Bindervoet and Henkes, have just pulished a book (Alle 214 Goed) in which they translate the complete Beatles oevre. Some of these songs were performed in a podcast (Fab4Cast 96) by famous singer/songwriter Yorick van Norden. He accompanied himself on guitar in the studio. We post-produced these tracks into full-blown tracks with proper arrangements. Listen to It's Only Love, Norwegian Wood, Julia and I will. Time to learn Dutch!

Bart Huges, a former medical student from the University of Amsterdam and the grandfather of modern trepanation, recounts meeting with John Lennon in the 60s.

Huges, already having bored a hole into his own skull with a basic drill, was approached by Lennon who told of his desire to open up his own “third eye”. Huges advised that Lennon needed no such intervention. “Third eye people are your kind of people,” Huges told Lennon. Because of Lennon’s creative talents and the fact that a small percentage of the population has a skull with a naturally formed hole, Hughes deduced, “there’s no doubt about it, you have the hole.”

Lennon was unconvinced. “He kept wanting it,” Huges remembers, “and I kept contradicting him.”

Finally, Yoko chipped in. Hear Huges tell it all......

A great fan of the Cellar, P.R. Lee alerted me to the similarities between two McCartney songs: Mumbo, and Get Back. In particular, some early versions of Get Back have a more improvised character, resembling the mumbo-jumbo of Mumbo.
Mumbo was recorded on July 25th, 27th, 28th & August 1971, and appeared on Wild Life. The song is credited to Paul and Linda McCartney. McCartney appeared to have liked this nonsense song, since he played it live 10 times, a.o. in Amsterdam and Groningen in 1972.
McCartney said about Mumbo: “Mumbo is just a big scream of no words. A wacky idea, cos it was just ‘Whuurrrgghh A-hurrgghhh!’ and we mixed it back so it was like ‘Louie Louie’. Everyone’s going, What are the words of that? Just hope they don’t ask for the sheet music. Which no one ever did, luckily.”
We don’t need to ask for sheet music, because the chords are very similar to Get Back…..
Get Back also started with different lyrics, describing immigration of Pakistani and others; but McCartney changed them into more innocent lyrics.
Both Mumbo and the early takes of Get Back feature Paul’s “Little Richard’ voice that he also used on Helter Skelter. In this remix, these McCartney tracks mesh seamlessly together.

Much has been said about the Rolling Stones vs. The Beatles. Which one was the better band, the most innovative, the loudest, the most anti-establishment?
No need to enter hat discussion here. For a recent talk, listen to this podcast: http://beatlesfanclub.nl/fab4cast-90-the-stones-the-beatles/ (in Dutch).

Although the Beatles launched the Stones’ career by giving them I Wanna Be Your Man (the Stones’ first hit single), they parted ways musically thereafter. The Beatles never covered a Stones song, and the Stones covered Beatles tracks very rarely (recently they performed Come Together). But the bands remained friends and they sometimes attended each other’s recording sessions.

One song where the Stones and the Beatles appear to be approach each other is Sympathy for the Devil, and Hey Jude. The ‘na na’ section uses the same chord sequence as the verses of Sympathy for the Devil. Both songs were released in 1968; hey Jude was composed around June 1968, while Sympathy was recorded on June 4th. Hence, Sympathy was probably composed earlier, but there is no indication that McCartney had heard it before he wrote Hey Jude.
No need to cry about plagiarism; this chord sequence is very common, listen to I Can’t Explain (the Who), if I Were a Carpenter (Bobby Darin), Fortunate Son (Creedence CR), All Right Now (Free), and many others.

Sympathy tells about several atrocities (wars, murders) committed throughout the history of humanity as if they were somehow inspired by the Devil. No link with the Beatles, although one line might refer to them: The “troubadours who got killed before they reach Bombay” might refer to the Beatles visit to the Maharishi in India, but – fortunately – the Beatles didn’t get killed on the way….

This remix plays bot songs together. The Stones were well aware of the similarity of the chords; in a concert in Baltimore Nov 26, 1969 Mick Jagger actually sang ‘nana na’ and Hey Jude’ over the end of Sympathy. This fragment concludes this remix.

I'm always thrilled when I discover where the Beatles found inspiration for their songs. And sometimes that inspiration bordered on infringing other's rights: examples are Harrison getting in trouble for My Sweet Lord vs. She So Fine, Lennon angering Chuck Berry's lawyers over Come Together, and McCartney.......
It seems that I don't have an example of McCartney crossing the line when using other people's music; he had some trouble over the the phrase "Ob la di, ob la da", and financially compensated the alleged source. And he clearly paraphrased Chuck Berry's "Back in the USA" in his own "Back in the USSR, but that's about it. McCartney is quite frank about being influenced by a whole range of artists, but - as far as I know - has never been suspected of copying. In fact, McCartney takes great care to avoid accidental copying, as exemplified by his hesitation to release Yesterday: he was afraid that he had heard the melody somewhere.

Some time ago, I heard the song "Hey Little Girl" by Professor Longhair. Professor Longhair blended Afro-Cuban rhythms with rhythm and blues. The most explicit is Longhair's Blues Rhumba,' where he overlays a straightforward blues with a clave rhythm.The piano part for the rumba-boogie "Hey Little Girl" employs the 2-3 clave onbeat/offbeat motif.

This song has nothing to do with Hello Little Girl, the first song known to be written by Lennon. But it did remind me of McCartney's style of songwriting. I felt there could be some influence of Hey Little Girl on Hey Jude (more than just the Hey"...), but could not pinpoint it exactly. And then I heard the song "My Carnival", on McCartney & Wings re-release of Venus & Mars. The music and melody of My Carnival is an exact copy of Hey Little Girl! In the remix in BDJ's Cellar you can confirm that yourself.

Where and how did McCartney pick up this song by the rather obscure Professor Longhair? Henry Roeland "Roy" Byrd (December 19, 1918 – January 30, 1980), better known as Professor Longhair, was a New Orleans
blues singer and pianist. Longhair's first recordings were made at the Hi Hat Club, where a rudimentary recording studio was set up. Four sides were issued on the tiny Star Talent label as by Professor Longhair & His Shuffling Hungarians, including Hey little Girl (1949). He is best known for his song "Mardi Gras in New Orleans", which has the same chords and melody as Hey Little Girl. There is evidence that Mardi Gras was actually performed by McCartney (on MoMac's Hidden Tracks Vol.9 and Complete Cold Cuts). McCartney has never played this song in concert. So where did McCartney hear "Mardi Gras in New Orleans"?

Wings flew to New Orleans to record their fourth album,“Venus and Mars.” And on Mardi Gras Day, Feb. 11,
1975, the McCartneys waded into the holiday revelry, masking as a pair of clowns. McCartney, asked what
musicians he’d heard during his New Orleans 1975 visit, said: “Well, we saw Professor Longhair play. And
he’s the greatest. He’s a classic. I love ’em.”

Wings recorded “My Carnival” at Sea-Saint the day after Mardi Gras. The song’s piano, rhythm and vocals
parallel the music of Professor Longhair's Mardi Gras and Hey Little Girl.

Venus and Mars reached No. 1 internationally. The original album did not include “My Carnival.” Was
McCartney hesitant because he might have copyright issues? Five years after Professor Longhair’s death,
McCartney released “My Carnival” as the B-side of “Spies Like Us,” (title song for a 1985 Chevy Chase-
Dan Aykroyd movie). In 1993, Venus And Mars was remastered and reissued on compact disc as part of "The Paul McCartney Collection" series; My Carnival was released as a Bonus Track.

So there we have it, clear evidence that McCartney copied others; we have to note that he single’s label says: “Recorded in New Orleans & dedicated to Prof. Longhair”. Now there's an understatement!

Who was the Fifth Beatle? There are a lot of candidates for this honorary title: some consider themselves the fifth Beatle, others could qualify through their merits for the Beatles. That's why we highlight a potential Fifth Beatle: Bernard "Pretty" Purdie. Purdie has clearly put his name forward with his bold statements:

"I overdubbed the drumming on 21 songs from the first three Beatle albums".
"There are four drummers on the Beatles records, but Ringo is not one of them"

Purdie is known as a groove drummer with flawless timing and precision half notes, backbeats and grooves. His groove sometimes combines different influences, such as swing, blues and funk. He created the now well-known drum pattern the "Purdie Half-time Shuffle".

He is widely appreciated and admired for his drum performance, so why would he say this kind of strange stuff?

It seems possible that Purdie has drummed on the American version of some of Tony Sheridan's songs and the Beatles. But otherwise, Purdie seems to exaggerate when he talks about 21 songs on 3 LPs. But how many songs should you record with the Beatles to be called the Fifth Beatle?

Here we made a remix of the German (with Pete Best on drums) , and the American version (with Purdie on drums) of "Take out some insurance on me". There is additional guitar, drums and harmonica. The drums are clearly improved, a hi-hat error by Pete Best towards the end has been eliminated.......

Here's a different (new!) mix of Getting Better. This song was featured (of course) on Sgt Pepper, following Lucy In The Sky with Diamonds.

Getting Better is mostly a Paul song, although Lennon contributed significantly to the lyrics and the vocals.

On March 9, 1967, recording started at Abbey Road studios. They first recorded the 'rhythm' tracks, including drums, pianet (Wurlitzer?), rhythm guitar and - some - bass. The bass is only heard when the pianet is not playing, suggesting that Paul played both instruments. Seven takes were recorded, the last one being labelled 'best'. This take 7 forms the basis of the version heard on Sgt. Pepper. However, on the 50th anniversary release of Sgt Pepper, also Take 1 of the rhythm track is included. It is remarkably lively, and appears to 'rock' more than take 7. Therefore, we used this rhythm track Take 1 and combined it with the vocals (recorded on 21 and 23 March). we also used the conga and piano in places.
Notable differences are the prominence of the pianet in the mix, the absence of the high pitched guitar and the tamboura drone. The high energy of the track is probably also due to the speed: they played Take 1 significantly faster than Take 7. Take 7 starts at 118 bpm, increasing to 126 bpm at the end. Take 1 starts at 122 bpm, reaching 132 bpm at some points (Ringo's drumming is more uneven than in take 7).

Musically, Getting Better combines aspects of other McCartney songs: the 'drone effect', a single note played for a long time, is also heard in e.g. Paperback Writer. The drone (a G note) is much more proounced in Take 7, since the high pitched guitar plays this note throughout (except the verses), as well as the tamboura (starting 2/3 into the song).
Here, There, and Everywhere appears to be the model for the refrain ("I've got to admit...') It consists of rising chords, going up the musical scale step by step. This is much more noticeable on the pianet in Take 1 of Getting Better. Lennon would use this same sequence later in Sexy Sadie.

Paul wrote this song on a piano, so it is no surprise the pianet is played throughout take 1, probably by Paul. Other evidence is that Getting Better is written in the key of C, a typical key for less experienced piano players; Paul could play the whole song on the white piano keys only!

There is the well-known story of Lennon feeling ill after taking LSD, and George Martin taking him to the roof....This took place during the recording of the vocals on March 21, which may explain why some of the - backing- vocals sound slightly off-key.

So here it is, new mix based on Take 1. Is it -compared to take 7- Getting Better?

Harry Bannink (1929 – 1999) was a Dutch composer, arranger and pianist. he had an amazing output: he wrote over 3,000 songs!

He wrote music for several Dutch musicals, Dutch TV-shows (including "Ja zuster, nee zuster"), and a weekly (!) children's TV show.

If only the Beatles had written songs at the same rate as Bannink, then we would have another 30 Beatles albums....

In Lennon & McCartney's defense, we should mention that Bannink only wrote the music; he used a number of well know lyrics writers and - Dutch - poets to write the lyrics for his songs; he usually started with a text, and then wrote the music for it.

Bannink and the Beatles were contemporary composers, and there as striking similarities:

like McCartney, his music is very 'melodic', certainly compared to post 60's music where the rhythm (percussion) becomes more and more important.
like Lennon, Bannink used complex rhythms, and changed the rhythm during a song
one key success factor that they all display, is that the words and music match so well together. Bannink is a master in having his music express the same emotions as the lyrics. Words and music intertwine, and Bannink wrote his melodies with specific voices (usually of actors) in mind.
As composers, it is evident that they were influenced by other songwriters, and in many cases they would identify their influences themselves. But these influences added to their music, they didn't imitate their examples.

Bannink - obviously - knew the music of the Beatles, but he wasn't a great fan; it's just not his style of music.
But he admitted that for some of his songs he took inspiration from Beatles tracks. One of these songs is entitled "Wil u een stekkie". This song is about plants called "Fuchsia", a popular garden shrub, which can live for years with a minimal amount of care. The word "Fuchsia" is repeated endlessly in the song. The lyrics were written by Annie M.G. Schmidt who was unaware that the word had other meanings in English. Only one of the singers (an Englishman) had trouble keeping a straight face....

Bannink himself mentioned that "Wil u een stekkie" was inspired by "When I'm 64", and he quotes this Beatles song in its intro. But he makes "Wil u een stekkie" very much a Bannink song. To showcase the relationship between "Wil u een stekkie" and 'When I'm 64" we have produced a mash-up of those 2 songs. It nicely demonstrates that Bannink and McCartney were a close match in composing this kind of nostalgic tune.

And you can hear more about Bannink (in Dutch...) at:

https://soundcloud.com/avrotros/fab4cast-81-bannink-beatles-bonte-bespiegelingen

It appears as if we hear more and more Beatles tracks when I go to see a movie. Just went to see/hear McCartney sing Maggie Mae in Pirates of the Caribbean. But while settling in for the movie in the theater, a trailer was shown for the new movie "Justice League Come Together": Come Together, covered by Gary Clark Jr and Junkie XL. And then a commercial was shown that featured a cover version of Across the Universe!

As a true Beatles fan, I welcome every opportunity to hear their tracks; but in this case, I had some trepidation. Would Lennon have approved of using his song to promote sales of (Samsung) cell-phones? I have my doubts.
On the other hand, I liked the cover version, it sounded great (and loud) in the theater. This reminded me that Lennon is on record (Rolling Stone interview) that he considered ATU as one of his better songs: ""It's one of the best lyrics I've written. In fact, it could be the best." He added: "It's good poetry, or whatever you call it, without chewin' it. See, the ones I like are the ones that stand as words, without melody. They don't have to have any melody, like a poem, you can read them." But he felt let down by the way the song was recorded and produced. I think he meant that McCartney didn't put any effort in it, and they never got down to laying down a quality track. And the guitars were out of tune (which I don't hear, but Lennon has a sharper ear than me).
Hence the opportunity to use the backing track of the Samsung commercial "New Normal" with the vocals of Lennon himself (using Take 2 of 4 February 1968). The Samsung version is actually the cover sang by Rufus Wainwright for the movie I Am Sam. They sang in the same key, resulting in a nice upgrade. Would Lennon feel better now?

The film 'Freedom' is part of the exhibition of the art of Yoko Ono,"The sky is still blue, you know .... ", which opened in May this year. This exhibition is specially designed for the Tomie Ohtake Institute and consists of 65 pieces or "instructions" that ask the visitor to help make the art. In this way, the visitor is forced to think about the instructions, and the artwork suddenly becomes very unique and temporary.

The exhibition gives a nice overview of Yoko Ono's work, from her first works from the sixties to the most recent works of this year. We know Yoko Ono of course as John Lennon's wife, some of whom see her as the woman who broke up the Beatles. But can we really blame her? Time will tell, at least I'm not so convinced; In my opinion, John Lennon left the Beatles, and Yoko Ono was no more than an accomplice. Time for discussion!

In the mid-sixties, she began making films. A short movie of Yoko Ono is called Freedom (1970); This movie takes just over 1 minute. A woman (Yoko Ono, though her face is not shown) tries to undo her bra. At the end of the film, this has still not been successful and the movie repeats. Freedom is very relative ......

The special feature of this film is that John Lennon wrote the music. Actually, this song is unheard until now for many Lennon fans! The music is as minimal as the images.

Furthermore, there is little Lennon in the exhibition, which I appreciate from Ono; Yoko Ono can stand as on her own feet as artist. Only one other time do we see Lennon, in the movie Smile. It is intriguing to face Lennon, who looks like a kind of Mona Lisa, and in extreme slow motion (333fps) makes a start of a smile. But after 15 minutes he is not much further ...
Also, the music of this film is by Lennon, but now he says, "bring your own instrument" so we only hear the wind in the trees, and the birds singing ......... ..

Some of her art has become world famous. For example, the small-letter word written on the wall (1966) You can only read it by climbing a ladder and then using a magnifying glass. This was the work that drew attention to John Lennon when he visited Ono's exhibition in London, in 1966. A whole experience for this visitor to re-enact this historical event!

There are also instructions that only apply in the mental, poetic, or imaginary plane: "observe the sun until it becomes square"; "a piece of heaven knows we are all part of each other"; "Do not try to say anything negative about someone for three days, 45 days, for three months." (1996).

Another well-known work by Yoko Ono has been her theater performance in which she sits on stage (in Carnegie Hall (1964, New York), and invites the audience to cut her clothes with scissors. The film shows how exciting it was for Yoko Ono itself, alone and vulnerable, while a series of men cut her clothes off the body.

Think of Yoko Ono what you like, but there's never a dull moment with Yoko!

The Analogues are a Dutch tribute act to the Beatles. Founded in 2014, the Analogues' ambition has been to perform The Beatles' music from their later studio years live, using analogue and period-correct instrumentation.

How closely do the Analogues approach the original Beatles records in their performances? To find out, we have taken the 2017 (Giles Martin) remix of Sgt Pepper/With a Little Help and played it alongside a live recording of the Analogues. During the track, we alternate between the Beatles and the Analogues; note that we haven’t changed the tempo of the tracks, nor have we applied any EQ.

The Analogues play the Sgt Pepper tracks so well, that it is difficult to hear where the Beatles are played, and where the Analogues take over. A remarkable achievement!

The differences are mainly due to differences in the mix (apart from the timbre of their voices, of course): Giles Martin plays the drums and bass louder than the Analogues do, and Martin adds more reverb to the vocals. The Beatles version has more separation in the stereo field, probably because of limitations that the Analogues had in recording live vs a studio recording.

Appearance-wise the band makes no effort to look like The Beatles, but they are masters at recreating and reproducing the original sound. The Analogues have amassed an impressive collection of musical instruments, amplifiers and what have you, including a black-and-white Rickenbacker-guitar like John Lennon had, a light blue Fender Stratocaster like George Harrison's and a Hofner violin bass as used by Paul McCartney. Five pianos, ten organs, over twenty-five guitars, a Ludwig drum kit, and an assortment of wind instruments are not enough to satisfy the demanding Beatles arrangements. Exotic musical instruments from India are required as well, including a dilruba, a swarmandal, a tanpura, a tabla, and obviously a sitar.

In 2015/2016 The Analogues went on their first tour both in Holland and abroad, playing the 1967 Magical Mystery Tour album. In 2017 the band are touring with an integral performance of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. I was lucky to see them perform twice, most recently at the 17,000 capacity Amsterdam Ziggo Dome on 1 June 2017, celebrating the album's 50 year existence. Go and see them perform the complete Sgt Pepper album if you can! Already looking forward to next season, when they will perform the ‘White Album’ live.

Interesting factoid: in 2017 the Analogues signed a six record deal with Universal Music Group, for five live-played Beatles albums, plus one album with original material, inspired by The Beatles. All six albums will be released under the Decca label that refused to sign The Beatles in 1962!

Love Me Do is a strange little record. Of course, it was the first Beatles record in the UK, and the fab-four also recorded Love Me Do eight times for the BBC. More recently, Paul performed Love Me Do on Pinkpop 12-06-2016.

