Welcome to The Beatles Rarity Of The Week. John Lennon’s White Album track “Happiness Is A Warm Gun” is the subject of this week’s offering.

John referred to the song as a pastiche, consisting of several different song fragments he had going around in his head in 1968, as identified below:

1. The first section includes a fingerpicking style of guitar he had recently picked up in Rishikesh India with the help of Donovan, played with a lilting pattern and including the line “She’s not a girl who misses much…”
2. The second section includes some lyrics supplied by Beatles press officer Derek Taylor which he came up with during an acid trip that he experienced with John (“She’s well acquainted with the touch of a velvet hand like a lizard on a window pane…”).
3. The third section came from a song fragment called “I Need A Fix” built around a nice and mean sounding guitar riff.
4. John follows this up with the fourth “Mother Superior Jumped The Gun” section.
5. The fifth and final section sends off the song with a doo-wop approach of singing the title with full backing vocal accompaniment from John, Paul McCartney and George Harrison. This inspiration for this section came from the title of an American firearms magazine title of Happiness Is A Warm Gun In Your Hand that John was shown by producer George Martin.

With each section comes a change in the time signature, yet despite it’s schizophrenic nature, it came together quite well and was much admired by the other Beatles. In fact, Paul McCartney mentioned in an interview that it was his favorite White Album song.

Forty-five takes of the song were recorded on September 23, 1968 and twenty-five more the following day. Take 53 was chosen as the best of these except for the final section which was edited to it from take 65. Overdubs were added from this version to create the master. If listening to the album or CD of the White Album, the edit between the takes occurs at 1:34.

For this week’s BROW, I am sharing one of the rough mix tapes that isolates one of the overdub tracks. It contains organ for the first two sections, distorted electric guitar for the third section, hi-hat and tambourine for the fourth section, and piano for the final section. These can be heard in the released stereo and mono mixes (centered in stereo) but since the organ and piano are quite buried there, I thought you may appreciate hearing these parts of the mix a bit clearer in this isolation account. As an added bonus, I’ve prefaced this with John’s acoustic guitar demo of the song recorded on May 25, 1969 while at his and Yoko Ono’s Canadian Bed-In at the King Edward Hotel in Toronto. On this same day John was recording demos for his anthem “Give Peace A Chance” just one week before recording the final version in Montreal, Quebec.

A very special thanks goes out to Spike who requested this week’s BROW and waited patiently for me to get to it.

The Beatles - Happiness Is A Warm Gun

John Lennon & Paul McCartney, 1968

Extra info: The Beatles Anthology 3 includes an acoustic demo of John playing sections 3 and 4 sometime around the third week of May 1968 at his Weybridge home, Kenwood.

Credits for finalized version of “Happiness Is A Warm Gun:”
John Lennon: double tracked vocal, backing vocals, guitar
Paul McCartney: bass, backing vocals
George Harrison: fuzzed lead guitar, backing vocals
Ringo Starr: drums, tambourine

Here are some Amazon links to read more on, or purchase, some music related to this post:

1) The White Album (Remastered) 2009 2-CD remaster of original 1968 stereo LP, including “Happiness Is A Warm Gun.”

2) Anthology 3 2-CD compilation of alternate and out-take Beatles recordings between 1968-1969, including early acoustic demo of “Happiness Is A Warm Gun.”

3) More Amazon links for any of your favorite Beatles-related music: The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

No related posts.

Welcome to another go-round of #AskNat, a new series on TheBeatlesRarity where I chose one or more Beatle-related questions sent in by site-readers to give it my best answer. Feel free to join in with any added information by commenting to the post. Information on submitting your own questions is given below. Thanks are also in order here for those who have already sent in questions – so THANK YOU very much!

This week’s first question comes from one of our long time email subscribers Elliott Marx of Chatsworth California, who makes a quick point and writes:

I always found the story about rejecting Mitch Murray’s “How Do You Do It” to be suspicious. I love the premise of the band putting their foot down and purposely doing a lackluster version of the song as a protest against using outside writers. But multinational record corporations don’t listen to unproven 20 year old artists.

After famously being denied by multiple labels, it seems mind-bogglingly courageous to not just do what your told to do.

On top of that, how did Murray write a song that was so incredibly early-Beatles-esque before the Beatles had even made a recorded impact? I think HDYDI is a great, light weight pop tune. But it really does have many Beatles trademarks within it. Perhaps they arranged the known version to suit their style. Otherwise, it seems that elements of their sound preexisted.

