This one ought to be good for a chuckle. First the background information:

Back in 1969 as The Beatles were falling apart, John came up with his Plastic Ono Band concept. The basic idea was that the Plastic Ono Band was defined as whomever he (or Yoko Ono) happened to be playing with at the time. It could be a bunch of people in a Canadian hotel room (“Give Peace A Chance”, June 1969) or Eric Clapton and Klaus Voormann (Live Peace in Toronto album, Dec. 1969).

This weeks BROW is a recording that was originally over 30 minutes long and was cut down to around 4 minutes with plans to be released as the third Plastic Ono single in December 1969. For variation it was to be accredited to The Plastic Ono People who actually consisted of John with Mal Evans, Anthony Fawcett, Geoff Emerick, Phil McDonald, Malcolm Davies, Eddie Klein and others. The release was scrapped later when John decided to record and release “Instant Karma! (We All Shine On)” instead, the following month.

My apologies for the little bit of vinyl crackle you’ll hear in this but it’s in my only surviving source recording. So listen and enjoy. You might even want to join in.

John Lennon and Yoko Ono, 1969

Want to make a suggestion for a future Beatles Rarity of the Week? Then let me hear from you. Read about more Beatles rarities and suggest one for me to post. You can begin by searching for different versions of specific tracks right here.
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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If you have The Beatles’ Let It Be album you might remember a 49 second song fragment that appears after “I, Me, Mine” and before “Let It Be” called “Dig It” (John Lennon is singing “Like a rolling stone, like a rolling stone, like the FBI and the CIA, etc., etc.”). About 3 and a half minutes of this track are on the Let It Be film. But would you believe the whole thing is over 15 minutes long? It was cut much shorter from anything available to the public mainly because it was just sort of a jam session anyway. It was way too long, it’s got little-kid banter from Heather Eastman (who was shortly to become Paul’s step-daughter), and, of course, it’s got a lot of wailing from Yoko Ono. Dig into your turkey now, have a happy Thanksgiving and without further adieu…here is the complete “Dig It”. Can you dig it?

John Lennon, Apple Studios, Jan. 1969

Want to make a suggestion for a future Beatles Rarity of the Week? Then let me hear from you. Read about more Beatles rarities and suggest one for me to post. You can begin by searching for different versions of specific tracks right here.
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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This past Tuesday more Beatle-related product hit the shelves. The new 3-disk DVD set called The McCartney Years has 2 DVDs dedicated to music promo videos from Paul’s entire post-Beatles career and the third disk gives us fragments of 3 concerts from 1976, 1991 and 2004 and, of course, it all has a surround 5.1 mix.

For this weeks BROW, I’ve decided to feature a rare version of a tune included in this new DVD set to sort of “get us in the mood” for those of us who are fan enough to pick up a copy and check it out sometime soon.

Some us may remember all the way back to 1980 when the Coming Up single came out. The A-side of the single was from the “McCartney II” album as Wings had just recently become a thing of the past. The B-side, however was a live version of Coming Up that had been recorded with Wings on December 17, 1979 during the previous tour in Glasgow, Scotland. This was the only recording from that concert that was ever officially released.

Here now is another recording from the encore of that same show. The final Wings tour was coming to an end….and lookout, here comes the eighties(?!).

Paul McCartney & Wings Tour Poster, 1979

Want to make a suggestion for a future Beatles Rarity of the Week? Then let me hear from you. Read about more Beatles rarities and suggest one for me to post. You can begin by searching for different versions of specific tracks right here.
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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This week’s BROW, like last week’s, is in recognition of the just-released 2007 remaster of the Help! movie on DVD. Have you got your copy yet? It’s a bit pricey if you get the deluxe version with the huge book. Last week I featured the live version of the movie’s title song recorded at Shea Stadium. This week, let’s have a listen in to the studio sessions for that track. Featured here are takes 8 and 9 of “Help!” recorded on April 13, 1965. Take 8 was without vocals and breaks down 20 seconds into the song. Take 9 is the first vocal take and I think the vocals sound quite fresh for a first go at them. See what you think…

The Beatles on the set of Help! in the Austrian Alps, 1965.

Want to make a suggestion for a future Beatles Rarity of the Week? Then let me hear from you. Read about more Beatles rarities and suggest one for me to post. You can begin by searching for different versions of specific tracks right here.
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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This upcoming Tuesday the long-awaited remaster DVD of the Help! film hits the stores. I thought it would be a good idea to have a Help!-related BROW this week.

When The Beatles performed their famous gig at New York’s Shea Stadium on August 15, 1965, the Help! movie had just hit the theaters and the soundtrack album had just been released two days earlier. So here, complete with the archaic 100 watt amps vs. the spirit of 55,600 Beatle-crazed fans in the mid-60′s, are The Beatles playing “Help!” on a baseball diamond shortly before their quick escape in a Wells Fargo armored car.

The Beatles at Shea Stadium, August 1965

Want to make a suggestion for a future Beatles Rarity of the Week? Then let me hear from you. Read about more Beatles rarities and suggest one for me to post. You can begin by searching for different versions of specific tracks right here.
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

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