But that's not the complete story: all in all, the Beatles recorded and released five versions of Love Me Do, and a 6th version remained unreleased. And four different drummers played on these records! Here we present a compilation of all six studio versions of Love Me Do, including the previously unreleased version of 1969. In running order:

1) Pete Best on drums: recorded on June 6, 1962, poor Pete didn't realize that this recording would cost him his seat behind the drum kit. The EMI recording staff were unimpressed by his irregular time-keeping, and the other 3 Beatles didn't mind trading him in for a better drummer like Ringo Starr. But history has been too unkind to Pete Best. True, his timekeeping on the is recording is sloppy, but so are the vocals and the overall performance of the band. Perhaps they were nervous, or unaccustomed to working a in a studio? After all, it was the first time that they recorded a Lennon & McCartney composition.

Pete's drumming seems off during the 'middle eight' (someone to love...), but it seems harsh to blame Pete for it; they had played the song live in Hamburg, and had practiced it in the Cavern before the recording session. So this was the way that Lennon & McCartney wanted the drums to play, but Pete was held accountable for the - rather poor - result.....
Pete's version can be recognized by his drumming technique: it sounds like he hits the snare drum laterally instead of vertically, and he plays a busy pattern during the middle eight. Paul's bass sounds poor in this recording, since he as using his old amplifier. They would acquire their Vox amplifiers after this recording session. Paul's vocals are tentative at times, and his voice quivers a bit in places. This version was released on Anthology 1.

2) Ringo on drums, recorded on September 4, 1962. The fab-four assumed they were recording the definitive version for their single, but didn't know yet that there would be another session on September 11th for this little song......
Ringo's drumming is more regular than Pete's, and he hits the snare drum in the usual way. He doesn't vary the pattern during the middle eight, but has a few small fills. The rest of the band sounds more confident, and the bass sound is better defined (thanks to the new amplifiers).
This version can also be recognized by the hand claps (an overdub), and the absence of tambourines.
The hand claps do raise a question: George Martin wanted Paul to sing the middle eight, so that John could play harmonica. But if they had overdub capability, why not use overdubs for the harmonica and have John sing the middle eight?

3) Andy White on drums, recorded September 11th. Poor Ringo was relegated to play the tambourine, but he does it with verve and competes with White for the loudest percussion sounds. Andy White is an excellent time keeper, he plays as regular as clockwork. The overall sound of the recording is the best of the early 3 recording dates. This version can be recognized by the absence of handclaps, and the presence of the tambourine. Also note that a fair dose of reverb is applied to the vocals. This version would make it unto most copies of the single, although the first pressing used Ringo's version.

4) Billy Preston on keyboards, recorded on January 28, 1969. The Fab 4 revisited Love Me Do during the Let It Be recording sessions. Of course, Ringo Starr on drums, while Billy Preston is at the Rhodes electric piano (and Alan Parsons at the controls as engineer). This fourth version has not been released, and in its rough form sounds not too interesting. We edited the Let It Be version to produce a pleasant - stereo! - mix, that might well have been included on the Anthology series. The complete version is available elsewhere in BDJ's Cellar full of Remixes.

5) P.S. Love me do - Paul McCartney, featuring Chris Whitten on drums. Paul made a song mixing two of his first 2 songs, P.S. I love you and Love me do and called it "P.S. Love me do". P.S. I Love You" was the b side of "Love Me Do" single in 1962.
A live version of “P.S. Love Me Do” recorded on April 21, 1990 at Maracara Stadium, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil was released as a b-side on a U.K. CD single on October 8, 1990 which featured a live recording of The Beatles track “Birthday” as the a-side. Here we use only the Love Me Do verses of the song. There is not much appeal in this hybrid song. Perhaps Paul released this single to show the finger to Michael Jackson and Sony, who owned the rights to most Beatles songs and refused to trade them to Paul: these two songs are the only Beatles songs that McCartney controls, because when he first signed to EMI they had a publishing company called Ardmore and Beechwood which took the two songs, "Love Me Do" and "P.S. I Love You". In doing a deal somewhere along the way Paul was able to get them back and the copyrights now belong to Paul's company MPL Communications Ltd.

6) Ringo vocals: recorded on VH1 Storytellers, a live album by Ringo Starr released in 1998. The album flopped worldwide..... Perhaps this Love Me Do is Ringo's revenge on George Martin and the rest of the world, since this is clearly the best sounding version.

So which of those 6 versions is 'best'? You decide!

For most fans, a Day in the Life is their favorite track on Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Some even consider it the Beatles best song.
Considering its impact, the production on the stereo release on Sgt Pepper sounds rather understated; Lennon's voice floats around from left to right for no reason, and even the piano appears to move around the room....

Hence, the BDJ engineers decided to make a new Stereo remaster, based on the original tapes. Now, Lennon is firmly seated in the middle. As a bonus, we can now hear clearly L/R separated where vocals were double-tracked, the orchestra was quadruple-tracked, and how the final chord was built up.

What will Giles Martin do with the same recording? We'll know on June 1st.

POSTSCRIPT: Well, the Deluxe box arrived. The remix by Giles Martin is rather similar to the remix presented here; vocals remain nicely in the middle throughout. Giles mixes in some stereo vocal chorus that I didn't have..... Main difference appears to be that Giles mixed Paul's bass to the right, while here it is in the middle. And Giles included the end groove in A Day in the Life. Not correct, in my view, the end groove is independent from ADITL.

Harrison wrote "Try Some Buy Some" in early 1971, in an attempt to relaunch the singing career of former Ronettes lead singer Ronnie Spector. Ronnie was married to Phil Spector at that time, who produced the record. The track featured star performers: Harrison played guitars, Gary Wright (Spooky Tooth) keyboards, Klaus Voormann (Manfred Mann) bass, John Barham string arrangement, Jim Gordon (Derek and the Dominos) on drums, Pete Ham (Badfinger) guitar. The song would be included on a planned comeback album on the Beatles' Apple Records.

Harrison wrote the song on an organ, while he used to compose on guitar. This may explain the strange harmonic structure of the song. Klaus Voormann recalls that he had to step in so that Harrison could hear the entire piece played through: "He played the song on the piano with his right hand, just with three fingers. He couldn't play with five fingers and he couldn't play the whole song with two hands on the piano. I had to play the left hand part so he could hear how the whole song sounded."

Also note that the song is a waltz (3/4 rhythm), which is unusual for a pop song. It includes some rhythm patterns that are derived from Indian music.

It was released as an Apple Single in 1971 (and included on the CD “Come and Get It: The Best of Apple Records” in 2010).

The single flopped and the critics were not forgiving for this Harrisong, or Ronnie’s singing…The whole thing turned out to be a huge disappointment, in particular for Phil Spector, who had put enormous effort in producing his trademark ‘Wall Of Sound” backing track for the song. Phil was proud of his achievement and expected that it would be hailed as a masterpiece. However, it appears that the Wall of Sound concept had outlived its days, and the song was far too ‘deep’ for Ronnie’ audience. The whole come-back album was scrapped, and Ronnie and Phil divorced……

In 1973, Harrison added his own vocal onto the 1971 instrumental track and included the result on his album Living in the Material World. Some critics find it doesn’t fit on the album, and Harrison may be singing in a key that was a bit too high for him (because he used a backing track made for Ronnie).

Lennon liked the song and later said that the descending melody played by the string section was an inspiration behind his 1974 song "#9 Dream". The lyrics may also have something to do with “Buy Some Try Some”, as both songs begin with a reference to the past: "Way back in time / Someone said try some…. Compare with #9 Dream: “So long ago, was it in a dream, was it just a dream?”

Earlier, Lennon already based the musical backing of his 1971 single "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" on that of "Try Some Buy Some".

In recent years, "Try Some Buy Some" has won more acclaim, and its unique musical structure is recognized.

Paul-René Lee alerted me to Ronnie’s 1971 version, and making a duet with Harrison’s 1973 version was straightforward, since both used the same backing track.

The Best of Both Worlds?

2016 has been a prolific year for celebrity deaths. A fair number of the celebrities who passed away in 2016 were - somehow - connected to te Beatles.

In this track, we remember the 2016's famous losses, in a touching tribute to their talent, inspired by one of The Beatles finest songs, In My Life.

The Beatles celebrities in this mix are:

David Bowie (“Fame” with Lennon)
Glen Frey (Eagles, became musician after attending a Beatles concert)
Paul Kantner (Jefferson Airplane, jammed with McCartney)
Terry Wogan (interviewed Beatles many times)
Prince (played guitar solo in the Concert for George)
George Martin
Tony Barrow (Beatles press officer)
Carry Fischer (film with Ringo)
Henry McCullough (guitar in Wings, played solo on My Love)
Muhammad Ali (photo opportunity with Beatles)
Scotty Moore (Guitar whit Elvis, jammed with McCartney)
Toots Thielemans (jazz player, inspired Lennon to play Rickenbacker guitars)
Al Brodax (producer of the Yellow Submarine film)
Leonard Cohen
Greg Lake (Emerson Lake & Palmer, befriended Ringo and Paul)
Sam Leach (impressario of the Early Beatles)
Allan Williams (manager of the Early Beatles).

This remix is inspired by Fab4cast 67, "Death & The Beatles" - in Dutch only...- , which can be heard and downloaded at:

http://web.avrotros.nl/podpourri/luisteren/fab4cast.aspx

There are a number of similarities between Harrison's song (form his first solo LP) and McCartney's Hey Jude. They last (almost) as long, and most of the song consists of the outtro (a hallmark of later Beatles tracks).
But would they mash well? That's what Paul-René Lee asked me to try. Here it is, judge for yourself!

It has turned into a tradition, the BDJ Christmas remix; in the past 4 years, a Christmas special was posted here, often lasting for 30 mins or more.

This year, the Cellar received numerous requests for remixes, as a follow up to the broadcast of remixes in the Fab4Cast 64 and 65. (listen at http://web.avrotros.nl/podpourri/luisteren/fab4cast.aspx)

Some requests were for remixes with songs by the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), others requested remixes using the Beatles Christmas records (issued to members of the Beatles fanclub in the 60's).

As a stroke of genius, we decided to combimne all requests, and mash-up ELO with the Beatles Christmas records.

The result may not be the finest tune you've ever heard, but it is still more pleasing than Happy Christmas (War Is Over), or Wonderful Christmas Time. Only Ding Dong Ding Dong comes close......

Went to see the film 'Eight Days A Week". A splendid time was guaranteed for all, and it was exciting to see the Beatles live on stage. I found it disappointing that of the live performances are interrupted by interviews; these add little to the story, but break the spell of watching the Beatles live.

I noticed hardly any new material as such; virtually all was available on Anthology, or on bootlegs. I was struck, however, by the quality of the concert in Manchester, of November 20, 1963. The Beatles performed two shows at Manchester's ABC Cinema on their 1963 Autumn Tour.

During the first show, Pathé News filmed the group performing. Accompanied with backstage footage and crowd scenes, this became an eight-minute cinema feature entitled The Beatles Come To Town, shown for a week from 22 December 1963.

In Eight Days a Week the show is presented with great picture quality (widescreen, not TV), and sound in HiFi stereo! This may well be the best quality document of any Beatles concert!

Unfortunately, only 2 complete songs are included in the extended DVD-CD set, She Loves You and Twist and Shout.

These are also the songs that were known before, in much lesser quality. Was the remainder of the concert recorded, and does it still exist? I hope so, but I doubt it.....

For the real Beatlemaniacs, I have recreated the 1963 Manchester concert, using the 2 songs actually from that concert, and the remaining setlist from concerts around the same time. This recreates the original sound of their concerts at that time: dominated by the warm, compressed sound of the VOX-AC30 amplifiers. A few months later, they would switch to the somewhat harsher sounding AC-50s and AC-100's, since the AC-30's weren't loud enough for the stadium concerts in the US.

So clap your hands and stamp your feet!

Setlist 1963-11-20

1 I Saw Her Standing There
2 From Me to You
3 All My Loving
4 You've Really Got a Hold on Me (The Miracles)
5 Roll Over Beethoven (Chuck Berry)
6 Boys (The Shirelles)
7 Till There Was You (Meredith Willson)
8 She Loves You
9 Money (That's What I Want) (Barrett Strong)
10 Twist and Shout (The Top Notes)
11 From Me to You - reprise

The Rolling Stones closed out the opening night on October 7th of the all-star Desert Trip festival in Indio, California with a greatest-hits set that featured a few surprises, including the rock legends' first ever attempt covering the Beatles' "Come Together."

The Stones faithfully ran through the Beatles song complete with an extended guitar solo courtesy of Ronnie Wood and Keith Richards and a mouth organ solo by Mick.

How does it line up against the Abbey Road original? Judge for yourself: The Stones (left) and the Beatles (right) battle it out in this duet.

"Every Night" was written by Paul McCartney while he was on holiday in Greece, and first released on his McCartney album on April 17, 1970.

Every Night is a long-time favourite Macca track of mine. Why? Just so, but the lyrics have a calming effect that resonates with me; I like to be home too. And the chords changes are great too.
But overall, the appeal form me is how the lyrics and music are completely aligned; you could feel much of the emotion of the song from the music, even if you didn't know the words.

This starts by droning the low E on the opening bars. Although the E chord seems to alternate to a sort of Bm7 chord, this is all done by changing just 1 note in the chord. In concert, Paul just lifts his pinky here from the high E string, nothing more. This prolonged E sound is the 'home key', and fits beautifully with the concept of staying home in the lyrics.

The long E sound creates tension, and we then get a quick succession of chords that suggest a move to the key of A. (Listen to Mull of Kintyre for a similar move just before the bagpipes come in). But before we really get there ("and every day I want to do"), Macca plays a F# major, instead of the F#minor. The major chords drives us directly back to the key of E. Again, this marvellously reflects the lyrics: he thinks of going out (moving to the key of A), but quickly decides to stay home (in the key of E).

The 'middle eight' is ultra simple: no lyrics, just 'woooooo' and a simple blues chord progression. Did Macca run out of creative ideas? I don't think so. I suppose he liked this simple section to reflect the simple pleasure of staying at home with his loved one. He doesn't want to DO anything, just BE there. What better way to express this?

Macca may have been inspired by Bob Dylan's "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You", which expresses a similar sentiment; and it has a long E7 chord to start-off with. You can midrash on the lyrics if you will: is it about a life in the Beatles, versus living & performing with Linda?

So there you have it. The BDJ singers cover Every Night, basically emulating Macca's version. Who could do better?

NB The picture shows Macca playing the long E chord.

"Temporary Secretary" is featured on the 1980 album McCartney II. It was released as a third single from the album only in a form of 12" single. McCartney claims that he viewed the song as an "experiment", somewhat influenced by Ian Dury.
It indeed showcases Macca's 'avant-garde' strand and may be Pauls attempt to outdo the Who's 'Won't get fooled again' in its repetitive synthesizer riff.
Macca played the song for the first time ever at the O2 Arena in London on May 23, 2015. This is the audience recordings of the June 7 concert in Amsterdam (which I attended).

Because the A Capella Isolation of Because is well known (it appeared on Love), we complete the catalogue with the instrumental isolation.

All you have to do, is go to your bathroom, and add a 4 part harmony to it.

Stu Sutcliffe provided the cover painting.

A demo of the obscure Charlie Dore song "Fear of Flying" recorded one day in 1979/1980 when Dore visited Harrison's house was rediscovered by Olivia Harrison while searching through George's archives, a section of which was used on the Jools Holland show on BBC Radio 2.

Olivia Harrison: "It's a demo, it's not embellished, it's just him, George, on an acoustic guitar. I don't know how he'd feel about it being played, but I think it's really sweet."

Written by the lady herself, backed by "Hula Valley" and produced by Bruce Welch and Alan Tarney for Island records, "Fear Of Flying" was Charlie's Dore's debut single. And it didn't fly!

She learned her lesson, or maybe her record buying public did, and her next release literally flew: "Pilot Of The Airwaves". The latter went on to become an enduring radio favourite, reaching #13 on the US Billboard Hot 100, earning Dore the Record World New Female Artist of the Year, an ASCAP award and charting in Canada, Australia and Europe.

George's demo is a great find.
But that was not enough for the BDJ team. Based on the fragment (ca 1 minute) of the acoustic demo, we recreated the complete song, as it would have sounded if George had finished it.

"Country Dreamer" is the B-side song to the single "Helen Wheels" released by Paul McCartney and Wings on 26 October 1973 in the UK and 12 November 1973 in the US.

It is a pleasant acoustic song, it was not on an LP at the time. It has since been included as bonus track on the CD re-issue of Band On The Run, so that completists can easily find it these days.

It was recorded in October 1972, and its country ambiance is similar to "Heart of the Country" from Paul McCartney's 1971 album Ram.

Unfortunately, it was produced similarly to Hellen Wheels, rather like a rock song, with sloppy double tracked vocals. Furthermore, Paul seems to have trouble singing in key, starting the song in a very low voice, shifting to a rock voice just above his range.

Fortunately, there is a 'home recording', of Paul demo-ing this song on acoustic guitar. It was apparently recorded during a photo-shoot, Linda is audible chatting away, and her Kodak makes distinctive clicks.

However, in a suitable arrangement, these intrusions can be easily overlooked. Hence, we added more guitars, piano, a trumpet, bass, drums and a fiddle; that's a real country atmosphere.

Once you've heard this production, you'll never go back to the Band on the Run version.

"Misery" was written for Helen Shapiro on 26 January 1963, and later completed at Paul McCartney's Forthlin Road home.

This is the official version of things, but wouldn't it be problematic for Helen Shapiro to sing "I'm the kind of guy who never used to cry"?

For this reason or another, Shapiro didn't use it and British singer and entertainer Kenny Lynch recorded it instead, thus becoming the first artist to cover a Lennon–McCartney composition. He had only a minor hit with it, though. Kenny Lynch's version of the song put a soulful spin on the pop song, which caused a little dissension from Lennon, mostly because of his utilizing the skills of British session guitarist Bert Weedon. The original first line of the song, as sung by Kenny Lynch, was “You’ve been treating me bad”, whereas, during the Beatles’ recording of the song, the line was changed to “The world is treating me bad.”

The Beatles recorded "Misery" on 11 February 1963 in 11 takes, the last take being used for the commercial release. For this upgrade, we used take 1 and take 7.

“Take One” of the song was complete and performed with great vocal enthusiasm. Ringo even puts in a little drum fill after the second verse which he dropped later. Already in place was the ending with John and Paul’s alternating “ooohs” and “la-la-las,” although they sounded fresher and more vibrant this first time around. The only fault in this take was George Harrison’s rhythmic guitar run in the bridges of the song, which weren’t in time.
Takes 2-5 were incomplete. Take 6 was complete but not used; George added guitar fills at the end of the verses, that George Martin probably didn't like. These fills were omitted in Take 7. Interestingly, George Harrison managed to play all kinds of fills when thy played Misery on various BBC sessions! Note also, Kenny Lynch's version has these guitar fills! And he has a - piano - solo too.

It is remarkable that the lyrics still changed during the recording session, since there is a change in the last verse somewhere between takes 1 and 7, the takes we used for this upgrade: in the second bridge. “Can’t she see she’ll always be the only one, only one” is replaced with “She’ll remember and she’ll miss her only one, lonely one”. Usually in Beatles songs, as well as the established song structure of the day, the bridge is identical when repeated. And Kenny Lynch's version has "Please come back to me" instead of 'Send her back to me".

Slight change in the outro too, where John sings Ooom instead of Oooh.

George Martin added piano to take 11 on February 20th, ending up with take 16. Thi is how it featured on the LP Please Please Me, and on the EP "The Beatles (No 1)", first issued 1 November 1963.

Takes 1 and 7 are otherwise very similar, so perfect material for this true stereo upgrade. See if you (too) like it better than the official release!