This is a lot of language to simply ask – what is the true story behind that song?

Well, Elliott, the true story goes like this.

The Beatles first EMI recording session on June 6, 1962 convinced producer George Martin two things. First drummer Pete Best was unsuitable for studio purposes (the group took care of this by replacing him with Ringo). Second, none of the material offered by the group, original compositions or covers, was strong enough for a debut single. Martin took this problem into his own hands by searching for a promising new song from London’s talent pool of songwriters. Meanwhile, across town, composer Mitch Murray watched as his new song “How Do You Do It” was demoed by Barry Mason (with instrumental accompaniment by the Dave Clark Five), offered to singer Adam Faith, and turned down. Murray and Mason next brought the demo acetate to EMI’s resident rock producer Ron Richards, who convinced publisher Dick James to purchase the rights to the tune. The acetate sat in Richards’ office until sometime after The Beatles June 6 session, which Richards and Martin co-produced. Both producers agreed that the song might be suitable for the Beatles’ style and mailed a copy to Liverpool so the band could learn the song in time for a session planned for September 4, 1962.

So The Beatles were put in the ironic position of having to rearrange a song performed by future chart rivals, The Dave Clark Five, and there is evidence that they tried out their new arrangement during July and August performances at The Cavern. The response must not have been good enough to give them confidence in the song (based on their recorded performance). They clearly wanted to make it on their own terms rather than become known for parroting the corniness of “professional” song writers. But with no original songs to draw from and cautious at the possibility of upsetting the big-time producers who presumably knew what made a big hit (what they wanted more than anything), The Beatles finalized an arrangement of the song with their new drummer Ringo in the last weeks of August. At the September 4 session, after some rehearsals and Ringo proving his drumming skills, they nailed a recording of “How Do You Do It” in one take. Handclaps were added as the only overdub. Satisfying Martin and Richards, they moved on to recording their own “Love Me Do,” which took 15 takes and although recognized as being superior to Pete Best’s efforts, caused George Martin to have second thoughts on Ringo’s drumming. Holding off on a final decision as to which song was the most worthy to be the debut single, Martin mixed both songs and had a mono acetate made. By the following session on September 11, Martin had declared “Love Me Do” more suitable for The Beatles style and “How Do You Do It” was placed in the vault and forgotten until long after the session tapes had been destroyed. Gerry and The Pacemakers, however, ended up recording the song and taking it to #1 in the U.K. for 3 weeks. For the Beatles September 11 session, professional drummer Andy White was brought in to try a recording of “Love Me Do” with him. For more on that see last week’s #askNat article here. Additional information about “How Do You Do It” was featured in this BROW post.

George Martin's original 1962 acetate for "How Do You Do It"

Stacia in Minneapolis, Minnesota asks:

What’s a couple of your favorite bootleg discs?

Well, Stacia, that one is a bit tough for me to answer in terms of any “specific” titles. A look through the inventory section of my site here will show that I do have a lot in my personal collection but I guess it all is too dependent on what I happen to be in the mood to listen to at any given time to make a list of certain ones. I will say though that I am quite fond of many of the CDs out on the “Purple Chick” label, because they are very complete series-type sets that are as complete as possible for a specific period, tour or session instead of being a confusing “hodgepodge” of various recordings. For example there is even an 80+ disc set of the entire Get Back sessions of January 1969 (the set is called A/B Road). All the good and all the bad in one set. It’s quite exhaustive for a casual fan, but for a completeist, such as myself, it is a good thing. Of course I invite anyone reading to list their favorite Beatle bootlegs (and why) in the comments section below.

Thank you Elliott and Stacia for two very good questions!

References used in this post include John C. Winn’s Way Beyond Compare and Bill Harry’s Beatles Encyclopedia.

To submit your own questions to #askNat follow these guidelines:

1) There is a designated form that you fill out right on the website where you can give your name, location, email address and submit your question. The form is right here and is the same form used to submit requests for BROWs (Beatles Rarity Of The Weeks), but modfied to do both BROW requests and #askNat questions.

2) If you are a Facebook user, you can submit your question right on TheBeatlesRarity FB wall at www.facebook.com/beatlesrarity. If you think about it, try to remember to flag your question with “#askNat”.

