Welcome again to The Beatles Rarity Of The Week. This week’s BROW is a John Lennon track entitled Serve Yourself. I think it was one of his “private” songs never intended to be heard by the public. It was written as a comic response to the well-known Bob Dylan hit single Gotta Serve Somebody from his 1979 album Slow Train Coming. Recorded on piano in the fall of 1980 in his home at the Dakota building, it has a different feel than the acoustic guitar account of the song given on the John Lennon Anthology box set. It’s a very simple sentiment really: Bob says “you’re gonna have to serve somebody” and John says “you’ve got to serve yourself”. The rest of the words (on both songs) are just filler.

John Lennon, circa 1980

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This week’s BROW is no masterpiece. It’s just John and Ringo having a little bit of fun sometime in late 1967, and it just happened to get caught on tape. It’s kind of a comical improvisation that resembles some of the crazy antics heard on The Beatles Fan Club Christmas records issued from 1963-1969. Ringo sings a bit of Sailor Come Home To Me and John throws in his El Tango Terrible. After all, nobody should be sane all of the time. Enjoy…

John Lennon gets a little intimate with Ringo Starr at the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band photo session, May 1967

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Here we go again. It’s time for another BROW. This week’s Beatles Rarity Of The Week takes us back to a recording session from October 8, 1964. The Beatles were recording She’s A Woman which turned out to be a solid b-side for the upcoming hit I Feel Fine, recorded 10 days later and released on a single. She’s A Woman was mixed with an overabundance of reverb on Paul’s lead vocal on the US mix, so I thought it would be nice to hear a “clean” take of it. This is takes 7 (which is discontinued at the intro) and 8, which also features a tuning session and an extended jam at the end, where Paul does some screaming and makes other various noises. George’s guitar solo is yet to be added. It is believed that there were only 8 takes recorded and that the master is a combination of two or more of these. In the US, the master was released on the Beatles ’65 album while in the UK it was initially only issued as a singles track. Enjoy!

Picture sleeve for UK I Feel Fine/She's A Woman 45

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This week BROW looks back 42 years ago to a very special occasion. On June 25, 1967, the very first live international satellite television production was broadcast. The two and a half hour program called Our World featured performers from nineteen nations, and according to Wikipedia, an estimated 400 million people around the globe watched the broadcast. Performers were given segments on the show to represent their respective countries and among them were opera singer Maria Callas and artist Pablo Picasso. The master control of the program was set up at BBC London. The most famous segment came from the UK which featured The Beatles. Initially, Paul McCartney had written a song called Hello Goodbye for this event, but John Lennon topped him on this one. At the height of the Vietnam War, The Beatles decided to spread a message of peace and love to the world with another new song written by John Lennon called simply All You Need Is Love. To make the event as festive as possible, The Beatles invited many of their friends to join in on the song’s chorus including The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Marianne Faithful, Keith Moon and Graham Nash. Only one rehearsal was needed and then they went live with it before the world. What we are hearing here is the original live performance and lead vocal preceded by a taping of The Beatles performing some of the backing vocal track. It turns out that the very same instrumental track was used on the forthcoming single release of the song, although Lennon re-did his lead vocal for it. Needless to say, this record topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic.

The Beatles on June 25, 1967 at the Our World broadcast.

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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