In the United States, Do You Want To Know a Secret was the first top ten song to feature Harrison as a lead singer, reaching number 2 on the Billboard chart in 1964 as a single released by Vee-Jay, VJ 587. The Beatles' version was never released as a single in the UK, where a cover version by Billy J. Kramer with the Dakotas hit number one in the NME chart.

Lennon said he based the song on Wishing Well, from Walt Disney's 1937 animated feature film Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs. Indeed, the opening lines of the lyrics are taken from this film song. However, the melody of DYWTKAS appears to owe more to "I Really Love You", a song released by The Stereos in 1961. This record, issued on Cub Records, a subsidiary of MGM Records, reached number 29 on the Billboard Top 40 chart. The lead singer on I Really Love You was Ronnie Collins. This song was covered by the le George Harrison in his 1982 studio album Gone Troppo, so indeed it appears to have been well known to the Beatles.

Lennon later said that he gave "Do You Want to Know a Secret" to Harrison to sing because "it only had three notes and he wasn't the best singer in the world". So George did pretty well with these 3 notes.....

The song was recorded during a ten-hour session on 11 February 1963 along with nine other songs for Please Please Me.

Take 8 was best — being a superimposition take of the harmony vocal and two drum sticks being tapped together (You can hear them from 1:09 to 1:20.), onto take six.

Here, we used take 7 and Take 8 to create a stunning true stereo version.

"From Me to You" was the first Beatles song to reach number one in Britain. "From Me to You" would be the first of eleven consecutive British number one singles by the Beatles.

The recording of From Me to You took place on 5 March 1963 at Abbey Road Studios and on 11 April Parlophone released "From Me to You" in the UK as a single.

The stereo version (recorded on two tracks) lacks the harmonica intro which was inserted into the mono version which was issued as a single, on the 1988 issue of Past Masters, the 1962–1966 CD reissue and the One compilation. The stereo version was included in the compilations A Collection of Beatles Oldies, the original LP issue of 1962–1966 and the 2009 reissue of Past Masters.

John and Paul wrote it on 28 February on the artistes' coach travelling down from York to Shrewsbury during a concert tour. McCartney remembers it was a leap forward in writing technique: "it was great, that middle eight was a very big departure for us. Say you're in C then go to A minor, fairly ordinary, C, change it to G. And then F, pretty ordinary, but then it goes [sings] "I got arms" and that's a G Minor. Going to G Minor and a C takes you to a whole new world."

So that explains it.......

'From Me To You' was recorded in seven takes, then six additional edit piece takes were done, featuring harmonica, the guitar solo and the harmonised introduction.

For the 'Golden Oldies' album of 1966, several songs were remixed in stereo, but From Me To You was never done. The album's stereo mix of this song is simply the original two-track tape, rhythm on the left channel, vocals on the right. The mono single and stereo LP versions differ, the mono being the only one to have harmonica in the introduction. This was because the single included a harmonica edit piece which was overlooked during the preparation of this album. The 14 March 1963 stereo mix of `From Me To You' had already been scrapped.

So there's the challenge, to produce a satisfying true stereo remix of the epic From Me to You.

In this remix, we used takes 1,2, 5 and an edit piece (the harmonica solo). The Beatles intended the song to open with a guitar solo, so we did not replace it with an edit piece harmonica intro.

It is time for the BDJ Christmas special. We continue the tradition of setting a gospel to (Beatles) music.

In previous festive seasons we released musical version of the gospels of Matthew (http://bdj.podomatic.com/entry/2010-12-11T08_26_46-08_00), Luke (]http://bdj.podomatic.com/entry/2010-12-19T07_00_16-08_00), the infancy gospels of Thomas (http://bdj.podomatic.com/entry/2011-12-09T11_37_24-08_00) and Syriac (http://bdj.podomatic.com/entry/2012-12-11T15_00_00-08_00), and Morgan Freeman (http://bdj.podomatic.com/entry/2013-01-12T11_35_38-08_00).

Now we come to the gospel of The Way of Cross and Dragon. This text surfaced recently and scholars like George Martin date it to the 22nd century, or slightly later. The text describes the life of Judas Iscariot, and revises his place in Christianity. The text describes how Iscariot mastered the dark arts to become a tamer of dragons and the ruler of a great empire. St. Peter suppressed the truth about Judas, vilifying his name and exploits. Seeking redemption for his wrath, Iscariot became the thousand-year-old Wandering Jew.

An interesting view of the nature and limitations of religious faith for sure, more than enough reason to set it to music.

A moggy xmas everyone!

A nice quick mash-up of two percussion driven tracks. I Can Bet is form Macca's latest, "NEW", and One Night in Bangkok features in the musical Chess, of course.

From McCartney's latest album, "NEW", just out, this remix of I Can Bet. A throwaway album filler to my ears, but makes for a nice sing along.

Friday 10 January 1969: The Beatles were at Twickenham Film Studios. After breaking for lunch, however, George Harrison walked out of the studio. The remaining three Beatles carried on rehearsing without Harrison. Lennon sang Maxwell's Silver Hammer in an exaggerated German accent. Here, we remixed this take with the backing of the Abbey Road version, recorded 6 months later.

The song was written in October 1968, intended for the album The Beatles, but missed off due to time constraints. Lennon described it as "more of Paul's granny music", adding later " I hate it. 'Cuz all I remember is the track - he made us do it a hundred million times. He did everything to make it into a single and it never was and it never could've been, but he put guitar licks on it and he had somebody hitting iron pieces and we spent more money on that song than any of them in the whole album."

Would Lennon's version have fared better than Macca's?

"Commonwealth" was recorded January 9, 1969, at Twickenham Film Studios, London, England, during the "Get Back/Let It Be" rehearsals.

The lyrics are improvised, as well as the instrumentation, with Paul McCartney ad-libbing on lead vocals, and John Lennon ad-libbing a backing vocal ("yes"). It was never officially released on either a solo Beatle album or as a cover version. The session was captured on film as well, showing how Lennon enjoyed himself, sitting on an amp with Yoko Ono. The film shows that Harrison was did not play on this take, but was discussing with an engineer.

The lyrics mention (Harold) Wilson and (Ted) Heath, who were prime ministers around this time. The focus appears to be on Cabinet minister Enoch Powell, who had delivered his anti-immigrant “Rivers of Blood” speech the previous year, which dealt mainly with Pakistani immigration.
As the song continues, John and Paul touch on Britain’s entry into the European Common Market, which had been denied in late 1968, making a pun out of the phrase “common market.”

Race issues evidently played on McCartney's mind during the Get Back sessions. This theme also occurred in the early lyrics of Get Back, which were not used and replaced by the story of Jo Jo and Loretta Martin in the released version of Get Back. There is only one take of "Commonwealth", indicating that it served to relieve the tedium and depression the Beatles were in, in the early days of January.

It is interesting to hear the Lennon-McCartney composer team in action; On the fly, Lennon changes McCartney's "you're much to wealthy for me' into "you're much too common for me", which is indeed a more powerful lyric.

The songs itself sits somewhere between Get Back and the Ballad of John and Yoko; perhaps could have been released, if they had cleaned up the lyrics and spent some effort on a middle-eight.......
In the beginning, the chord scheme is quite unstable, later on, it becomes more like a regular blues scheme.

Listening to this remix, I feel ever more strongly that Paul's Commonwealth served as 'inspiration' for John's Ballad of John and Yoko. Not just the chords, but also the lyrics share a lot: travel to different countries, names of actual people, returning to England etc. So, after all, The Ballad IS correctly registered as a Lennon/McCartney composition !

This remix was first released on IT IS TO LAFF 3, still available at:

http://www.groovytimewithdjuseo.blogspot.com/2013/06/it-is-to-laff-3-funny-mashups.html

Working Class Hero" was released on John Lennon's first post-Beatles solo album, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. He set the song to the same folk-blues acoustic guitar pattern Bob Dylan had used for his 1964 song "Ballad of Hollis Brown". of interest is the rhythm of the song; in typical Lennon fashion, the rhythm is quite complex, alternating between 12/8 and 7/8; just try 'counting' along.....

John Lennon rehearsed this song with Elephant's Memory for the One to One concert at Madison Square Garden in August, 1972. On the track are:
Jim Keltner – drums
Wayne 'Tex' Gabriel – lead guitar
Gary Van Scyoc – bass guitar
John Ward – bass guitar
Stan Bronstein – saxophone
Adam Ippolito – keyboards
Richard Frank Jr. – drums

They didn't end up performing the song at the show, making this rehearsal version quite special; I never heard it before, not on John's Anthology set, not even a snippet on the Lost Lennon Tapes.

These concerts in New York City were Lennon's only rehearsed and full-length live performances in his solo career, and his first – and last – formal, full-fledged live concerts since the Beatles retired from the road in 1966. Lennon never mounted a tour during his post-Beatles career. The concerts also marked the last time he performed live with Ono, as also with Elephant's Memory.

Thanks to Chris Carter of Breakfast with the Beatles for playing this rarity on his April 28, 2013 show. I've re-sequenced and produced the track to make it sound more palpable. Lennon starts out singing quite well, but seems to lose patience halfway through, falling back on shouts and screams to create some excitement. Still, could have ben a haunting perfomance if they had given it more attention and rehearsal time.

"While My Guitar Gently Weeps" was written by George Harrison, first recorded by the Beatles in 1968 for The White Album. The song features Harrison on his J-200 acoustic guitar (the one Dylan holds on the cover Nashville Skyline?) and - possibly his Fender Telecaster. Lead guitar is by Eric Clapton on his Gibson Les Paul, nick-named 'Lucy'.

Harrsion acquired Lucy from Clapton in August 1968, so Clapton 'borrowed' his old guitar to record WMGGW in September. Lucy shipped from the Gibson factory on December 19th 1957; at some point, it came in the posesssion of John Sebastian (Loving Spoonful), who sold it to Derringer (McCoys, Steely Dan).
Derringer had it painted red, didn't like it red, and traded it in a Manhatten guitar shop. There, Eric Clapton bought it.
Later, Harrison gave it to Pete Ham (Badfinger) and Lucy travelled a bit, but is now back in the Harrison estate.

Paul McCartney exceptionally plays a Fender Jazz Bass. Lennon may have played piano and guitar.

This provides a sound scape that is unique in the Beatles catalogue. This instrumental remix demonstrates how Clapton (playing Lucy) takes command of the song, both in the 'rythm' guitar performances, as well as in the legendary solo. McCartney seems bent on not giving in to Clapton, by playing his ultraheavy Fender bass and really making the max of it. Note that Lennon doubles the interesting bass riff during the 'middle eight' here; in subsequent solo/Harrison performancs of the song, Harrison did not include this riff anymore. Reminded him of McCartney ?

(and for the truly interested: Gibson now make a 'Lucy' Les Paul, sold for around $15000.........)

if you want so see how Clapton did I, then watch this excellent cover by the Analogues: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_8ZvdIAR2Y

Beware of Darkness was written by George Harrison and originally released on his 1970 solo album All Things Must Pass.

The melody of "Beware of Darkness" is complex and original.The melody of the verses incorporates a pedal point on the key of G major and moves to G sharp minor, an unusal progression, very much the essence of "Harrisongs".

The nearly chromatic melody of the verses contrasts with a more standard rock melody in the middle eight.

Musicians on the song include Harrison, Eric Clapton and Dave Mason on guitar, Carl Radle on bass guitar, Bobby Whitlock on piano, Gary Wright on organ and Ringo Starr on drums.

With such a chord progression, and personnel to match, who needs vocals ? Not BDJ, who remixed the (almost) isolated instrumenrts into this new remix.

9 Dream" was written by John Lennon and first issued on his 1974 album Walls and Bridges. It was released as the second single from that album months later.

Lennon liked the string arrangement he wrote for Harry Nilsson's rendition of "Many Rivers to Cross" from the album Pussy Cats so much that he decided to incorporate it into the song.

Here, we isolated the instrumental of the song, enhancing the string section. Sing along, y'all !

There are numerous gospels, and only 4 have been included in the Bible. We have already set 2'Bible' gospels to music in The Cellar, and 2 ancient 'other' gospels.

This is the most recent gospel, in fact it is only a few days old !

A great void in the early life of Jesus is filled up by The Syriac Infancy Gospel (also called Arabic Gospel of the Infancy of the Savior (AGIS)), dating from the 4-5th century. In none of the gospels in the New Testament is any mention made of the childhood of Jesus. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, more rapidly than satisfactorily, pass over the period intervening between His birth and ministry.

The non-canonical Infancy Gospel of Thomas tells about the deeds of Jesus in his early childoood, and is set to music in BDJ's cellar here (http://bdj.podomatic.com/entry/2011-12-09T11_37_24-08_00). We think it likely that AGIS refers to a combination of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of James when it speaks about the 'Gospel of the Infancy'. The Gospel of James provides much of the details of the nativity scenes and Mary's deeds.

The Gospel of Perfection is mentioned as well, but is not extant today. Judging by the text of the AGIS, its authors probably used a 'Gospel of Perfection' that harmonised the gospels of Matthew and Luke (both set to music in BDJ's Cellar), since we find no traces of Mark or John.

Although the AGIS was not included in the new testament, it remained a popular text throughout the ages and continues to exert its influence. The stories about Jesus in Egypt inspired artists into the Middle-ages and are represented in numerous paintings. The veneration of Mary could aslo find its roots in this text.

Obviously, there is so much to say about AGIS that surpasses the scope of this text in BDJ's Cellar. However, we couldn't resist to make a few observations to make your listening even more enjoyable, without pretending to be particularly knowledgeable in this domain, of course !

A) Remarkable clarifications of the gospels in The Arabic Gospel of the Infancy of the Savior (AGIS):

1) In the AGIS, Caiphas relates that Jesus, when in his cradle, informed his mother that he was the Son of God. Joseph, son of Caiaphas, in the New Testament, was the Roman-appointed Jewish high priest who is said to have organized the plot to kill Jesus. Here, we learn details of the accusation that Caiphas made against Jesus, namely that he claimed to be the son of God. The gospel of Matthew tells us that Jesus did neither confim or deny this accusation during his trial: this silence may have troubled early Christians; why didn't Jesus comfirm in public that he was the Son of God ? In a brillant turn of events in the AGIS, the claim is rendered true by Caiphas stating that these words were actually spoken by the baby Jesus ! Let's not ponder too much that Caiphas was only appointed as high priest around 20 years after Jesus was born.......

2) the Nativity: Where was Jesus born ?

The gospels of Luke and Matthew speak about the Nativity, Mark and John are silent. They both agree with AGIS that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but the 3 disagree on the excact location.

Overall, the AGIS seems to lean more on Luke than Matthew in the circumstances of Jesus' birth, but there are significant differences:

a) In Luke, Mary gives birth to Jesus and, having found no place for themselves in the inn, places the newborn in a manger. Later tradition places the manger in a stable, but perhaps this was not the case in these days, when animals were kept inside the houses. It is interesting that the Gospel of James gives a reason for which Mary wrapped Jesus in swaddling cloths and put him in a manger: to hide him from the child-murderers sent by Herod.

b) In Matthew, Joseph and Mary are in a house in Bethlehem when the 'wise men' come to visit them.

c) According to the AGIS, Jesus was born in a cave near Bethlehem. It is somewhat surprising that the AGIS dares to deviate so strongly with Luke and Matthew. AGIS follows the Gospel of James, which says that Joseph chose a cave and did not enter the city, since he was ashamed that Mary (whom he had just married) was 9 months pregnant. I suppose the author understood that Jesus was bron in a cave, and that Joseph and Mary later lived in a house by the time the wise men came and Herod sent his murderers out to kill all 2-year old boys.

3) When was Jesus born ? AGIS mentions "In the three hundred and ninth year of the era of Alexander". This is remarkable on 2 accounts:

why count years based on the era of Alexander ? The known world belonged to the Roman empire, Alexander's empire was long gone. I assume therefore that the author of the AGIS lived in area of the Roman empire that used be at the core of Alexander's empire. This clearly sets it apart from the Christian tradition in Rome itself, whose doctrines eventually (in the fourth century) prevailed over the traditions of the eastern churches.
the date is nowhere near the date we base on Luke and Matthew (who differ by a decade or so amongst themselves). This inaccuracy may also be caused by the 'provincial' rather than Roman background of the author, who apparently could not match the Roman calendar with the Greek tradition.

4) Circumcision: In Luke, Mary and Joseph take Jesus to Jerusalem to be circumcised, before returning to their home in Nazareth. This story is expanded in AGIS by the recounting that the foreskin was placed in a box; the AGIS says that this is the box that Mary used when she annointed Jesus. Foreskin relics began appearing in Europe during the Middle Ages. The earliest recorded sighting came on December 25, 800, when Charlemagne gave it to Pope Leo III when the latter crowned the former Emperor. The Pope placed it into the Sanctum sanctorum in the Lateran basilica in Rome with other relics.
In addition to the Holy Foreskin in Rome, other claimants included the Cathedral of Le Puy-en-Velay, Santiago de Compostela, the city of Antwerp, Coulombs in the diocese of Chartres, France as well as Chartres itself, and churches in Besançon, Newport, Metz, Hildesheim, Charroux, Conques, Langres, Fécamp, Puy-en-Velay, Stoke on Trent, Calcata, and two in Auvergne.

5) Women: the AGIS appears to be populated by strong and/or virtuous women. This already starts at the birth of Christ, where Mary is elevated to almost divine stature :" As there is not any child like to my son, so neither is there any woman like to his mother". We may very well take this to be the motto of much of the remainder of the AGIS. It is Mary who makes all decisions (Joseph has no say in any matter), Mary decides to save people, Mary conducts miracles using Jesus' sweat or swaddling clothes. Actually, the men make a rather pathetic or comic impression: some are turned into mules, others are impotent on their wedding day, Satan flees in the form of young man. Could the AGIS have been written by a woman ?

6) Magic. The four Gospels record many examples of Christ’s magic during his wanderings, noting that he performed 6 exorcisms, 17 healings, and 8 nature miracles. Jesus never touched individuals who were possessed by demons, driving them out with gestures and authoritative commands. He did, however, touch those who were suffering from illness.

Magic is even more widespread in the AGIS, and taken very seriously; it is not only seen as an aspect of religion, it is a part of everyday life. Magicians, sorcerers, prophets, demons, even Satan appear everywhere.

It is a matter of perspective whether we label events as 'miracles' or 'magic'. To modern readers, miracles are acceptable and magic is seen as a form of superstition; in early Chritianity, that distinction was apparently not made. The exampes of magic / miracles are too numerous to mention all. Some themes may be distilled from the AGIS:

use of relics of Jesus having magic powers: this is already seen at the start, where Jesus' swaddling clothes are recognised by Mary as important relics.

Luke says that an angel tells some shepherds that they will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger; the AGIS also speaks about these bands of cloth and assigns magical powers to them. It is not Mary who performs these miracles, the powere are clearly vested in te cloth itself: The AGIS tells us what happened to the wise men when they returned to their own country; they came to the east (obviously a pagan area) and Jesus' cloth performed miracles there to aid conversion of those countries to Christianity.

the miracles performed by sprinkling water: well known in Christian rites, the AGIS appears to suggest that is derived from sprinkling water used to wash Jesus, thus containing his sweat.
excorcisms are used to cure mental disorders. Several of those disorders appear to have a sexual component, such as the impotent bridegroom, the bride who goes dumb at her wedding, the woman roaming the streets naked - throwing stones at men -, another woman is visited by a snake (who 'lies upon her') every night etc. Perhaps Freud was right after all ? In AGIS, the demons and Satan are described in vivid detail (crows, serpents, dragons etc.). The New Testament Gospels never depict demons in any form.