3) Similarly, if you are a Google+ user, you can submit your question on TheBeatlesRarity Google+ page at www.gplus.to/beatlesrarity. Google+ supports hashtag searchability so it will be helpful if you preface your question with “#askNat” here too.

4) For you Twitter users, www.twitter.com/beatlesrarity gets you to the right place. Post your question and be sure to add “#askNat” somewhere in the tweet.

To read more or purchase music related to this post check out these Amazon links below:

1) Anthology 1 – 1995 2 CD set of Beatles out-takes and live recordings from the earliest years up to 1964. Includes “How Do You Do It” from September 4, 1962 EMI session.

2) Past Masters (Remastered) – 2-CD 2010 remastered set of Beatles non-album tracks including “Love Me Do” single version with Ringo Starr on drums at the same session that “How Do You Do It” was recorded.

3) Amazon links for any of your favorite Beatles-related music: The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.

Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

No related posts.

Welcome to the first installment of #AskNat, a new series on TheBeatlesRarity where I chose one or more Beatle-related questions sent in by site-readers to give it my best answer. Feel free to join in with any added information by commenting to the post. Information on submitting your own questions is given below.

This week’s first question comes from one of our Twitter readers with the name Kostya221. His question is:

It is fairly common knowledge that the single version of “Love Me Do” by The Beatles has Ringo Starr on drums and the Please Please Me album version of “Love Me Do” has George Martin-appointed session man Andy White on drums and Ringo playing a tambourine. Are there any other Beatles recordings that Andy White plays on?

The Beatles first recordings at EMI Studios occurred on June 6, 1962 while Pete Best was still the drummer. The band recorded both “Besame Mucho” and “Love Me Do.” Both of these songs are featured on Beatles Anthology 1.

After this session producer George Martin told the Beatles manager Brian Epstein that he would be replacing Pete Best on the drums with someone else for any future studio recordings. Ringo Starr became the new Beatles drummer on August 18th and his first studio session at EMI with The Beatles came on September 4th, 1962 when The Beatles recorded “How Do You Do It” written by Mitch Murray and their own “Love Me Do. ” The version of “Love Me Do” recorded here was used on the British single released on October 5, 1962. Ringo played on both of these tracks.

By the next EMI session which came the following week on September 11, 1962, George Martin, although recognizing Ringo as a big improvement over Pete Best, was having second thoughts on his drumming and replaced him with session drummer Andy White. The Beatles recorded “P.S. I Love You’ first (the version that is on the B-side to the “Love Me Do” single and mono copies of the Please Please Me LP). Ringo, wanting to be sure he was on the record, played maracas. Next they did a re-recording of “Love Me Do” still using Andy White as drummer. Ringo plays a tambourine on this recording which was selected for use on the Please Please Me LP. Thirdly The Beatles recorded an earlier and harmonica-less version of “Please Please Me”. This version is available on The Beatles Anthology 1 and has a much tamer drum pattern, again delivered by Andy White. George Martin instructed them to pep the song up and add some harmonies, which they did and when it was recorded again on November 26th of that year. Ringo played drums on this recording and it became The Beatles first number one single.

Andy White, session drummer for EMI, circa 1962

Secondly, Craig from Santa Ana, California asks:

Why do both The Beatles’ Vee Jay and Capitol records in America have identical rainbow colorbands on the record labels when they were not affiliated with each other?

While the colorband design is similar for both Vee Jay and Capitol, they are not identical, as the colors are positioned in different positions around the circular labels (e.g. green is around the 3 o’clock position on a Capitol label and around the 7 o’clock position on a Vee Jay label).

The rainbow label was introduced by Capitol in 1958 with the advent of stereophonic records. Vee Jay apparently liked the design and adapted their own version of the rainbow labels by 1960. Many Vee Jay records did not include the rainbow label design however as it was dependent on which factory pressed the records (Vee Jay used more than one) and other factors. Capitol did not use rainbow labels on the Beatles singles but did on both mono and stereo Beatles albums. Vee Jay used their rainbow labels on both albums, singles and EPs.

Capitol LP rainbow label

Vee Jay single rainbow label, 1963

Thank you Kostya221 and Craig for your questions!

To submit your own questions to #askNat follow these guidelines:

1) There is a designated form that you fill out right on the website where you can give your name, location, email address and submit your question. The form is right here and is the same form used to submit requests for BROWs (Beatles Rarity Of The Weeks), but modfied to do both BROW requests and #askNat questions.