7) The Egypt connection.
The middle section of the AGIS deals with the events in Egypt, and Mary (with Jesus) performs many miracls there, defeats idols and demons. This is much more information than we find in the four Gospels: only Matthew mentions the stay in Egypt, but Matthew gives little detail about Jesus' family's time there.

One of the more common accusations against early christians was that Christ had spent time in Egypt where he gained knowledge of Egyptian magical practices. The attempt to discredit this accusation, may explain why the story of Jesus’ flight to Egypt occurs only in the gospel of Matthew. Matthew thus admits that Jesus had gone to Egypt but had done so as an infant, making the charge that he had learned Egyptian magic there unlikely.

The AGIS paints a different picture, and Jesus appears to have stayed in Egypt for a considerable time, several years at least. Even after recounting a number of miracles in various cities, the AGIS says that they journeyed to Memphis (in Egypt), "and abode three years in Egypt", before returning to Judea. We can now say that Jesus must have been at least 5 years old when he left Egypt: Herod killed all boys younger than 2 years after meeting with the wise men form the east. Hence, Jesus may have been 2 years old when he was taken to Egypt, then stayed there for at least 3 years.

The last section of AGIS, the infancy story (where Jesus acts himself, rather than Mary being the central figure), mentions that Jesus was seven years old. Hence, we can say on the basis of the AGIS that Jesus was between 3 and 5 years in Egypt. Since he could already speak upon his birth, he may well have picked up Egyptian traditions at 5 - 7 years old !

It can be speculated that the stay in Egypt actually was known by the earliest Christians; why would Matthew mention such an embarrising episode, if it wasn't already common knowledge ? In fact, within the period of Christ’s lifetime, history has left us several historical examples of the magicians of northern Israel, including a man known only as “the Egyptian,” who gathered several thousand followers at the Mount of Olives in expectation of the Messiah’s arrival before being arrested by the Romans.

The influence of Egyptian magic upon Christianity is - in any case - seen in early Christianity when Christian “holy men” performed some of the same magical feats as Egyptian magicians but in the name of Christ. Early texts note events strikingly similar to those in the AGIS, could they have followed the example ? Macarius changed a woman who had been turned into a mare back again by sprinkling holy water upon her: compare with the man turned into a mule. Paul the Simple, an early monk, was said to have cast out a devil that had taken the form of a “mighty dragon 70 cubits long.” Compare with the girl persecuted by a dragon. And one Petarpemotis was said to have made a dead man speak. Compare Jesus making the boy speak who had fallen from the roof.

8) Early adulthood (12-30 years old). The four Gospels are silent about the first 12 years of Christ’s life. After his birth we do not encounter him again until he is found, as Luke says, “teaching in the synagogue” at 12 years of age. In the modern era we are used to thinking of a 12-year-old as still very much of a child. But in antiquity a 12-year-old was already an adult. It was the age at which a boy was permitted full participation in Jewish religious rituals. The story in AGIS follows Luke's acccount and expands on it: Jesus was not only a religious leader, he was also a scientist, philosopher and medical doctor. Nowadays, science is often contrasted with religion; the AGIS considers both to be of the same nature.

Was PSY inspired by Hold Me Tight when he composed Gangnam Style ?
Probably not, but it is not impossible........

"It's So Hard" is still one of the tracks of Imagine from which just 1 alternate take exists : a take without the saxophone of King Curtis.
Lennon and Curtis probably met around the Shea stadium concert, where Curtis was one of the warm-up acts, and Lennon called him in for this track.
On Imagine, the saxophone is mostly buried in the mix.
In the outtakes, we can hear King Curtis riffing away. Since it's a warmup, some King Curtis riffing are more "free stile", ad-lib than the official version.
For this mix, we synced Curtis' riffing with Take 2 (not on Imagine).
Many thanks to Rupert Pupkin, who came up with this idea !

On June 24th 2012, Muhammad Mosry was elected president of Egypt. Earlier, on May 1st, Egyptian cleric Safwat Higazi introduced this Muslim Brotherhood Presidential Candidate to his followers.

Before Mosry took the stage, Higazi outlined his polcies, which I translate here (repeat each sentence multiple times):

"The dream of the Islamic Caliphate is being realised thanks to Mosry and his Muslim brothers. Our great dream, the United States of Arabia, will be restored, Allah willing.

The capital of the united states of the Arabs, will be Jerusalem, Allah willing.

Mursi will liberate Gaza tomorrow.

Say: Allah Akhbar !

Our capital will not be Mecca or Medina, but Jerusalem.

Our cry shall be : Millions of martyrs march towards Jerusalem.

Banish the sleep from the eyes of the Jews. Come on, you lovers of martyrdom, you are all Hamas.

Forget about the whole world, forget about all the conferences.

Brandish your weapons, say your prayers, and pray to the Lord.

We say it load and clear: Jerusalem is our goal. We shall pray in Jerusalem, or die as martyrs on its treshold.

Millions of martyrs march towards Jerusalem."

Draw your own conclusions about the Arab spring. Music is "Fresh Air" by Jan Akkerman, performed in 1972, when the world looked a lot brighter than today.

This is the latest - and probably last - installment of our effort to set Lennon's poetry to music. The National Health Cow is one of Lennon's best known poems, at least two recordings of him reading it survive.

The NHC features in A Spaniard in the Works, a book from 1965 by John Lennon. The book consists of nonsensical stories and drawings similar to the style of his previous book, 1964's In His Own Write.

The poem follows a pattern that is found in many of Lwennon poems; a creature is described (sometimes animal, sometimes fanatsy-like), which appears to be friendly and harmless. There is some talk with the creature, and then te poem ends in a burst of violence, resulting in the death or departure of the creature.

What does it all mean ? One thing we know is that Lennon was traumatised bu the sudden death of his mother (in a car accident). We also know that -as a young boy - Lennon owned, and loved, a pet dog. His aunt Mimi suddenly took his dog away. These two events combined go a long way to explain these poems, but - of course- we'll never know for sure.

The Luck Of The Irish was inspired by a protest march in London that Lennon attended in August 1971. He began writing the song three months after.

This remix is based on an acetate of an uknown take, recorded towards end 1971.
Nice melody, but lyrics are way over the top.

Written about the prison riot of September 1971 in which at least 39 people died, Attica State was included on John Lennon and Yoko Ono's album Some Time In New York City and released in June 1972.

The song was composed on 9 October 1971, John Lennon's 31st birthday. That night a party and jam session took place at a Syracuse hotel room. Lennon and Ono were joined by Klaus Voormann, Allen Ginsberg, Jim Keltner, Mal Evans, Neil Aspinall, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr and others.

A series of demo takes were recorded on 12 November 1971. The first two takes broke down, but the third reveals how Lennon and Ono alternated lines during the verses and joined together for the chorus. The source of this stereo remix is a - mono - acetate of (probably) this Take 3, or (possibly) another session.

The melody has some nursery rhyme like charm, chord changes are simple, and the lyrics are poor. What do you expect from a drunken Ono-Lennon composition ?

"Not a Second Time" is a song by John Lennon performed by The Beatles on their second United Kingdom album, With The Beatles. Lennon said he was "trying to write a Smokey Robinson or something at the time.The song was recorded in nine takes on 11 September 1963.

Robert Palmer covered the song, and I heard him (Robert...) play it Live in Amsterdam in 1980-something. Sweet memories !
Here's Robert's arrangement, with John's vocals.

"Here Comes the Sun" is a song by George Harrison from The Beatles' 1969 album Abbey Road.

Harrison, McCartney and Starr recorded the rhythm track in 13 takes on 7 July 1969. The following day he taped his lead vocals, and he and McCartney recorded their backing vocals twice to give a fuller sound.

A harmonium and handclaps were added on 16 July. Harrison added an electric guitar run through a Leslie speaker on 6 August, and the orchestral parts (Martin's score for two piccolos, two flutes, two alto flutes and two clarinets) were added on 15 August. "Here Comes the Sun" was completed four days later with the addition of Harrison's Moog synthesizer part.

The master tapes reveal that Harrison recorded a guitar solo that was not included in the final mix. The solo was 'lost' for more than 40 years.

Dhani Harrison, the son of George visited Abbey Road studio with long-time Beatles producer George Martin and his son, Giles to film a documentary on George. Sitting at the Abbey Road console, he stumbled upon the lost solo from his father’s ballad.
Taking the sound track of the BBC documentary "Living In The Material World", BDJ studios recreated Here Comes the Sun with the solo included. Furthermore, the string arrangement is emphasized in this remix. Now, listen to a track that even Anthology could not produce !

All Things Must Pass is a triple album by George Harrison, recorded and released in 1970, the first solo work from him since the break-up of The Beatles in April that year. Johnny's Birthday was recorded in August 1970 with Ringo Starr and presented to John Lennon on his 30th birthday. (Based upon “Congratulations” - Bill Martin/Phil Coulter, new lyrics by Mal Evans, Harrison, Eddie Klein).

On the record, the tape speed is constantly varied, sresulting in shifting pitch and tempo (probaly to avoid infringing on the copyright of Congartulations). Heer we have painstakingly re-corrected the tape speed, to recreate the original song. Now you can actually hear Ringo sing !
This track is also featured on Tuned to a Natural E 7.

Lennon made it no secret that many (all?) of his songs were inspired by music he hard heard. This goes for the riff of I Feel Fine, the intro of Instant Karma, Come Together... and for most of Happy Xmas. Here, the inspiration derives from Stewball, an English traditional. Stewball was perfomed by man artists (such as The Greenbriar Boys, Lonnie Donnegan, Peter, Paul & Mary, Woody Guthrie), but the version by the Hollies (1968) appears to be the one for Lennon. Here's a mash-up of those 2 versions.

“I Need You” was recorded on February 15th at EMI Studio Two. Both George and John played acoustic guitar, Paul played bass and Ringo played drums. Five takes of the song were recorded before everyone was satisfied, “take five” being deemed as best. This ended the night at 10:30.

The next day, February 16th, 1965, they recorded all of the overdubs to “I Need You.” First on the agenda was for George to record his lead vocals and then double-track them. The double-tracked take also included Paul harmonizing with George on the last phrase of each verse, which usually was the phrase “I need you.” However, at the end of the second verse, the words were “you told me,” which Paul hesitated on, no doubt, because he was unsure of what the words were. John and Paul then overdubbed background "aahs" during parts of the verses as well as the bridges.

Another important overdub occurred next, which was George’s lead guitar work throughout the song. He used a foot-controlled tone pedal which was hooked up to the volume of the guitar. (This devise would be more commonly used as a wah-wah pedal very soon afterward by various artists.) Finally, Ringo tapped out a beat on a cowbell during the bridges.

Seeing all this effort spent on "I Need You", it is disappointing to hear how poor the finished track sounds. George sings off-key in several places, the Aah's of Paul and John sound as if they were very tired, there are no typical George fills etc. And there's no guitar solo (while George could play them so well).

I ascribe this lacklustre production to George Martin, who - I suspect - focussed on the Lennon-McCartney songs (who produced the hit singles) and dedicated a minimum effort to the second Harrisong ever recorded.

Room for improvement: added strings and horns to the backing track, slowed the whole thing down a bit, re-pitched the vocals. And added a BDJ solo, recorded in 2 takes, Take 2 being deemed 'best'.

Another installment of the BDJ Upgrade series. A new version, produced from the stereo and mono tracks of the Remasters. Instead of the orginal vocals-right/backing left stereo, we now have a balanced stereo spectrum + a bass line with real oomph !

In 2010, BDJ's Cellar presented 2 special Christmas Podcasts; one based on the Nativity story in the Gospel of Matthew, the other on Nativity according to the gospel of Luke.

This left us in a predicament for 2011: the other 2 gospels in the Bible (Mark and John) don't speak about the birth of Jesus, so we ran out of Nativity stories. Or did we ? For 2011, we resorted to ancient texts, which were - for good or bad reasons - not included in the Bible. Nonetheless, these texts originate from the earliest days of Christianity.

The earliest of these gospels, is the so called Infancy Gospel of Thomas; just what we need for a Christmas Podcast !

The Infancy Gospel of Thomas was written by the early Christians to document the first twelve years of Jesus's life, bridging the gap left in the second chapter of Luke. The story was popular enough to survive in numerous translations, redactions, and parallel stories, for more than a thousand years. The text may even have influenced the authors of the Koran.

In the early passages of the story, Jesus shows a disturbing tendency to kill off his playmates when they displease him. He eventually learns to channel his divine abilities in more constructive ways and realizes his calling.

So why was this gospel not accepted by the Christian Church Fathers ? To modern readers, it appears to be a simplified, shortened version of the gospels that we know from the Bible; some similarities of 'Thomas' with Mark, Matthew and Luke:

Jesus can do anything, and knows everything. Performs miracles in public.
Jesus has full control over life and death, raises the dead on various occasions.
People around Jesus don't really understand who he is, or what he stands for.
Jesus does not comply strictly with all Jewish rituals.
Jesus seems less concerned with the Here & Now, but more about the spiritual life (right and wrong)
His mother Mary does not play a significant role in his life.
and so on.

I suppose the Church Fathers were not so much concerend with matching the gospels, but more about the Infancy Gospel not matching the dogma's that the church fathers themselves developed in the early days of the church. And they may have wanted to dodge a difficult question: if Jesus did all these things as a child, why don't Mark, Matthew and Luke speak about them ?

Frankly speaking, in the Bible or not, these are captivating and amusing stories from the Early Days; never set to music of any kind before, BDJ's cellar is proud tho present this world premiere Podcast.

Text: Thomas the Isrealite.
Narrator: Bart D. Ehrman: American New Testament scholar, currently the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Music: George Harrison, the Beatles, Julian Lennon
Production: BDJ

I still find JFK an inspirational speaker. Listening to his inaugurational speech, delivered on the steps of a snow covered Capitol, it struck me that his words appear to be so relevant to the world of today; the overthrow of (mostly secular) dictators in the Arab world, to be replaced by ? We don't know yet, but could very well be military or religious dictatorships. But as JFK says; "those who ride the back of the tiger, often end up inside !".

Victor van Kampen is a guitar virtuoso, now living in the Netherlands.
Vic released a number of CD's (go out and buy'em !), but is yet to make the big time. He's about my age, so he should get a move on...

Hence this plug: Vic plays the Beatles, I believe these tracks unreleased so far. Did some mastering and fussing about, that's all.

Vic not has great technique and tone, he also makes the songs his own.

Track listing:

I Feel Fine; I'll Follow The Sun; Blackbird; Here There and Everywhere; And I Love Her; Help!; In My Life; Day Tripper; Michelle; Penny Lane; A Day In The Life.

In the summer of 1966, the Beatles scored a No 1 with a double A-side single. On one side was "Yellow Submarine", and on the other there was "Eleanor Rigby", a sombre song with string backing about lonely people. It featured Eleanor Rigby, who sat by the window, and Father McKenzie, who may or may not have been the priest who officiated at her funeral, to which nobody came.

Paul claimed that he had originally considered calling her Daisy Hawkins, although it is difficult to see how "Daisy" could have been made to fit the song's meticulous scansion, in which two unstressed syllables follow each stressed syllable, except at the end of a line.

He then syas that hetook the name "Eleanor" from Eleanor Bron, who starred with the Beatles in the film Help!, and "Rigby" from the Bristol wine merchants, Rigby & Evens. But in the 1980s, a grave was discovered in St Peter's Church, Woolton, Liverpool, where McCartney and Lennon went sunbathing as teenagers, bearing the name Eleanor Rigby. nother gravestone had the word "McKenzie" sprawled on it.

But who was the lonely person who picked up the rice in a church where a wedding had been really ?

Paul stated on various occasions that the original lyrics featured a 'father McCartney'; he changed these to 'father McKenzie' since he did not want people to think it was about his father. But was it ?

If the orginal lyrics were indeed about his father (McCartney), then whom would 'Eleanor Rigby' have referred to in the very first conception of the lyrics ? Could this have been 'mother McCartney', or - more likely - Mary McCartney (Paul's mother's name) ? Both fit the the rythm of the song much better than 'Daisy Hawkins' !

The lyrics were put together among The Beatles and friends (Pete Shotton), so we shouldn't expect to extract too much relevance concerning Paul in them. In later years, Lennon claimed that he suggested most of the words, but this appears unlikely, apart from the chorus.

McCartney used a string octet of studio musicians, composed of four violins, two cellos, and two violas, all performing a score composed by George Martin.The octet was recorded on 28 April 1966, in Studio 2 at Abbey Road Studios and completed in Studio 3 on 29 April and on 6 June. Tantalisingly, the string quartet was recoreded (close - miked) on all four tracks of the EMI machine. Imagine if we had those ttracks to mix with !

The original stereo mix has Paul's voice only in the right channel during the verses, with the string octet mixed to one channel, while the mono single and mono LP featured a more balanced mix. In my ears, the stereo mix from June '66 was bungled: the stereo string quartet is further bounced into a mono track (in the middle of the stereo field), and lead vocals are on the extreme right, but sometimes seem to wander. The chorus features true stereo vocals on 2 occasions, but a 'fake' sounding stero in another case.

Perhaps even George Martin was unhappy with the stereo version, when stereo became the norm instead of the mono versions. A complete remix was done for the Love release, boasting a stereo string quartet and centred vocals; unfortunately, the song fades in and out of other tracks in Love.

Another remix ws made for the 1999 re-release of the Yellow Submarine movie. Again a decent stereo landscape, but here the vocals sound slightly out of sync....

So, there appears to be room for a definitive remix of Eleanor Rigby: fixing the stereo image, including a/o a stereo string quartet & true stereo vocals in the chorus throughout.

George Martin, in his autobiography All You Need Is Ears, takes credit for combining two of the vocal parts, having noticed that they would work together contrapuntally. I didn't like it, so created a more suitable ending. Re-did the intro as well, while I was on it.......

A nice instrumental track of "Oo You" appears on the new "McCartney" Deluxe as a bonus track. This instrumental track is called "Don't Cry Baby" on it; im the blurbs, it is labelled as an 'outtake', why is a mystery.

Anyway, it is rather simple and straightforward, so we did a little mash-up. Oo You is based on a guitar riff,, much like several of Lennon's songs (I Feel Fine, Day Tripper etc.). Hence, we selected a Lennon song, from roughly the same era as Oo You.

This song was recorded on 11 February 1963 in ten takes. There's a Place was first released as a track on Please Please Me. It's release in the US came a year later on the legendary Vee-Jay album “Introducing…The Beatles,” released on January 6th, 1964. The second US release was as a single, which wasn’t released in Britain, as the flip side to “Twist And Shout.” This single was released on the newly formed Vee-Jay subsidiary Tollie Records in late February of 1964 as a way to capitalize on their performing “Twist And Shout” on the Ed Sullivan Show on February 23rd, 1964. Although its’ A-side reached number two on the Billboard charts, “There’s A Place” charted at number 74 for the week of April 11th, 1964.

The third US release of the song occurred in August of 1964 with the re-release of the Tollie single on the Vee Jay “Oldies 45” label. The fourth release was on the Vee Jay double-album “The Beatles vs. The Four Seasons”, released on October 1st, 1964, which coupled the “Introducing…The Beatles” album with “The Golden Hits of the Four Seasons”. The fifth appearance came less than two weeks later with another repackage of the Vee Jay album under the name “Songs, Pictures And Stories Of The Fabulous Beatles”, released on October 12th, 1964. Then, it became silent and the song was not available in album form for the next 16 years........

The vocals use some complex harmonies, and there was a harmonica intro. There's the usual outrageous composition by Lennon, the verse being an unusual 15 measures long, and the bridge an unusual 10. Goes to show that the Fab 4 put considerable effort in this song. It was the first song they recorded for the LP, so they probably saw it having great - hit - potential. In the end, it ended up in a very unflattering position on the album; next to last on side two. They apparently lost interest in the song quickly thereafter. They did not perform the song during any other their national tours of 1963, nor is there any documentation of them performing the song at any other live performance apart from 3 BBC shows.