2) If you are a Facebook user, you can submit your question right on TheBeatlesRarity FB wall at www.facebook.com/beatlesrarity. If you think about it, try to remember to flag your question with “#askNat”.

3) Similarly, if you are a Google+ user, you can submit your question on TheBeatlesRarity Google+ page at www.gplus.to/beatlesrarity. Google+ supports hashtag searchability so it will be helpful if you preface your question with “#askNat” here too.

4) For you Twitter users, www.twitter.com/beatlesrarity gets you to the right place. Post your question and be sure to add “#askNat” somewhere in the tweet.

To read more or purchase music related to this post check out these Amazon links below:

1) Please Please Me (Remastered) – 2010 remaster of original 1963 stereo album featuring “Love Me Do” and “P.S. I Love You” w/Andy White on drums.

2) Past Masters (Remastered) – 2-CD 2010 remastered set of Beatles non-album tracks including “Love Me Do” single version with Ringo Starr on drums.

3) Anthology 1 – 1995 2 CD set of Beatles out-takes and live recordings from the earliest years up to 1964. Includes early version of “Please Please Me” with Andy White on drums and early version of “Love Me Do” with Pete Best on drums.

4) Amazon links for any of your favorite Beatles-related music: The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.

Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

Related posts:

1. Collector’s Corner – The “Love Me Do” single on Parlophone – The Beatles begin an incredible recording career Excluding the January 5, 1962, Polydor “My Bonnie” single release...

This week instead of the the VOW, I’m continuing with a new series called Record Roundup, which made it’s debut last week, showcasing the U.S. Capitol “I Want To Hold Your Hand” single. This week the featured record is the British Parlophone “Love Me Do” single, which as many of you know is The Beatles very first record other than the recordings where they were only backing up Tony Sheridan. Just like last time, I’ll give a quick talk about the record before spinning it up on a real honest to goodness portable turntable, just like it was done in the sixties. You can think of this as sort of an infomercial made back in the day to promote the 45. Enjoy!

Click the image above to play the video.

Here are some Amazon links to read more on, or purchase, some music related to this post:

1) Past Masters (Remastered) 2009 remastered 2-CD compilation of The Beatles non-album tracks, featuring the single version of “Love Me Do” with Ringo Starr on drums.

2) The Beatles 1 – 2011 remastered version of original 2000 compilation of Beatles #1 singles, including “Love Me Do” with session drummer Andy White on drums and Ringo Starr playing tambourine.

3) Please Please Me (Remastered) – 2009 remaster of original 1963 British LP including “Love Me Do” with session drummer Andy White on drums and Ringo Starr playing tambourine.

4) More Amazon links for any of your favorite Beatles-related music: The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

Related posts:

1. Collector’s Corner – The “Love Me Do” single on Parlophone – The Beatles begin an incredible recording career Excluding the January 5, 1962, Polydor “My Bonnie” single release...

“If I Fell” was the last song recorded on The Beatles February 27, 1964 session set up to record songs for their first feature film A Hard Day’s Night. This clip, taken directly from the film shows the Beatles when they are supposedly rehearsing the song in preparation for an upcoming London television show. In the opening we see that Ringo Starr is initially bitter about the theater tech mishandling his drums.

Paul McCartney, harmonizing on the vocals with John Lennon, had trouble reaching the high note on the word “vain” the second time around, so George Martin mixed out the words “new love was in vain” for the mono mix (heard here). This was done by replacing the faulty section with a copy of when it was sung the first time around. In the U.S., “If I Fell” was released as a Capitol single coupled with “And I Love Her” on July 20, 1964, around three weeks before the movie made it’s American theater debut.

Click the image above to play the video.

Here are some Amazon links to read more on, or purchase, some music related to this post:

1) A Hard Day’s Night (Remastered) 2009 remastered CD of original 1964 UK LP, includes stereo mix of “If I Fell”.

2) A Hard Day’s Night – 2002 DVD remaster of original 1964 feature film. Contains a bonus DVD with lots of special features. Includes this clip of “If I Fell”.

3) More Amazon links for any of your favorite Beatles-related music: The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

Related posts:

1. Beatles Rarity Of The Week – A Hard Day’s Night (takes 2 & 3) Early in 1964 John Lennon published his first book titled...
2. Beatles Rarity Of The Week – If I Fell (composing tape, Jan. 1964) Welcome to the Beatles Rarity of the Week. John Lennon...
3. Beatles Rarity Of The Week – If I Fell (Live on Blackpool Night Out) Welcome to the Beatles Rarity of the Week. This week’s...

Welcome to the Beatles Rarity Of The Week. In early April 1969 after John Lennon had put his wedding and honeymoon exploits to verse, he was very eager to get his “Ballad Of John And Yoko” recorded. The Beatles had not had a full recording session in six months and currently George Harrison was busy shopping for his new home (he ended up moving from his Kinfauns bungalow into Friar Park 11 months later). Ringo Starr was also occupied on the set of the movie The Magic Christian where he was co-starring with Peter Sellers. On April 18th, the band were planning to meet in the studio to record George’s “Old Brown Shoe” but John did not want to wait until then. On Monday April 14th, he met with Paul McCartney in EMI Studio 3 for what would otherwise have been just a mixing session with producer George Martin, and the two of them completed the song in a six and a half hour session on their own.

“The Ballad Of John And Yoko” is a ballad in the traditional sense of a narrative poem put to song and not in the sense used in modern pop and rock music where the term usually refers to a slow and sentimental love song. The lyrics cover the events of March 16th through April 1st, 1969, to include John’s marriage to Yoko Ono in Gibraltar on March 20th. It was unusual to record without George and Ringo present but John did not want to wait and he and Paul had planned to attend the mixing session that day anyway.

The backing track was completed after 11 takes with take 10 being marked best. John’s acoustic guitar on track 2, Paul’s drumming on track 3 and John’s lead vocal on track 4 were all recorded simultaneously. During the session while Paul was drumming, John can be heard on the session tape saying to him “Go a bit faster, Ringo!” to which Paul replies “OK, George!”. Overdubs began with Paul’s bass on track 1, followed up by John’s lead guitar on track 5. On track 6, John added additional guitar to include the call-and-response licks that effectively give the song an extra edge. Paul’s backing vocals were added on track 7, and on track 8 John added the percussion effect of hitting the back of his guitar. Paul shook maracas in the second half of the song. With some help from returning sound engineer Geoff Emerick the session was completed in about 8 hours. Geoff had quit working with The Beatles nine months earlier due to the tensions that had mounted during the White Album sessions and John and Paul were happy to be working with him again.

This week’s BROW let’s us hear how the recording sounded before any of the overdubs were added. As detailed above, tracks 2, 3 and 4 included the “live in the studio” account of John’s lead vocal and acoustic guitar with Paul’s drums and that is only what we hear at this stage. The drums have been mixed low to give emphasis to the lead vocal and John’s extraneous vocalizations at the end of the song have yet to be removed.

The Beatles - The Ballad Of John & Yoko

U.S. Apple picture sleeve for The Ballad Of John And Yoko/Old Brown Shoe single

Extra info:

1) “The Ballad Of John and Yoko” was released on a single on May 30th in the U.K. (June 4th in the U.S.) and was the last #1 U.K. single for the band. In the U.S. it peaked at #8 on the Billboard singles chart. The b-side of the single was George Harrison’s “Old Brown Shoe” recorded by all 4 Beatles later in the week.

2) The original title of “The Ballad Of John And Yoko” included the parenthetical subtitle “They’re Gonna Crucify Me”, but John agreed to drop it, aware that it would not help the commercial appeal of the record to use the “crucify” word.

3) The final drumbeat in “The Ballad Of John And Yoko” was at an equal volume level with the rest of the recording on the original single. On subsequent compilations however such as the U.S. Hey Jude album or the first issuance of The Beatles 1967-1970 (aka “Blue”) album, the final drumbeat is faded down noticeably low. On the recent remasters of the Past Masters CD set, One or The Beatles 1967-1970, the final drumbeat has once again been presented in full volume.

Here are some Amazon links to read more on, or purchase, some music related to this post:

1) Past Masters (Remastered) 2009 remastered 2-CD collection of Beatles singles and other non-album tracks. Contains both “The Ballad Of John And Yoko” and it’s B-side “Old Brown Shoe”.

2) The Beatles 1 2011 remaster of original 2000 CD collection of Beatles #1′s, including “The Ballad Of John And Yoko”.

3) 1967-1970 (Blue) Remastered – 2-CD 2010 remaster of original double album late Beatles hits compilation from 1973. Contains both “The Ballad Of John And Yoko” and it’s B-side “Old Brown Shoe”.