The lyrics are pretty serious for those 'Yeah yeah' times, and deal with the struggles of Lennon with Life in general. It is the earliest expression of a feeling that Lennon would use many times, which goes something like: "it's all about me (Lennon) and the world hates me"....

On Please Please Me, it was recorded in the famous Martin vocals-left/instruments-right stereo mode.

Here, we present a true stereo version, compiled from 2 different takes. This really brings out the vocal harmonies: Paul takes the lead for most of the verse sections with John singing in harmony below him. At the end of the first and third verses, Paul suddenly drops out leaving John briefly exposed by himself on lead ('when I'm alone!"), and at the end of the middle variant verse, John sings lead with a vocalese backing by Paul and George. The bridge section alternates between solo John and John and Paul in unison.

And listen to those trill-like ornaments John tacks onto the end of his phrases in the verse ! Motown artists, such as Smokey Robinson, were probably the catalyst to this vocal gimmick.

Macca's bass goes 'boom boom boom' most of the time; we forgive him for that, since he had to sing the complex vocal harmonies in real time !

Harrison plays the intro (which he flunked in several takes), an adequate rythm guitar, and sporadic vocals harmonies.

We didn't use the Hohner harmonica, but kept the guitar intro instead.

The Beatles recorded "Money (That's What I Want)" in five takes on July 18, 1963. I suppose they intended it to be a smashing final track to With The Beatles, just as Twist & Shout had closed Please Please Me.

Money had been featured in their shows since the Hamburg days, and they had converted it into a raunchy rocker song.

The regular visitor to BDJ's Cellar immediately notices something odd about Money: it has centered vocals in the stereo (Album) mix ! In fact. It is the only track on Please Please Me and With The Beatles with the vocals recorded in the centre. Remembering that it was Martin's strategy (using a 2-track tape machine....) to record the isntruments on one track, and the vocals on the other, it is clearly impossible to centre the vocals and maintain a stereo image !

How did this enigma arise ? The soundscape of the original Money (by Barrett Strong) is dominated by the piano part. Lewisohn reports that George Martin played piano during the Beatles session, and spent a huge amount of time on recording and mixing his piano part for Money (probably without Beatles being present....). I suppose Martin was also lured to the piano by the track that they recorded just prior to Money: You Really Got A Hold On Me. Here, the piano adds some colour, but on Money Martin verges on overdoing it (in my view...). It is still OK im the mono mix, but the stereo mix features the piano part even more prominently.

Listening closely to the stereo mix of Money, we can figure out what Martin did: the left channel is a mono mix of 'Beatles' instruments (no piano) with vocals, and the right channel is a mono mix of Martin's piano with the same vocals. Since the same vocals are recorded left and right, they appear centred.

Still, the 'piano' track sounds a bit empty; even more importantly, it is doubtful if the Beatles actually wanted a piano part in this track. They cetainly gave it a blistering live preformance without piano !

Therefore, we remixed Money in such a way that the piano drops out; it gains in pure sound and rough rock power, while maintaining a stereo image.

The first ever Beatles mash-up was broadcast on 29 February 1972, at 3.30 PM. The occasion was the 'Beatles Day" on Radio Veronica. Radio Veronica was a - pirate- radio station, broadcasting from a ship in the North Sea, off the Dutch coast.

From April 1960 the station aired its programmes from the ship the 'Borkum Riff', an ex German lightship built in 1911. Though its programming then still was very conventional, the station acquiered a growing audience. From the 1st Januari 1965, three months before the 'Norderney' took over, the station became still more popular by adopting the format of real rock radio; the producers had spent considerable time in the US to learn the commercial radio trade !. From its rocky beginnings (accompanied by some too real 'pirate' behaviours) some of the personnel developed into the Netherland's music - and conventional business - tycoons.

The Beatles Day 1972 was a celebration of the Beatles, who had just split up. The Beatles Day was a 20 hours long programme, in which all Beatles tracks were played in no particular order. In between the songs, 'montages' were played. These were early mash-ups, produced by the station's engineers. (In these days, radio shows were poduced by Dj's and an engineer at the controls).

This one was labelled 'best' and was produced by the engineer Nol Vis. It contains references to the number 192, which was the wavelength (AM....) at which Radio Veronica transmitted.

Some loops, attempts to combine tracks and a suitable ending; may sound a little rough to our ears today, but remember it was all done with turntables and wires....

"Ask Me Why" was released in the United Kingdom and The US (VJ Records) as the B-side of their single "Please Please Me".

It was also included on the UK album, Please Please Me.

It was recorded on 26 November 1962, in 6 takes. Take 6 was used for both the mono single and the stereo LP mix. No outtakes have surfaced, so there's not a lot to create a remix from....

Apparently, Ask Me Why was always intended as a B-side, and the production is not of the same standard as Please Please Me.

It is a single run-through, no overdubs or double tracking anywhere. Oddly, there's an acoustic guitar on the vocal track, so I suppose Lennon played this acoustic guitar while recording the vocals. The vocal performance is fine as far as timing and phrasing go, but sounds a little unmotivated at times.

Perhaps Lennon's disinterst in the vocals is rooted in the lyrics: they are typical Lennon, although this is one of the earliest Lennon compositions. Unfortunately, it is the earliest example of a Lennon 'schoolboy poet' type, and not of the - much stronger - type where Lennon sings about his own true emotions.

Still, a song that starts with "I Love You' can't be that bad.....

Although not a strong text, it is very much Lennon nonetheless: as usual, we learn nothing about his lover, we just hear about Lennon's own feelings; as we see more often, Lennon expects obedience from his lover (I Love You because you say the words I want to know), which is also the theme in others songs, such as "All I've Got To Do", One After 909 (I said move over once....), "Run For Your Life" and many others.

Musically, the song is more complex than one would think at first hearing (as I found out while remixing it.....). Vocals come in somwehere in the middle of the bar, a verse contains an 'odd' number (13) of bars, and bits and pieces are repeated and strung together.

But he all makes it hang tight into a possible underrated song: there are only 2 cover versions in the BDJ archives, far below the typcial number of covers.

Anyway, well worth a remix to lift it from the left/right stereo soundscape !

"Please Please Me" is the second single released by The Beatles in the United Kingdom, and the first to be issued in the United States.

Both its recording history, and its release record, are complex and often confounded.

We'll shed some BDJ light on it here.....

RECORDING HISTORY:

Lennon first conceived "Please Please Me" as a bluesy, slow tempo song. Lennon recalled: "I remember the day I wrote it, I heard Roy Orbison doing "Only the Lonely", or something."

When George Martin first heard it (as per Anthology documentation, usually assumed to be at the "Love Me Do" re-make session on 11 September) he found that - in his opinion - it "badly needed pepping up" and he asked The Beatles to consider making major changes to it, including increasing its tempo. The tradional story has it that PPM was brought back into the studio on 26 November 1962, when its arrangement had been radically altered, and it took 18 takes to record what George Martin immediately predicted would be their first major hit.

Unfortunatley, I think that this story line is not supported by the facts: On Anthology I, a PPM version appears that had been thought to be lost: an early version, dated September 11. Now, we can all listen to this September 11 version, and confirm that it is very much like the final version of November. It is as fast as the released version, it just lacks the Lennon mouth organ intro and backing vocals.

Obviously, it does not make sense that George Martin would have asked for an even faster version than the September 11 track (or why he would call the November version a 'hit' and the very similar September 11 version a 'miss) !

So what really happened ? Here's a litte fact finding: the Beatles actually played Please Please Me to George Martin on September 4 th ( so a week earlier) but - being a 'demo' - it was probably not recorded.

This is confirmed in a Ringo Starr interview: "On my first visit in September we just ran through some tracks for George Martin. We even did Please Please Me. I remember that, because while we were recording it I was playing the bass drum with a maraca in one hand and a tambourine in the other." This must have been the slow - Roy Orbison - version. A week later (Sept 11), the Beatles came back for a second attempt to record Love Me Do (with Andy White on drums); they also played and recorded Please Please Me (now in the fast version), in an attempt to dissuade George Martin from releasing How Do You Do It. This is the Anthology version, which probably has Andy White on drums (does he receive rolyalties for the Anthology release ??). PPM needed only minor polisihing up for the November recording of the PPM album (with Ringo on drums).

REMIXING HISTORY

PPM was mixed in mono for the single and the mono LP. A new mix was made for the stereo LP, which differs only in the vocals (e.g. the fumbling of the lyrics in the final verse). It is usually believed that no stereo version of the single mix exists, but there is one in the BDJ vaults....... As usual, Capitol added reverb to the US release, but otherwise the version is the same as the UK version.

US RELEASE HISTORY
The single was initially released in the US by Vee-Jay Records, with "Ask Me Why" on the B-side; it failed to make much impact in the US, but when re-released by Capitol there on 3 January 1964 (this time with "From Me to You" on the B-side) it reached number three in the US Hot 100.

THE BDJ Remix
This remix is in true stereo; the PPM LP version is in the well-known 'vocals left- instruments right' stereo mode, which makes for awkward listening. Both the Remaster's LP stereo version and the stereo version of the single were used to create this new remix. This remix showcases the progress The Beatles had made as recording artists in a few weeks; just listen to Ringo's (quite complex) drum patterns, and Pauls' 'walking bass' in the middle eight.

George's intro on guitar is obliterated by Lennons' mouth organ, and we don't hear much of George's guitar at all; according to the sound engineer, he started out by playing the intro riff all through the song, until someone told him to 'shut-up'. Fortunately, we can now hear him in the backing vocals.

Enjoy the Remix !

Here's a loosely played cover of this great track by the Doors; my Other Favourite Band.
Not much in common with the Beatles, just that only 2 band members are still alive...
"Love Me Two Times" first appeared on the 1967 album Strange Days. It was released as their second single.
Special challenge for this cover was that I did notwant to play keyboard on it. Ray Manzarek played this song on a clavinet. I compensated by adding several guitar tracks. All played on my Strat, giving that unique clear Fender 'bridge pick-up' sound.

So here's the line-up:
vocals: BDJ
lead guitar: BDJ
rythm guitar: BDJ
bass: Ray Manzanek
drums: John Densmore

By the time I Want To Hold Your Hand was recorded (October 1963), EMI had installed 4-track recorders at Abbey Road. The results are immediately audible: guitars are double tracked amd distributed over different tracks.

The Single was - of course - released in glorious mono. Since I Want To Hold Your hand was not included on With The Beatles, no stereo version was released in the UK. it features on a Capitol album in the US in stereo, but this sounds like 'fake stereo' to me (highs on the right, lows on the left).

A Stereo mix had been by George Martin on 21 October 1963: this version was released in Australia in 1963, and true to the then current tradition: vocals on the right, all the instruments on the left.

Thanks to the fact that I Want To Hold Your Hand was recorded on 4-track, it was possible to produce different stereo versions; on 8 June 1965 Norman Smith made a new remix, with the vocals placed in the centre. It was never used.

For the UK release 'Collection Of Beatles Oldies' another stereo remix ws made on November 7th 1966. The same version is found on the Past Masters and Remasters releases.

In this latest version, the vocals are centered, drums + bass on the left, solo guitar on the right. A clear improvement over te 1963 mix, but.... still sounding awkward: the vocals come in rather abruptly, and drums + bass are only mixed in the left channel.

Is it possible to centre the vocals, drums and bass, and leave the guitars separated ? Only in BDJ studios, where the state of the art technology (3-D Spectral Extractor) churned away for quite a while to achieve this feat. But it's worth it, since the stereo picture is now more natural, and drums and bass more powerful than ever heard before.

A brand new - true stereo - remix of this classic Beatles song. During the remixing of I Saw Her Standing There, I made a major discovery, which I will describe below.

I Saw Her Standing There was recorded at EMI Studios on 11 February 1963, as part of the marathon recording session (10 hours) that produced 10 of the 14 songs on Please Please Me. In December 1963, Capitol Records released the song in the United States as the B-side on the label's first single by The Beatles, "I Want to Hold Your Hand". Not only Paul's first 'great rocker' song, but also the first 'Lennonism' in the lyrics: "Seventeen, You know what I mean...". Not to forget the first recorded "Wooah....!", just picture Paul shaking his head......

The recording sessions reveal that the Beatles and George Martin still had to get used to each other. During these early Beatles recording sessions they played their songs as if in concert, and it was "get it right or do it again". George Martin was already a seasoned record producer and was used to working on recordings (e.g using multiple takes, drop-ins etc.).

I Saw Her Standing There was the second song they recorded that day. The LP version - in stereo - is in the usual Beatles stereo mode: vocals on one side, instruments on the other. However, the first two Beatles albums, Please Please Me and With The Beatles, were recorded on two track machines (EMI-made "British Tape Recorders"); because only 2 tracks were available, some instruments were on the same track as the vocals. The songs needed to be recorded by playing all instruments and getting the vocals right at the same time. Some repair was possible using 'punch ins', segments of the song that were played again, and then spliced into the original recording. A rather crude process, that is audible if you listen closely (e.g. listen to She Loves You). Also the punch-in needed to be contain all instruments and vocals.....

This is also the reason that the Rock Band isolations of this song (and others of that period) are disappointing: there just aren't any 4 track recordings of the song, so isolations can only be made with clever software (which can't deliver good results on these heavily crowded tracks).

In the first run (Take 1) the Beatles gave it their all (being a 'Live' band) and laid down an excellent perfomance. No wonder, they had performed this composition repeatedly in their stage act for many months (including a mouth organ intro by John). Martin added an extra dose of reverb to George’s guitar solo.

It is my theory that George Martin and his engineer expected to tape several takes, getting better takes as they went along. I discovered (I don't think this has been noted before) that the way the instruments are assigned to the 2 available tracks in Take 1 is odd: Paul's vocals are on the same track as John's guitar, while the other track sounds rather empty, except when George plays his solo.

This distribution is changed in all subsequent takes, where Paul's vocals share a track with George's guitar, and John's guitar is on the other track.

Take 2 sounded Ok overall, but John and Paul screwed up the words in a few places; furthemore, George bungled his solo. For reasons I don't understand (...) Martin must have thought that Take 2 was best, and started to fix it with punch-ins: takes 3-6 are attempts to correct the words and 2 new attempts at George's solo, which he all bungled. Then Martin must have decided that enough is enough (they had one day to record 10 songs...) and abandoned to use take 2. Instead, they made a last attempt at a complete runthrough. Take 6-8 break down, but they completed Take 9. This was another good version, now released on the 'Free as a Bird' album, but then it remained unused (except for the count-in).

So, after 9 takes, Martin accepted that Take 1 was best after all. All that was needed now, was to edit in the count-in of take 9, and enthusiastic hand-claps during all of the song. I'm not entirely sure how they added the handclaps: their 2 tracks were already full.... Perhaps they recorded them on a separate tape machine ?

Anyway, they reverted to Take 1, with the oddity of having the rythm guitar and vocals on the same track. This enabled me to produce this new stereo mix: using the instrumental tracks of Take 1 (George's guitar) and Take 9 (John's guitar), combined with the vocals of Take 1 at the centre. I added the handclaps form the Rockband isoation.

Here we go, "One Two Three Fah "!

Badfinger was a rock band formed in Swansea, Wales in the early 1960s.Their history is closely linked with the Beatles; to some, their music imitates the Beatles; for others, it is a welcome extension to the Beatelesque repertoire.

Pete Ham sings in a McCartney-esque voice, their guitars sound a lot like Eric Clapton.......

The other ties to the Beatles are too many too mention all:

The name Badfinger was suggested by Apple's Neil Aspinall, and was a reference to "Bad Finger Boogie", an early working title of "With a Little Help from My Friends";
Badfinger was signed to The Beatles label, Apple Records.
Peter Ham used one of George Harrison's Gibson guitars on this song. George used that same Gibon SG on "Paper Back Writer" and on "Hey Bulldog".
The song was initially produced by Mal Evans, long-time Beatles hand, but was rejected by Apple staff as a potential single. Geoff Emerick (the beatles engineer) then took over as their producer, and the song was remixed. July 1970
they played acoustic guitars on tracks from George Harrison's All Things Must Pass and provided backing vocals on Ringo Starr's single "It Don't Come Easy".
Tom Evans and Molland performed on John Lennon's album Imagine, and all four members of the band appeared as backup musicians throughout George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh in August 1971.

But does the link go even further than that ? McCartney wrote 'Come and get It' for them, which became their greats hit.

What about "No matter What ? To me, it sounds a lot like George Harrison, more than McCartney: the middle eight of No Matter What use the same chords as While My Guitar Gently Weeps, and is that a slide guitar playing the solo (like Harrison did) ?

Harrison was quite generous with his song writing contributions, and did not alway demand being credited, so it seems certainly possible that Harrison contributed to No Matter What.

Anyway, it is one of my favourites, so I made this cover version (Fender Strat, Marshall amp, Ibanez Tube Screamer), and added a solo at the end.

"She's a Woman" was released as the B-side to "I Feel Fine" in 1964 (see remix below).

McCartney's bass produces a countermelody, which now bursts out of your subwoofers. Lennon's Rickenbacker 325 guitar plays chords on the backbeat, now in full stereo, combined from takes 2 and 4. In the original release a piano (Paul or george Martin ?) also plays chords on the upbeats, but I didn't like that. Harrison also plays a bright guitar solo during the middle eight, taken from Take 6.
The Outtro is reconstructed to match the way they played it Live.

I Feel Fine is - probably - Lennon's first riff-based song. He would go on to write riff-based tunes for the rest of his career; listen to "Day Tripper', or 'Whatever gets you through the night' for example.

Lennon made it no secret that his riffs were inspired by songs he had heard; he credited the riff of I Feel Fine to Bobby Parker's 'Watch Your Step', and this also appears to have inspired Day Tripper. Not just that, the spectecular opening 'buzz' of I Feel Fine seems to be derived from the opening of Watch Your Step.....

Being an early single, I feel Fine was released in mono, and in extereme (vocal left, instruments right) stereo. Even the 2009 Remasters maintain this stereo format; although intersting, it makes for an awkward listening esperience. Capitol blended the left and right channels, and added a few bucket loads of reverb, which made things even worse for the American audience.

Here, for the first time, we present a true - balanced - stereo version of I Feel Fine. Thanks to advances in Technology, we can now fully appreciate the guitar and vocals parts, accompanied by Macca's bass line - although still modest by his standards-. Listen to Ringo's drumming, he hits the tom-tom twice and then taps the rim of the snare. Being a Lennon track, the drum pattern changes for the middle eight.....

n 1969, the Beatles found themselves in a slump; they were growing out of the 'innocent, funny boys' role, and the band was at risk of falling apart. To bring the group back to life, they embarked on the 'Everest' project, which comprised a live performance somewhere in the world in a 'safe' location (such as Mt Everest). They expected to draw such large crowds, that a concert in a normal venue would have run quickly out of control.

They explored several options for a suitable location, but couldn't agree on one. They decided to keep it simple, and play the club where they started 10 years earlier, the Jacaranda club in Liverpool. There, they performed their favourite songs, in front of a flabbergasted audience. It was a great evening, but they were concerned that a Live Everst album would fail to chart because it contained no new songs.

In desperation, they started the Let It Be project, which culminated in the Rooftop Concert, which was released as their final record.

At last, the BDJ scouts managed to retrieve the tapes of the Everst concert in the Jacaranda club. After careful re-mastering, it premieres here, in BDJ's cellar.

Remix of Macca's demo with Badfinger's only hit.

The core of this podcast consists of Beatles tracks covered by Dutch artists, mostly form the 60's and 70's.

Some are exciting, some are just presented here for the completists........

The Beatles became popular in the Netehrlands at a very early stage in thier career; the Dutch have a fine ear for musical talent (and still do).

Friday 5 June 1964: Following the previous day's concerts in Copenhagen, Denmark, The Beatles flew to Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, Netherlands, arriving at 1pm.

They arrived at Hillegom's Café-Restaurant Treslong, situated at Vosselaan 15, at around 4pm. From 5.30pm they rehearsed for their appearance on VARA-TV, and recording began at 8pm. I pass by the Treslong studio regularly (although iyt is no longer in service as a studio) and then enjoy the lingering spirits of the Fab Four.

In the first part of the programme they answered questions from the 150-strong audience. The Beatles were seated in the bar with Berend Boudewijn, who translated their answers and relayed them to Herman Stok, who was
seated with the audience. This podcast contains some of the Q&A of that session.

Following their Amsterdam jaunt, The Beatles performed two shows in Veilinghal Op Hoop Van Zegen, an auction hall situated on Veilingweg in Blokker, a village 40km north of Amsterdam. Unfortunately, the aucytion hall was torn downsome years later. Their tour was organised by Ben Essink, a Dutch impressario, who happened to be the son of the mayor of Blokker....

Essink engaged the Beatles in 1963, when the Beatles were still 'just' an up and coming British band. By june 1964, they were fast becoming the first global popgroup. Brian Epstein did not renegociate the contract,
although they were now worth much more than the contract stipulated. Epstein did put a price on recording the Beatles shows in Blokker: 5000 guilders, equivalent to around $15,000 today. Later, the Beatles were offered millons for a single show, but - the Dutch being dutch - no radio or TV station splashed out to record the Blokker show. However, audience recordings survive, and these were used as ambiance for this podacst. You can hear the announcer tell the audience to sit down, or the show wil be stopped......

The gospel of Luke tells of the nativity in its own way, necessitating its own Beatles Christmas podcast version: while Matthew (see preceding Podcast) talks about the wordly aspects (king Herod, the wise men and their rich gifts) and the nativity rooted in Judaism, Luke speaks more about the spiritual impact and the break with Jewish traditions.

Therefore, we selected more 'spiritual' tracks for this podcast, and included tracks recorded after the break-up.

The incidental music is the soundtrack of 'The Family Way', composed by McCartney.

Christmas Time Is Here Again ! A special time for Beatles fans: the Beatles did Christmas shows in their early days, and released special 'nonsense' records for their fanclub all through the Fab's career.

Enough reasons to release this BDJ Chritsmas special; it is a new - yet ancient - way to celeberate Christmas.

Gone are the Ho-Ho-Ho's of Father C, decorated trees, mangers and shepherds. In its stead, we find Christmas Remastered as it sounds best: the Gospel of Matthew, performed by James Earl Jones and the Beatles.

Sit back, and contemplate the first 2 chapters, complete and unabridged.

Many (if not most) of the Beatles songs were never performed Live by the Fabs themselves. Even when thye still toured they basically reproduced the recorded versions as accurately as possible.

What if they had continued performing gigs, and had updated their songs as they went along ?

Here, we present a version of She's Leaving Home that could have been performed at the rooftop of Apple Studios, if.......

The guitars, bass and drums are courtesy of BDJ's Tearoom orchestra.

She's Leaving Home is one the few songs of the later Beatles albums where Lennon contributes to a McCartney song. Standing out by Mike Leander's string quartet arrangement, it maintains its unique posiotion in modern pop/rock.

Lewisohn mentions that 2 extra bars of cello (after each Bye-Bye)were edited out of the final release (on Sgt Pepper). This was done at the remix stage, indicating that the complete song (including vocals) was recorded including these cello parts.

Recently, the original 4-track recording surfaced, revealing the extra cello parts. Here's the world premiere of the Original She's Leaving Home:

New stero remix, now inclduing the original cello parts.

Sometimes Lennon's songs are not that different......

Lennon lets it rip in this sensational rocking track. Featuring guitars and a cowbell, this was one of the loudest songs of 1968.
Outtakes form Take 12 are well known, but some say that Take 9 was even louder. Unfortuatley, that take has not surfaced (yet); so, the BDJ Teamroom Orchestra set to work to recerate take 9 as best as they could. Cranked up the distortion on the guitars (BDJ), thumping bass and drums(BDJ) and screaming vocals (John Lennon), here we go !

One of the elusive Beatles tracks that still remains unbootlegged, is the 'slow version' of Please Please Me. The fabs played it to George Martin, who rejected it as being too slow for a number one hit. Perhaps for the last time, the Beatles complied and changed the song around into the Please Please Me that we all know.

Here, we present a rare live recording of the original Please Please Me. It is strikingly different, not only in tempo, but also in the raw guitar riffs, that were the hallmark of the Beatles in their Hamburg days (subsequently stamped out by George Martin).

A decade later, Aerosmith would use similar riffs for their minor hit 'Walk This Way'.

For You Blue sounds like a more or less improvised blues session; the Fab did this every mow and then, as we hear in the Let it Be sessions, but these rarely led to a quality recording. And it was a close shave for For You Blue: Phil Spector needed to apply quite some trickery to construct a full song out of the various takes.

Still, "For You Blue" was listed with "The Long and Winding Road" as a double-sided hit when the single reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 in 1970.

The production on Let It Be is rather sparse, perhaps Phil thought his 'wall of sound' on Long and Winding Road was enough for both sides of the single ?

That was fortunate for us, but the song could bear a little spicing up. So we combined it with a long forgotten Ringo Starr solo track; gives it a new drive and surprising swing feeling.

Maggie Mae is just a snippet of a song on Let It Be. Phil Spector picked the best 38 seconds out of a session that did not last for more than a minute or two.

After all, it's a pretty tragic story about a working girl, who was banished to Australia for her efforts. So she 'did not walk Lyme street anymore', a connection with the Beatles since John and Cynthia were married in the registrar's office on Lyme street...

What if the Fab had spent a bit mnore time and effort on this 'tradional' ?

Lossless version of this mix is on Let It Be remixed (BRG16).

Another World Premiere for BDJ's Cellar; The beatles perform the Holly classic 'Maybe Baby'.

This is unearthed form the Let It Be rehearsals.

Lossless version of this remaster is found on the Let It Be Remixed release (BRG16).

Don't confuse this one with the Maybe Baby that McCartney wrote for the film in 1999.....

A rare Live Performance, not released on Let it Be. Not only did Billy Preston join the Beatles for the Roof Concert, but - apparently - so did Talking Heads. They would later use this tune for their own greatest hit.

'Her Majesty' is a beautiful McCartney compositon. It didn't make it onto Let It Be, but Macca remembered it a few months later when recording Abbey Road. On Abbey Road, it sounds like a throwaway, barely 30 seconds, kicked off by a slightly out of tune chord (Mustard), and lacking the final chord.

Here, we combine the Let it Be and Abbey Road sessions, underpinned by a solid backing track (Slow Down), for a full 2m58s of Her Majesty !

'Anna (Go To Him)' is possible the poorest song the Beatles ever covered. It is surprising that it was included on Please Please Me, while the Beatles had stronger cover songs in their repertoire at that moment. There is no recording of any Live performance, they only played it twice on BBC's Pop Go The Beatles (as filler).

So why did they select it for PPM ? Since Lennon does the lead vocals, it was probably his choice. What could have been his motives ? The song structure is conventional, the chord structure is poor by any standard (the middle eight is just one chord...). So was the appeal in the lyrics insteead? Lennon wasn't hot for mushy lyrics, he could hardly bring himself to sing backing vocals on 'Besame Mucho', 'Till there was you' etc.

But the Anna lyrics are subtly different: they speak about separation of the lovers: in fact, the man encourges his wife to leave him for another. Could this have resonated with Lennon's own feelings at the time ? He was recently married to Cynthia, in a 'shotgun wedding". So he may very well have secretly wished that Cynthia would leave him.

This hidden thought is corroborated by another surprisingly mushy song, this time wrtiten by Lennon: This Boy. Again, the lyrics speak of separation, and the singer sort of gives up on his lover.

The link between these 2 songs is not only in the lyrics; musically, they match too; however, a remash will always be difficult, because Lennon gave This Boy one of his odd rythms (6/8). Still, this re-mash suffics that both songs probaly revelaed Lennon's hidden wish for a divorce from Cynthia ?

A funky re-mix, featuring Michael Jackson and others.

Lossless version on 'Beatle Blends'.

Something was Sinatra's 'favorite Lennon-McCartney Song'. It appears that it has now become McCartney's Favourite Harrisong.

Macca perfoms Something at almost any concert now, in a sober production featuring mainly ukele and some piano parts.

So here - in a World Premiere - are the Macca vocals in a lush George Martin production.

NB: the BDJ engineers unveiled an urbain myth while mixing this track. In his book "Here There and Everywhere' Geoff Emerick remembers that Harrison wanted to redo his solo. They had only one empty track left, and that needed to record the orchestra. According to Emerick, Harrison then decided to play the solo 'live' into the track with the orchestra (which menat he had the do the whole solo first time right !).

BDJ management were uneasy about this story for a while, for several reasons: listening to Abbey Road, it is clear that the orchestra was recorded in stero, hence occupying 2 tracks, and not the one track that Emerick remmebers. Secondly, would George Martin really run out of tracks so easily, necessitating this extraodrinary effort for a guitar solo ?
The answer came while remixing Something: in the Orchestra (stereo) tracks there is indeed a guitar, but it is the chorus/rythm guitar, NOT the solo ! So George DID play guitar while the orchestra was recorded, but the rythm guitar part is a lot easier to accomplish in one go !

I'm Only Sleeping is one of Lennon's most Lennonesque songs: the chords keep meandering up and down, the lyrics look simple at first, but become more mysterious as you try to interpret them.

The theme is a well-known Lennon view: Lennon is right and the world is wrong. In this case, he contrasts his own relaxed approach to life, to the senseless business of the rest of us. (as in Strawberry Fields, "Nothing is real, nothing to get hung about....")

Lennon seems to have a thing with sleeping and waking up: I'm So Tired is also about a sleep/wake state, then there's the Bed-In ritual with Yoko, no. 9 Dream etc. There's A Place can also be seen in this light ('there's a place where I can go, and it's my mind'). Sleeping/lying in bed is then for Lennon a 'safe place' where the Bad World can't touch him. A typcially childish feeling, but we know Lennon was abit mixed-up......

This version combines an early take (from Anthology) with the Revolver Lyrics, and a George Martin backing track.

The lossless version is available on the compilation 'Beatle Blends".

Basic track formed by 'Je Danst' by Mondoleone. This killer song is complemented by some famous friends: Beatles (The End and Because), Supertramp (Logical Song), Alquin (percussion), Sandy Coast (bottles), Gruppo Sportivo (piano), and a cameo by Stevie Wonder at the end.

Extra credit for those who recognise the intro.....

The lyrics argue that dancing and loving are closely linked: they both require smooth hip action.

This track is featured in lossless format on the Summer Booty 2010 compilation, which can be found at:

http://djuseo.podomatic.com/entry/2010-07-06T20_20_43-07_00

September-October 1963 was a busy period for the songwriting duo Lennon-McCartney. Amongst the songs composed in that period, I Wanna Be Your Man and I Want To Hold Your Hand take a special place.

I Wanna Be Your Man is pure erotic energy, and this more then compensates for the lack of melody or chord structure. On the other hand, I Want To Hold Your Hand is the first major Lennon-McCartney song, of the quality that earned them a place amongst the greatest composers of all time.

Two very different songs, and yet there are also many striking similarities:

both start with the 'break' sequence, giving the songs a kick-start (and confusing the listener about the key the song is played in)
both contain 'strange' chords (not a simple major or minor chord). This was really adventurous songwring in popsongs in 1963 !
lyrics are - very...- similar; In short, both lyrics express a desire to have sex with the singer's partner. Of course, in 1963 this was described in a more roundabout way, but the message is the same.
the desired partner remains anonymous in both songs; strikngly, we learn absolutely nothing about this attactive partner, not even his/her gender; it's all about the singer's feelings.

Although both songs are clearly true Lennon-McCartney collaborations, it is clear that Lennon took major responsibiity for the lyrics. It even contains the first 'Lennonism' in "...something, I think you'll understand'. 47 years later, we still don't know hat the 'something' is.....

Since Lennon usuallly wrote his lyrics straight form the heart & soul, these songs may well express Lennon's state of mind at that time; focus on physical love, not caring too much who his partner of the day was. The greatest fun aspect is that these songs reached incredible heights of popularty in the ultra puritan US of 1963/4 !

"And Your Bird Can Sing" was released on the 1966 album Revolver in the UK and on Yesterday...and Today in the U.S. The song was written by John Lennon. Lennon was later dismissive of the song, as he was of many of his compositions at the time, referring to it as "another of my throwaways...fancy paper around an empty box". Many composers would kill their bird for a throwaway of this quality; still, the lyrics are jibbersih and rather repetitive.

The double-tracked guitar solo rates in at #69 on the "100 Greatest Guitar Solos" list done by Rolling Stone magazine. Not high enough to include the solo in this remix.

"Drive My Car" is written by McCartney, and first released by The Beatles on the UK version of the 1965 album Rubber Soul; it also appeared in the US on the Yesterday and Today collection.

To liven things up, we mashed it he 2 above tracks. Almost anything will mash with Drive My car (it's just 2 chords), but this mash works out remarkably well. Did Lennon still have Drive My car in his ears whemn he wrote And You Bird ?

Anyway, And Your Bird seems a long way back form his other tracks on Revolver, such as Tomorow Never Knows (the first track they recorded after Rubber Soul, which featured Drive My Car).

"Drive My Car" has more bottom (bass) than any previous Beatles
recording, mimicking the bass-heavy sound generated in Redding's Memphis studio, and here we fattened its bottom even further. So hold on to your earplugs !

Aretha's version, reinfoced with an extra instrumetal track. Perhaps words of wisdom and consolation, for those who need it most.

What if the Beatles and the Beach Boys had cooperated in the Pepper era ? Imagine the results, if McCartney had plucked some chords on his guitar, Brian Wilson completing the melody, then Lennon putting the finishing touches on the lyrics ? Sadly, we will never hear the likes of "Sgt. Pepper Only Knows", "Imagine My little Honda", or "Back to the Surfin' USA".

However, we can listen to the - posthumous - collaboration on With A Little Help. In September 1967, the Beach Boys recorded it in Brian Wilson's home studio. Bruce Johnston replaced Ringo Starr on vocals, while the other surfer kids took care of the backing vocals. Combined with McCartney (bass), Harrison (guitar), Lennon (maraccas) and Starr (drums), it sounds pretty darn good !

In Rishikesh, the Beatles attended a lecture by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi about a "son of the mother nature". This inspired both Paul McCartney and John Lennon to write songs about the same subject. Both were demoed at George Harrison's Esher home in May of 1968. The demo featured Lennon's double-tracked vocal and an acoustic guitar. McCartney's composition "Mother Nature's Son" was selected for The Beatles (The White Album), while Lennon's song "Child of Nature" was not.

And rightly so, I might add; Lennon's lyrics are as insincere as they are silly ('I was dreaming more or less...'). Lennon must have liked the melody, since he contined to play it, al the way through the Let It Be sessions to Imagine. There he updated the lyrics into Jealous Guy. Unfortunately, still as insincere and silly as 'Child of Nature' ("I was feeling insecure, you might not love me anymore'), it must rank as one of Lennon's poorest lyrics.

Now you can compare Child of Nature and Jealous Guy yourself: for the first time, a full production of Child of Nature, based on Roxy Music's cover of 1981.

The Monkees could never escape their image of being the US Beatles. Nothing wrong with being that, they might have said. Indeed, their first hit single, Last Train to Clarksville ows more than just a bar or 2 to Paperback Writer. How much excactly, becomes clear fom this emix.

Herman Brood was the Rockiest Rock Singer the Netherlands ever produced. Starting out as keyboard player in a number of memorable Dutch rock groups, he found his true sound as the singer in his own group, His Wild Romance.

He mostly wrote his own songs, and covered few Beatles songs; but Rain is one of those. Brood gave it his typical interpretation, changing both the chord scheme and the lyrics to create his very own Rain.

Here, we feature Lennon instead of Brood on vocals; while His Wild Romance keeps going strong.

NB There are more connections between Lennon and Brood: both linked their name to the Amsterdam Hilton......

"I Am the Walrus" was the first studio recording made after the death of The Beatles' manager Brian Epstein, recorded September 1967. George Martin arranged and added orchestral accompaniment that included violins, cellos, horns, clarinet and a 16-piece choir. A large group of professional studio vocalists named

"The Mike Sammes Singers", took part in the recording as well, variously singing "Ho-ho-ho, hee-hee-hee, ha-ha-ha", "oompah, oompah, stick it up your jumper!", "everybody's got one" and making a series of shrill whooping noises.The song also features the sampling of a radio in its fade-out.

In the original (1967) stereo release, at around two minutes through the song, the mix changes from true stereo to "fake stereo". This came about because the radio broadcast had been added 'live', off-air, into the mono mix-down and so was unavailable for inclusion in the stereo mix; hence, fake stereo from the mono mix was created for this portion of the song. Obviously, the same trasntuion to mono is heard in the Remaster version.

In 2006, the first-ever stereo mix of the complete song (from beginning to end) was issued on The Beatles' album Love.

This 2010 remix has a few unique features:

After 40 odd years of lsitening to the track, the strings, horns amd the Mike Sammers singers start to sound a bit too '60's novelty'; they are nice at first, but tend to overwhelm this exciting song.
Hence, we elimiated all the 'extra's from ths Remix, apart from where they are essential (intro & outtro).
In all released versions Lennon's vocals sound a bit irritating to the ear; as if they have a 'rugged edge'. At first, we thought this was a deliberate effect; however, it is not heard on any other Beatles track. So the next hypthesis was that it was an artefact, introduced when the final mix was made (just like the tranisiton from stero to mono).

Now, using the isloated vocals, we found that the effect is due to the vocals left and right channels being out of sync by ca 2 milliseconds. Immedialtely, the BDJ engineers set out to align the 2 tracks perfectly, and this eliminated the edgy effect form the vocals. Hear it for the first time in this re-mix !

Last but not least; the close listener will have noticed that there is a guitar part (Harrison) on the Walrus, but it is mostly buried in the mix. Here, we reconstructed the guitar part, and panned it away from the keyboard so it stands out clearly.

And so the Walrus is revived !

A Rocking old rendition of this Harrisong B-side. Real experts prefer it over the rather simple A-side (The Ballad of John and Yoko).

To liven things up a bit, mashed the Live in Japan performance with the instrumental sections of Dani McCullogh's cover. And slowed it down to a more serious 120 bpm. Enjoy the Shoe even more this way !

"Love" is one of Lennon's most beautiful songs, included on the Plastic Ono Band album in 1970. The production on the album is just Lennon (vocals, guitar) and Phil Spector (piano). The track was recorded 'live', which also adds to the dramatic feel. Only vocals were double tracked, which - I think - was a mistake.

The piano starts very low in the LP mix, and is faded out at the end. Did Spector feel insecure about his pinao playing (he appeared so according to his remarks on the session tapes). The piano was more prominent on the single remix, but this record is a true rarity (the BDJ scouts can't find it anywhere....).

Perhaps Spector kept it a bit too simple, although the song certainy should be recorded straight from the heart. Hence, we combined two - unused - takes, one with piano and strummed guitar, and the other with an arpeggioed guitar. Added backing from the Lettermen cover, and there you have it: Love Reborn !

Step Inside Love is one of McCartney's finest songs that he never released himself. Written for Cilla Black, it brings out the best in her voice, to a level which she found later difficult to reach.

The released version sounds slightly over-produced, and it appears that Cilla needs to sing louder than optimal. So, the BDJ engineers started with the rehearsal tapes, that feature Paul on guitar, Cilla, and that's it. A Magical session, which - doubletracked and slightly messed about - results in this intimate version of Step Inside Love: as it was intended to sound........

A 'naked' remix of the Rockband version of this classic the Who anthem. Less is better once again; in additon to bringing out the vocals, the track has been condensed into a more listenable length.

The first recorded session of No reply ('Take 0') has a more Rock & Roll feel to it than take 1 and the released versions. Unfortunatley, the take 0 is incomplete, and the vocals are not quite OK at some places.

So, the BDJ engineers set to have the best of both worlds, and combiend the instruments from take 0 with the vocals take 0.

NB: The intro is from the actual take 0.

The Heavy Metal thunder suits No Reply remarkably well.

A remix of the esoteric with the mundame, the ying with the yang and Yoko with the Void. A thousand monks on the top of the Himalayas rock to the beat of a honeymoon in bag. Dig it ?

A 21st Century remix, ready for the clubs and parties on this planet. Heavily looped and techno ornamented, this mix will get you moving.

This classic Beatles track (their last no 1 single) was recorded by John & Paul, no other Beatles were hurt in the performance of the song. I don't hear Yoko's caracteristic vocals on it (this would become more prominent later). In this mix, Arik takes the lead vocals, giving the song a new flavour (and new lyrics....).

Ringo goes Retro on his new album (Y NOT). As if 40 years haven't passed, Ringo mashes his Beatles vocal performance with a new track (Fill in the Blanks). Certainly, the blanks are filled with cameo 'bap shoe wha's ' by George and Paul ?

From Cyrano de Bergerac, to John Lennon, to The Police, it's a giant leap for man but a small step for the BDJ engineers. Result is an unplugged-flavoured rendition, highlighting Sting's vocals escapades.

"It seems a shame," the Walrus said,
"To play them such a trick,
After we've brought them out so far,
And made them trot so quick!"

"O Oysters," said the Carpenter,
"You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?'
But answer came there none--
And this was scarcely odd, because
They'd eaten every one.

In Lewis Carrol's poem, the oysters were fooled once too often. By his own admission, this poem inspired John Lennon for 'I Am The Walrus'. His identification with The Walrus (who he considered to be 'the good guy') is obvious, but what about 'I am the Eggman' ? Could this refer to his sympathy for the Oysters (with their shells etc.) ?

Enough about Lennon. This remix was inspired by Pete Townshend's acoustic version,which reveals how beautiful the song actually is, it doesn't need the heavy guitar fireworks to create a lasting impression.

The BDJ engineers employed the newly installed 'BDJ-Retouch' equipment to isolate the acoustic guitars and vocals from the released version, and inserted an arpeggio lead guitar to replace the synthesizer/organ.

Play it as loud as your neighbours will tolerate !

Less is better for Boston's greatest hit. Thanks to some Rockband isolations, the BDJ engineers were able to bring this song back to its (beautiful) essentials.

The traditional Christmas records were sent out exclusively to Beatles fan club members from 1963-1969. These recordings not only featured Christmas songs by the Beatles, but also include entertaining ad-libs and pantomime banter between all 4 Beatles, which provide a fascinating insight into how their lives changed dramatically between 63 &69.

Kenny Everett produced and featured in the Beatles Christmas records in 1968 & 1969. Zak - Ringo's son, designed the cover of the 1969 record. The 1966 record, with a cover designed by Julian Lennon, was called Pantomime and featured a toast to the Queen. These records were a Christmas tradition for thousands of Beatles fans around the world.

The 1970 Chtristmas record was never released, since the Beatles broke up that year. The BDJ Bureau of Investigation discovered the orginal tapes of this record, and unleashed 21st century technology to Remaster the tapes. The result: a stunning sound picture of the last year of the Beatles, when innocent laughter gave way to Business, Politics and Children.

Besides the Fab Four, this record also features:

Judy and The Duets - Christmas With The Beatles

Happy Christmas (War Is Over) - John Holt & The Plastic Ono Band: Remixed by BDJ

White Christmas - Bing Crosby

Dora Bryan - If I Were A Fairy

Julian & Cynthia Lennon

Wonderful Christmastime - Paul McCartney

At the dentist, on the escalator, in South America ? Then this is THE remix of Michelle for you. Carefully arranged by Rita Lee, beatifully adorning the soothing voice of ole' brown eyes himself.

The Beatles do well in reggea format, and here's Something New: Beatles in Bossa Nova !

With help from Rita Lee (backing vocals), Ringo goes Latin; get your dancing shoes on.....

We all know this delightful track from the Abbey Road Album. Paul's thumping bass dominates the lower regions of the soundscape, while Ringo hits his snare drum always just a millisecond late.

But what if Harrison had recorded this song just a few months later, as a solo artist ? And what if he had run into BDJ's Tearoom orchstra in studio 2 ?

The answer is here......

Harrison and friends go back to the Cavern days, for this rock-your-socks-off version of Here Comes the Sun.

George Harrison and heavy metal ? This is why (not), and the Voodoo Glow Skulls help George through this track at lightning speed.

George Harrison teams up with the famous reggae ensemble Riddim for a Jamaica flavoured rendition of Here Comes The Sun.

Two of Harrison's most famous songs in this re-mix: If I Needed Someone vs Here Comes The Sun.

Result: a strangely melancholic song, with a spectacular double-tracked Rickenbacher.

Almost an 'Unplugged' version of this classic rocker. The Swingle Singers really let their hair down. This mix is made possible thanks to the new vocal isolations.

It is said the Beatles were in a gloomy mode during the get Back sessions at Abbey Road. This mix proves the opposite.
A cheerful fab Four record a reggae version of Get Back, never heard until the BDJ engineers extracted it from the reverse side of a Nagra tape. Note that the intro and outtro chat is really form the actual get Back session.

On the White Piano, John Lennon, on the Black Keyboard it's Paul McCartney. Together, they produce the final true Lennon-McCartney composition. After 10 years of Beatles, each wrote a song that defined the decade. Their ultimate genius is demonstrated here, in the seamless fusion of Words and Music of their best songs. Sound from the Anthology and Lennon Legend DVD's.

There's a lot of seeing and looking on Rubber Soul. These Macca songs bear a strong resemblance, both in music and lyrics.

So here's a mash of You Won't See Me with I'm Looking Through You. Both songs express rather angry feelings towards Macca's (ex?) lover, a sentiment Lennon also used on various occasions.

This mix is almost a 1 on 1 overlay of one over the other, just a semi-tone adjustment of the pitch. Co-incidence ?

I'm looking Through You is known in 2 versions: the Rubber Soul track, and the Anthology version. The Rubber Soul version is a bit more perky, but the stereo is in the classic 'instruments right, voices left' mode.
So, the BDJ engineers set to work to produce a - true - stereo I'm looking Through You. They used 3 diferent versions: the Rubber Soul track, a US release, and the unpublished Take 4. Results is a pleasant song, fully up to 2009 stereo standards.

This Boy must have been one of the most succesful B-sides of the Beatles. It was the flip side of I Want To Hold Your Hand, their first no. 1 in the US. They performed the song during the famous Ed Sullivan Shows, on during various concerts. It showcases their vocal abilities, and John gets to rip his vocal chords to great effect during the middle eight.

There is no good quality stereo release of This Boy. The single was in mono, and it was then customary NOT to include singles on (stereo) albums. So, the first stereo sounding release came with Past Masters 1; disappointingly, this is mixed in vocals left - instruments to the right mode.

In the US, Capitol released a diferent mix on Meet The Beatles, but this sounds rather close to the mono recording.

A challenge for the BDJ engineers at One BDJ Plaza; they collected all known releases and outtakes of This Boy, ran them through their BDJ computers, and came up with a new mix.

Give it a listen; this one DOES sound different than the 1987 CD........

A day before the release of Rockband, BDJ proudly presents the first ever remix featuring material from the Rockband soundtrack.

Never heard before bits are mixed with chunks of Take 1, and other bits from the recent BBC radio broadcast "The Record Producers, George Martin".

Result: a brandnew experience, with no audio from the Abbey Road album whatsoever...

We all know Mean Mr Mustard as a part of the big B-side Medley of Abbey Road. Surprisingly, Mean Mr Mustard was composed long before Abbey Road, during the Beatles stay with the Maharishi in India.

They probably did not think of it very highly, because they did not record it on the White (double) album, nor on Let It Be. Apparently, they were in such dire straits to fill the B-side of Abbey Road that they finally recorded it; in its form on Abbey Road, it is not really a complete song, it moves into Polythene Pam before it develops a middle-eight and a proper ending.

Here, for the first time ever, we present a 'complete song' version of Mean Mr Mustard. Produced by taken the vocals of the Let it Be sessions and combining with Paul's fuzz bass on Abbey Road. To complete the song, we added an - original...- intro, middle eight, and ending.

Following Paul's first song, it is now George's turn in BDJ studios. Not quite his first recorded song, but - interestingly - the first known Harrisong that was never recorded by the Beatles.

George Harrison's second solo composition, You Know What To Do was recorded as a demo at Abbey Road on 3 June 1964.
The demo remained unissued until 1995 when it was released on Anthology 1.

Here, for the first time, we present the full version of You Know What To Do, properly orchestrated and all. Could it have been good enough to release it, if John and Paul had made a seriuous attempt at it ? Judge for yourself.

Sir Paul has said that I Lost My Little Girl was the first song he ever wrote. Most staff at BDJ studios find that hard to believe; the song is quite complex (note the variation in vocals between verse 1 and 2), it contains a 'full stop' after the middle eight etc. Furthermore, the group played the song during the Let It Be session (1969) with Lennon on vocals. This suggests that the song was on the reportoire at some time. However, no recording by the Quarrymen is known. Therefore, a date closer to Love Me Do (to which it musically bears resemblance) is more likely than an earlier date.

The sentiments expressed by the lyrics are remarkably similar to Yesterday; the singer is confused because something terrible happended the day before; his girl/woman left him, and he does not understand why. A taste of self-pity is present here as well.

Overall a very interesting song; only recorded by Paul for the Unplugged sessions (and a later soundcheck). Sufficient reason for the BDJ producers to pull out the plugs and renew the acquaintance with this enigmatic song.

Your Mother Should Know is a typical McCartney song, which takes him back to the days when his father played the piano in a band.

The production of the song is a bit strange, distracting from the attractiveness of this throwaway; the vocals start banked to the left, then move to the right, then end in the middle. This was great fun when stereo was just invented.

While remixing the vocals in the middle, the BDJ tea-room orchestra entered the studios, and strings and woodwind were added.

This Harrisong was briefly heard in the film A Hard Days Night, before being faded out to make room for some silly dialogue. All in all, the production indeed sounds as if the other Fab 3 were not Too Happy To Dance With George on this tune. Paul's bass playing is one of the poorest tracks he ever recorded, and Lennon is not on it at all.....

In later years, Harrison would turn to Eric Clapton to spice up his recordings and concerts, with great effect (on both George and Pattie...). What if Harrsion had invited Clapton to guest star on Happy Just To Dance With You ?
This mix may sound a bit like it......

Willy Deville was born the day that Paul met John, and he died excactly 40 years after the photshoot for the Abbey Road album. His life thus spans the career of the Beatles, and BDJ was inspired to mix this tribute to Willy.

Coverart is the pedestrian crossing at Abbey Road as it looked today on the Webcam; a sight Willy didn't live to see.

There's always been a hymn-like aura surrounding Because. The vocals sound more like '1000 monks singing on a hill-top' then in Tomorrow Never knows (where Lennon wanted that sound). Lennon claiming that he was inspired by van Beethoven doesn't help either to make this a poppy song.

So, BDJ to the rescue, to bring Because down to earth. Some great instrumental sections by the famous Satellite Kingston, a new intro, enhanced overall sound, and new lyrics; here we go !

If I Fell is one of my favourites, and I took it to the limit (or slightly beyond) of pleasant harmonies in the Clapton remix (see below).

To make amends, here is a modern arrangement that I made of the song, so not a remix in the true sense. Started with nylon guitar and piano, upright bass and simple percussion. Couldn't resist to mix in strings amd woodwind towards the end, but still avoiding the dreaded wall of sound.

A nice & crisp, clean version of this Lennon track. Straight from the heart, a lot more emotion & fun than the released version.

This remix is composed of 4 different outtakes. A slightly different version is on Tuned To A Natural E 6.

Come on, listen to me !

It's Party Time in BDJ's cellar !

A massive 4m50s remix of this Ringo classic, arguably his best composition.

Get ready to shake yer booty, and don't forget your bottle of water, since dehydration is a serious risk with this mix.

The Beatles started, and ended, their career with Phil Spector. Phil's (over)production of the Let It Be album is well documented. It is less well known that the Beatles performed a Phil Pector song on their first recording session: the Decca Audition, January 1st, 1962.
That recording suggests that Lennon (lead vocals) was not at his best; his voice is too low, and too soft. Perhaps he did not like the song ? Pete Best' drumming did not add to the excitment either.....

Here's an attempt to make the most of that same 1962 recording; double tracked vocals, strings & Horns (courtesy of Peter and Gordon (RIP)) turn it into a real Beatles track.

I prefer it over the session recorded in 1963 (BBC Paris), where they attempted more harmonies, but didn't succeed.

Eddie Izzard gives a wonderful perfomance of mr kite in 'Across the Universe'. Actually, he does two (the second is in the deleted scenes section). Here, he joins forces with lennon, to create a super splendid rendition of this fine track.

Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney. The less said about this mix, the better.

Here's another one for the Helen Shapiro fans. She never covered a Lennon-McCartney song, but she did cover songs that the Beatles also covered. The Beatles were Helen's backing group on her UK tour, so they probably played this track many times with Helen on lead vocals. No wonder that the Beatles version mashes well with Helen's recording.

The great White Piano features prominently in Lennon's Imagine. We all remember the clip, Lennon dressed in white, in a white room, at the white piano. Oh yes, Yoko was there too.....

Still, to me, Imagine sounds like a song composed on guitar, not at the piano. Some support in the Imagine film, where Lennon has trouble playing the song on the piano for the first time to his friends (including Harrison).

So what would Imagine sond like without a piano ? Used a live guitar version, and mixed it with woudwind and strings.

Some of George Harrison's most beautiful songs suffer from 'overproduction', by certain producers who shall remain nameless.

The recently released demo of Isn't It A Pity offers the opportunity to go back to the music, and hear it in its pure form.

Added some strings, wind instruments etc.; the real tearjerker (for me) is the violin solo. See if it hits your soft spot.....

Paul made it no secret that Back in the USSR was a send-up from Check Berry's 'Back in the USA'; with some Beach Boys references for good measure.

So why not make the circle round, and bring the US closer to the USSR ?

Here's another Novelty Record that never was. George Martin produced both the Beatles and Peter Sellers, so why didn't he ever combine the two ? We'll never know, but we do know - -now- what it would have sounded like.

George Harrison wrote Sour Milk Sea, recorded an acoustic demo, but did not release it himself. Jackie Lomax scored a minor hit with his version, helped by GH.

What would it have sounded, if the Beatles had recorde Sour Milk Sea ? This is our best guess...

John rarely (never?) performed songs written by Paul. Paul, however, appears to have sung 'John' songs every now and then. Some of these occasions were captured on tape during the Let It Be sessions (1969).
Paul did a rather serious attempt at I'm So Tired; unfortunatley, the backing by the others was rather lacking. Hence, we combined the released backing track with Paul's vocals.

Helen Shapiro and the Beatles go back a long time. The Beatles were Helen's backing group on her Uk tour, before they was fab.....

They seem to have got along fine. Surprisingly, Shapiro never coverd a Beatles song, and the boys never composed one for her. Probably because she was not an artist under Epstein's management ?

Anyway, the boys still helped her, for instance with cameo appearances on TV.

And here's new support for her: the Beatles join her inan enthusiastic rendition of "Please Mr. Postman"

It is October 14th, 1963. Billy J. Kramer and the Dakota's record "I'm in Love", a song given to them by John lennon. One of the few songs that JL gave away, and - perhaps - it was a rare occasion, John was present, to help Billy J through the track.

What went wrong ? we don't know, but somebody (Lennon, George Martin ?) wasn't happy with the recording, and Billy J abadonded the track after 32 tracks. I'm in Love then became a minor hit for the Fourmost.

What if Lennon had stepped in to record the song with the Dakota's ? Probably another no. 1 for the Beatles ? Judge for yourself.

While cleaning out the attic of BDJ Towers, we stumbled on a tape; it carried a hand-written label, stating only: "Carnival of Light JPM".
When we played the tape, we found it contained just fragments of speech, reversed loops and sound effects. So we erased it.
The flip side of the tape was much more interesting: apparently a private copy of the Cavern Rehearsel sessions; this tape is special, since it contains One After 909 IN STEREO, recorded in the cavern. This again shows how avant-garde the Beatles were, even then, since stereo recording hadn't been invented yet.

Revolution 2009 will carry us from Revolution take 20, to
the day that Carnival of Light finnaly appears (and we will all be disappointed).

It takes Revolution into the 21st century, going places that even John L. dare not go. Chockful of deeper meaninings and unmeasurable wisdom, it is key to solving the mysteries that still surround the Beatles.

Contains contributions (and only those) by:
Beatles: Tomorrow Never Knows, For the Benefit of Mr Kite, A day in the Life, Lovely Rita, Strawberry Fields, Sgt Pepper Revolution 1, Revolution no 9
Yoko Lennon
Lee Harvey Ostwald
Neil Armstrong
Mozart Symphony 1
Satie: Trois Gymnopedies II ; trois Morceaux en Forme de Poire
Brian Epstein
Queenie Epstein
George Martin
Ringo Starr
George Harrison
John Lennon

George Harrison appears a man of extremes. On the one hand, he moans about having to pay taxes (Taxman), and not much later, he contemplates the meaning of Life, the Universe and Everything (The inner Light). Quite a journey, for a plumber from Liverpool.

But what about the music, did it evolve as extreme as his lyrics ? Judge for yourself, and listen to this All Revealing retro-mix.

Ringo's greatest vocal performance ever, is so good, it could do well in an 'unplugged version'. Actually, Ringo did this in a duet with Sammy Davis junior; quite alright, but is now some time ago.

So here's the 21st century version. Acoustic guitar(s), courtesy of Puerto Muerto.

Let me take you back, cause I'm going to the Hollywood Bowl.
It is August 29, and the Beatles give their first performance of the '65 tour in Los Angeles.

The Fabs are in great shape, and deliver an oustanding show, in spite of (or thanks to ?) the roaring crowd.

Unfortuntaley, Paul's microphone does not work when the concert starts. The first song of the evening, Twist and Shout, has John on lead vocals, so the faulty microphone probably went unnoticed. However, the second song, She's A Woman, has Paul on lead vocals, and we only hear the instrumental part (except for brief harmonies of John in the other mike).

And so, a great performance was lost for posterity, or so it seemed. Until today, when BDJ productions mixed the Hollywood Bowl instrumentnal recording with the vocals (Paul) of the single. A perfect match, since Paul was able to reproduce his vocals accurately; we now sense the full excitement of te concert. It is interesting that the Live performancne ends into a sort a coda, while the single adds another verse. It all adds to the excitement, and the crowd responds accordingly.

"Love Me Do" was recorded by The Beatles on four different occasions with three different drummers:

The Beatles first recorded it on 6 June 1962 with Pete Best on drums, as part of their EMI audition at Abbey Road Studios in London.

By 4 September, Best had been replaced with Ringo Starr and on that day The Beatles with Starr recorded a version again at Abbey Road Studios.

One week later, on 11 September, The Beatles returned to the same studio, and they made a recording of "Love Me Do" with session drummer Andy White on drums while Starr played tambourine.

On January 28, 1969 (!), they reviisted Love Me Do, during the Let It Be recording sessions. Of course, Ringo Starr on drums, while Billy Preston is at the keyboards (and Alan Parsons at the controls as engineer).

This fourth version is litle known, and in its rough form not too interesting. We edited the Let It Be version to produce a pleasant - stereo! - mix, that might well have been included on the Anthology series: 10 years after recording their first single, this track has not lost any of its charm.

Just for fun: the Karaoke-Beatles get some Help from the Beatles......

"Birthday' is a good old rocker on the White Album. It sort of evolved in the studio, with all four fabs contibuting their stuff. Was it the last track that was really a team effort by the Beatles ?

Birthday is a rather simple song, but where are its roots, where did they find their inspiration ? In their childhood of course, when they played only rock and roll; Dizyy Miss Lizzy was a crowd pleaser for them, with John exploiting the sawdust in his voice.

Put next to each other, Birthday and Dizzy Miss Lizzy show striking similarities: played in the same key, same tempo, and - of course- chord structure. Naturally, they mash well, giving a new life to good old Lizzy's Birthday.

Please Please Me take 1 is "the one that got away". No recordings of the original Please Please Me survive, and it is likely that none ever existed. it is supposed to be significantly different from the released Please Please Me; George Martin claimed that he advised (demanded) that they speed it up. Lennon said he wrote it with Roy Orbison in mind; the Beatles toured with Orbison, and they repeatedly admitted that they admired his songwriting and singing.
So Please Please Me was probably written "Pretty Woman" like.
I've Got a Feeling has a structure similar to Please Please Me, and is nice and slow. And they match quite well. What was Paul's inspiration for I've Got a Feeling ?
Probalbly not Orbison, so perhaps he set out to write a Lennon song ? Not unlikely, they dug up several 'oldies' during the Let It Be sessions, so this one might have originated that way........

It was 40 years ago today (almost....) that the Beatles performed their Rooftop concert. Several songs were included on Let It Be, such as I've Got a Feeling". In fact, they performed this song twice, and the first perforamcne was used on the record.

So, why not see what we can do with the 2nd perofmance of I've Got a Feeling ? I used the sound recordings of the cameras that filmed the conert: a camera on the rooftop, and another across the street. Added a monitor mix to give it more body, and you may hear a bit of chatter because of that.

Happiness is a warm Gun is not a regular song, but a sequence of 3 or 4 songlettes. By chance or design, these fragments form a whole, that (for some) is more meaningful than any of its parts. The genius of Lennon at work ?

Listening to Happiness IAWG, I realised that McCartney did something similar on the B-side of Abbey Road; the final this of Abbey Road is a sequence of songs, fitted tightly together, culminating in The End (where we find Meaning, just as is the last part of Happiness IAWG): the Huge Melody section..

McCartney used both Lennon and McCartney comnpositions, while - of course- Lennon only used Lennon )and even deleted Macca's keyboard play form the final mix).

If the Abbey Road B-side is Macca'a Happiness reprise, can we do one better, and mash a sequence out of both Macca's and Lennon's tracks ?

Well, we tried anyway. The result is the longest mix in BDJ's cellar of Remixes. Relax and float downstream.....

Not a remix, but a Unique Recording.

date: New Years eve 2007
place: BBC Hootananny
vocals; Paul McCartney
electric bass: Paul McCartney
grand piano: Jools Holland
& the Jools Holland orchestra

Play it loud !

To celebrate the 40th 'Birthday' of Sgt Pepper, the BBC invited various bands to record tracks from Sgt Pepper; in Abbey Road studios, using the original equipment (4 track analogue recorders) and staff (Geoff Emerick). Two doumentantaries of the recording sessions were broadcast on TV. I'm not sure if an official album was ever released of these covers.

They are intersting cover versions, also thanks to the Geoff, who managed to re-create many of the typical sounds.
Unfortunately, good old Geoff subjected all vocals to the (in)famous ADT (atomatic double tracking) treatment, which I find rather irriating after a minute into the song or so.
The broadcast also contained fragments of the rehearsal sesions, interlaced with interviews of the band. I glued together the rehearsal sessions of Kaiserchiefs, and ended up with an (almost) complete version of Getting Better, without ADT and overdubs.

Enjoy the world premiere of this track !

Happiness is a Warm Gun appears to be a bit of a mixed bag, which seems to hang together for some reason. The meaning of most Lennon songs can be unravelled, just as I showed for his poetry. In this case, most will agree with a 'anatomical' intepreation of the 'gun' in the song. This also fits the "Mother superior jump the gun' refrain, since Lennon often referred to Yoko as 'Mother'.

The first part is less easy to interpret, because of the interfence from others (Derek Taylor). I read somewhere that they wrote down memories from their visit to Los Angeles, such as the lizard on the windowpane, and the man with mirrors on his boots (to look under girl's skirts) was an actual newspaper clip. Hence, this section is more a 'mr Kite' text, that does not say much about Lennon or anytging in particular, except for setting the slightly threatening mood.

In this remix, the song sequence is left intact; the mix now includes keyboards and percussion from take 7, that did not make it to the relased mix. Furthermore, one of the lead guitars is left out of the mix, revealing some features that were difficult to distinguish, such as the spurious 'down' after the guitar riff, and the brass in the refrain around 1m10s. Overall, a warmere sound, befitting a warm gun.....

This is the season for love, world peace, and what does it it all mean anyway. Obviously, we look for guidance in these matters, and who better to help us along than George Harrison ?

George confessed to support all religions (or the major ones at least), and - indeed - Dear One could be appreciated by many of different faiths.

This version is a bit more lush, but still solemn, than the original. Play it loud, play it often, and who knows what we can achieve......

Peter Sellers recorded She Loves You in a number of 'disguises'. Ranging form a Cockney version to the Irish Dentist. Here, we selected the 'German Version", because it combines well with the german version that the Beatles themselves did of She Loves You.

Seller's German Version was not released in his lifetime, but can now be found on various compilations, all without music. Until today.......

Peter Sellers in a TV broadcast, performing A hard Days Night. It was a highlight of this "The Music of Lennon & McCartney' broadcast.
In the show, there was only minimal accompaniment by a sew violins and choir. Here, we invoke the Beatles to help Peter Sellers out with his Hard Days Night.
The vocals follow the version released on a record, with some outtakes included for good measure.

88 Fingers Louie formed in spring 1993, with the intention of playing sloppy, fun punk music for themselves.

And they succeeded.....

eexcept for their version of Help !, which is quite good. Lots of pace and power, straight through the middle. somehow, I feel John would have appreciated their style for this song.

Peter Sellers and the Beatles seem to have got along remarkebly well. Of course, they shared their producer (George Martin), made absurd films, and had a special sense of humour.
Sellers was present in the studio when the Beatles recorded, on several occasions, and expresed a clear interest in recreational drugs on the 'Get Back' session tapes.
Sellers covered a few Beatles songs, in his own comic style, but never recorded with help from the Beatles. Until today, that is.......

This is a little known take of what would later become "You Know My name". In this early version, The beatles experiment with a Soul version of the Lennon composition. Quickly put together, but still the inspiration for the Soul industry that would spring from it, and singers such as Eddy Floyd.....

Paul once called You Know My Name (Look Up the Number) his favourite Beatles song. Was he already dead after all ? It is certainly a mcCartney-esque track, harking back to the good old days when his father played the piano in a band.....

In the version of BDJ productions, no actual Beatles were harmed. In fact, all instrumental tracks are form 'others', who shal remain nameless. But they are not chosen at random: all tracks somehow link to the Beatles. Do you know who they are, and how they relate to Beatles ? Send your solutin to BDJ productions, and you might win a prize !

Members of the Beatles, Bert Kaempfert, the Modern Gusto Trio and Sean Connery are excluded from the competition.

The flipside of "Beautiful Mother", this track is - as we often find with Lennon-McCartney B-sides - a little masterpiece, albeit less commercial.

John teamed up with Shuggie Otis (who is alive and touring) to record this track. Shuggie layed down the rythm tracks, and played keyboards (piano & organ) and also takes care of the stunning guitar solo.

All that was left was Lennon's haunting vocals, to make this the best Billboard No 1 that never charted.

One of Lennon's great "I'm so Sorry for Myself" songs, perhaps inspired by the Primal Scream therapy that he subjected himself to.

The original production was minimalistic, and can hardly be bettered. But it can be changed altogether.....

A bit of pezzaz, some flutes, an organ, and three it is: a a beautiful production of mother.

Begs the question: Julia or Yoko ?

Sleeping appears to have had a particular interest to Lennon. From "Close your eyes and I'll kiss you", "I'm only Sleeping", through to "No 9 Dream", sleeping was present in his songs. Why ? Hard to tell, but somewhow sleeping was associated to imagining, new thougths or insights for JL., rather than just resting.

In 'Goodnight' we again are encouraged to sleep so we can have 'sweet dreams', rather than recover energy for the next day of hard work. And a beautiful song it is. Legend has it that JL was embarassed by the 'soft' (feminine?) nature of the lyrics, so he had Ringo sing it, and George e Martin killed it off good with his Mantovani style violins and 100 voices chorus.

Here, we repair some of the damage, and bring the song back to its basic piano accompaniment. And throw in a real middle eight for free !

Revolution 9 is an enigmatic track, which captures the attention for 10 minutes or so. It is of interest because it is is different, rather then being of any musical value.

Here, we attempt to do one better, by combining the lunacy and other Lennon quotes with a catchy tune. The backing track is from the LP (never released on CD) 'From the Workshop', by the Sandy Coast, who were world famous all over Voorburg in the seventies.

Doesn't it capture the depth and profanity of Lennon's philosophy in all its gloryness ?

Some 4 to 5 live recordings of Yesterday survive, with largely varying sound quality.

None of them are in Stereo; until today, that is !

For the first time, in glorious stereophonic sound (provided your turntable is equipped to reproduce stereo), and a little help from our friends at NHK, we present: Yesterday !

I'm pretty sure that Yesterday is the most often covered Beatles song. Can we still do something original with it, after more than 40 years of messing about by the worlds greatest singers/musicians ? That is the Challenge for the month of August.

Could not do that alone, but - fortunately - had help from Robbie Williams. Sounds different when you hear it, just listen to it twice and you will not forget it ever.....

And that is the point of Yesterday; cherish the memories, have some regrets, and always look forward. I think that sir Paul has done a great job at that.

Here is a delciate rendition of Across the Universe, supported by the Doors (my other favourite group). Not bad for a last-minute entry in the July Remix-of-the-month challenge ?

NB as a challenge to the experts, I included one bad edit in the mix. See if you can spot it!

In the way that Good Dog Nigel captures the essence of Lennon in a a poem, so does this track capture Lennon in Song; or at least I tried.....

All that is important is here: peace, mother, and the man imself. Who could ask for more ?

Once upon a time - or maybe twice - there lived a young boy boy named BDJ. And he loved music, but he couldn't play. He BDJ grew up and a beard, and - one fine day - he spoke upon his friends and said: let's make music. And so they did, although they could not play. Unfortunately, their music ws recorded and preserved for posterity, though no one wanted to hear it.
When BDJ's beard had turned grey and shaven off, he decied to enter the digital age and post his music in BDJ's Cellar of Remixes, the only raeson being it was a Beatles cover. So here it is; pure energy, and not much more, but sweet memories for those who witnessed it.

Many Beatles Songs can be performed in different styles, the Beatles themsleves tried out their tracks in vatious formats on occasion. In this way Strawberry Fields started as a mellow singalong, ending up as the galaxy-busting supernova of sound that we have come to know.

Here, we go the other way with Hey Bulldog: from the rough and let's-do-it-now version that was released, to a more introvert interpretation, as suggested by Beatlegrass.

The Beatles visit funky town in this free-flowing re-mix with the Average White Band. Miraculously, the songs fit quite well together, and Hey Bulldog settles nicely to the groove.

One of Lennon's shortest poems, "Good Dog Nigel", paired with the only logical backing.

This poem clearly shows what Lennon's poems are about: looks like "A Laugh-a-minute with Lennon" at first sight, but one level down, the story is pretty sad.

According to Philip Norman's "Shout", p.49: 'They (Mimi and John ed.) used to keep al little dog named Sally...John really thought the world of her. One time, when John had walked out...., Mimi got rid of Sally. That was the only time that I (Pete Shotton ed.) ever saw John really heartbroken and showing it....'

Why the name Nigel, not Sally ? Well, Lennon usually garbled words and names, perhaps to make himself not too vulnerable. In this case, Nigel probably came to mind, as Nigel (Walley) was John's friend who spoke with with Julia (John's mother) moments before she was died in car accident.

As usual with John's lyrics, the poem Good Dog Nigel is based on his own experiences: here the loss of his beloved dog and his mother merge into in a single powerful little poem.

This is the longest poem Lennon wrote (I think). Here, just the first minute or so is set to music, before it all turns too sad......

One needs to know a bit of British political history to fully appreciate the poem "The General Erection", which Lennon wrote while Wilson was in office as prime minister (and awarded him an MBE...).

Even so, the poem sits nicely with 'Revolution', written when Lennon had already returned his MBE.......

Here's a teaser for Lennon's second book (Spaniard in the Works) set to Music. What is more beautiful, Lennon's music or Lennon's Poetry ? We don't know, but the combination of music and poetry should surpass all.

Judge for yourself, in this charming little episode, from John in a rare contemplative mood.

The project to set Lennon's poetry to music is progressing well. Here is 'I sat belonely', one of the best known poems from Lennon's first book.

Lennon took his poetry as seriously as his music. History may judge differently (perhaps), and what it will say about these music/poems, only time will tell.......

And you, just leave a Comment.

Is it possible, John Lennon (rythm guitar, vocals), Eric Clapton (lead guitar) and Keith Richard (bass) in a single mix ?

Yes it is ! and it sort of happened in december 1968. Never released tracks of these superstars performing live took a little doctoring, and the result is stunning. Rock & roll, baby !

Wild Honey Pie is a strong contender for the worst song that the Fab Four ever released. Why was this episode of non-music included on the White Album ? McCartney - who was always very keen to release only qualiity Beatles tracks - explained that Pattie Boyd said she liked the recording, so he decided to keep it on the album. What clouded Macca's judgement, was is it Something in the way she moved ?
One would expect any re-mix to outshine the original WHP, but there are exceptions......

Here's a classic rocker that never was. It's a Hey Bulldog type throw-away, that turned out better than anyone expected (at least better than I hoped for.....)..
Pity that George had left in anger, before his solo had been recorded.....

Circumstance or inspiration ? Some songs just belong together, but are they stronger when combined ? Find out here......

A rare Live recording of John Lennon & Talking Heads. Gives a new perspective on the Anthem of the Sixties.

Is this the way Love (is all you need) was meant to be ?

A true Remix of this classic. Tried to make it crisper and cleaner, but couldn't help adding a little something at the beginning and the end. Everything is from the All You Need sessions though.

Queen and the Beatles may appear like very distant cousins, but they actually share quite a bit of background. Both groups played the Cavern (how | wish i was there....), and Queen took their logo from a statue just acroos the street from the cavern. Freddy m went to the same school as John L, but a few years later......

Good enough reasons to try a collaborartion of the two Liverpool supergroups ?

A Courtney Audain/MCartney collaboration, resulting in a catchy groove and great lryics.

Doing this re-mix, found out (the hard way) that the Fab Four speed up quite a bit during WeCan Work It Out........Adds to the excitement.

This is a McCartney vs McCartney vs McCartney.... mash-up. The ''ímprovisation' performed during the Chaos BBC sessions at Abbey road studios appears to have been not as improvised as it seemed....

Another track from the Lost Stones-Beatles Sessions ? Just like Paint It Pepper, this track shows how close the musical formats of the Stones and the Beatles actually were. A few glitches in the vocals perhaps, so probaly an early take...............

Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas recorded Bad to Me, while the Beatles themselves never released it.

So, supported the Lenon-McCartney by a period backing tack: No, NOT Billy J !

With a little help from airbag, I added some Metal and Fuzz to this strange song. Is it serious, or is John pulling all our legs ? We'll never know.

A simple re-mix of Because.

Why ? I've heard so many re-mixes of the vocals, I wanted to give the backingtracks a go.

Much more mysterious this way........

It is Lucy in the Sky month. Therefore, a re-mix that captures the ambiguity in the song: is it really just about a children's drawing, or does it include some kind of trip ?

Judge for yourself, with advice form the grodfather of LSD himself......

Memphis Tenenessee , great Chuck Berry song, but only so-so versions by the Beatles survive. The Beatles recorded the song on various occasions (Decca audition, BBC sesions), all mono recordings. They never released it on an album.

What would it have sounded like (in Stereo) if they had put more effort into it for an album ? Perhaps like this,

A stereo version compiled from various contemporary sources. Cheated just a little, not 100% Beatle stuff......

Does this not beat any known version !?

Remember Stars On 45, the Mother of All Mash-ups ?

It reached the number one spot in both the Netherlands and the United States. In the U.K. number two was the highest position.

Since the copyrights of The Beatles songs made it a tricky affair, the producer ( Jaap Eggermont) decided to have the songs re-recorded by Okkie Huysdens (as Paul McCartney), Bas Muys (John Lennon) and Sandy Coast's Hans Vermeulen (George Harrison).

Here, I have re-remixed Stars on 45, now with the orginal versions; experience the 80's as they should have sounded !

Did the Beatles and the Stones ever record together ? Rumour has it that early session tapes exist, somewhere......

This copuld be an early take, around '63. It is evident that this recording inspred the Stones and Beatles, resulting in hit records for both later on.

What if the Beatles hadn't died or split up (in any order), and had kept on going, like a Rolling Stone ?

They could have issued this hit single a few years ago, based on a song they composed 40 years earlier......

I don't really like this kind of re-mix, but I couldn't get it out of my head.....

Take 2 (and presumably Take 1) were recorded in triple time. Unfortuantely, these takes broke down, because it was 'too hard to sing'. Here's an attempt to paste a complete version together, basis the incomplete Take 2.

Nice combination of Mimi (no relation) and Paul's retelling of a traumatic experience. His underwear was stolen !
Those were the days, imagine now being able to just jump over the fence and climb into any rockstar's house........

Another good song that could have been done better - in my most humble view...-.

Here's an attempt at a decent production, without sounds of birds and trees........

Freddy and the Dreamer never recorded this song. Should they have recorded together ? The unlikely product may have sounded like this.

One night in Kingston... Gondwana play their south-american reggae set. Then, the fab four get up and join in......

A Reggae version, driven by the famous Planta & Raiz.. McCartney holidays frequently on Jamaica, so why why not record some tracks there with the band ?

The plan to give Something to Sinatra did not go ahead, but this is what it might have sounded like. Old blue eyes does a wonderful job, making this song his very own, while Eric Clapton provides lovely counter melodies. What have we missed......

A long time favourite of the boys, dating back to the Hamburg days (vocals), this song was revived during the Get Back era (instruments). Why ? Perhaps as the B-side to 'Something'', that was offered to Frank Sinatra ? if so, it might have sounded like this........

Best of two takes, combining chorus and solos.

We've all heard the a capella version, what about adding some rhythm?

This is what a live performance wpu;d have sounded like, if only....

Great tune, but the guitar backing track is rather monotonous.... Ask the Chiffons to lend a hand and up the tempo a bit !

Who needs a reprise ? Let's re-mix !

George sings a tune he obviously liked. Is this his revenge for not being allowed to play his way on Let IIt Be ?

Help, stripped down to the essentials, with a snippet from later days, if JL could only have remembered the cords.....

This day needed a bit beefing up for it to shine. Also watch out for the new middle eight!

Acoustic, more dramatic, rendering of this famous "I'm so sorry for myself" song by JL.

Harrison sings, now with a more suitable backing group......