4) More Amazon links for any of your favorite Beatles-related music: The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

Related posts:

1. The Beatles – The Ballad Of John And Yoko (original promo) John Lennon wrote The Ballad Of John And Yoko during...
2. Beatles Rarity Of The Week – A Picture Of You (BBC’s Here We Go) Welcome to this week’s BROW. This track hails from The...
3. Beatles Rarity Of The Week – Revolution 1 (Take 20) Welcome to BROW. I’m going to assume that most reading...

In celebration of the upcoming Blu-Ray/DVD re-release of Yellow Submarine, I thought it would be a good week to show a small snippet from the film. Details on the re-release can be found here. The animated movie’s box office premier was in July of 1968. At the film’s intro, the village of Pepperland is introduced as a cheerful music-loving paradise under the sea, protected by Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. A yellow submarine rests on a hill near a range of high blue mountains.

The land falls under a surprise attack by the music-hating Blue Meanies and it becomes the mission of Pepperland Sea Captain resident Old Fred to go for help. He takes off in the Yellow Submarine and luckily finds The Beatles, who return with him and revive the then-captured Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Together they defeat the Blue Meanies, restoring Pepperland to all of it’s original glory. The animated personas of The Beatles were the only Beatles seen until the final few minutes, when the real Beatles make an appearance to go out singing “All Together Now.”

Yellow Submarine was a box-office hit, drawing in crowds both for its lush, wildly creative images, and its soundtrack of Beatles songs. The soundtrack album release was delayed and did not see release until January 1969.

Click the image above to play the video.

Here are some Amazon links to read more on, or purchase, some music related to this post:

1) Yellow Submarine (Remastered) 2009 CD remaster of original 1969 stereo album containing 6 Beatles songs from the film and orchestrations used in the film soundtrack by Sir George Martin.

2) Yellow Submarine Songtrack
1999 CD collection containing 15 fabulous remixes of Beatles songs used in the movie (a more complete account of music than the 6 tracks on original soundtrack). All mixes are by Peter Cobbin.

3) More Amazon links for any of your favorite Beatles-related music: The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

Related posts:

1. Beatles Rarity Of The Week – It’s All Too Much (w/restored verse) 0savesSave At the ending of the Yellow Submarine movie we...
2. Yellow Submarine Remake to start filming in April 2011 For all of the hubbub that surrounded Robert Zemeckis’ remake...
3. Yellow Submarine film – Hey Bulldog omitted sequence, 1968 When the 1968 Beatles animated feature, Yellow Submarine hit the...

Welcome, once again, to The Beatles Rarity Of The Week. In the summer of 1984, long before there was any concept of The Beatles Anthology, EMI began putting together a new Beatles album as a secret project. The album was appropriately titled Sessions and would contain alternate takes of some known songs, as well as a few surprise out-takes, that had been relegated to the vault up to that point. In order to keep word from getting out, it was assigned the code name “Mary Jane”, after the song “What’s The New Mary Jane”, that was to make it’s debut with this record. It was slated for release on February 22, 1985, and long-time Beatles friend and former sound engineer Geoff Emerick was brought in to create the necessary edits and mixes to include on the album. Within a month of the release date, however, the record was abruptly taken off of the schedule, presumably because the surviving Beatles were not happy with the content. Although the official version never came out, bootleggers created their own copies of Sessions. Eventually all tracks but a very short edit of the fan club holiday Christmas song “Christmas Time (Is Here Again)”, were released on the Beatles Anthology CDs.

"Leave My Kitten Alone" c/w "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" front of picture sleeve (unissued)

"Leave My Kitten Alone" c/w "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" back of picture sleeve (unissued)

The lead off single for the LP was to be “Leave My Kitten Alone” with an alternate take of “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” on the b-side. Although it was never released, EMI got as far as having picture sleeves prepared for it (see a copy of this rare sleeve at left). Before the Sessions idea even came about, “Leave My Kitten Alone” was going to be released as a single in late 1980, however, after John Lennon was shot, it was decided that it would be taken as an inappropriate attempt at cashing in on his death to release the single. For this reason, the idea was abandoned.

Another of the songs destined for the Sessions LP was the Mitch Murray-penned “How Do You Do It”. Many fans already know the story of how producer George Martin insisted they record it at their September 4, 1962 recording session. While new Beatle, Ringo Starr attended the session (his first), he was not allowed to play, since George Martin had brought in session drummer Andy White to do that. The Beatles were not thrilled about “How Do You Do It” but made a respectable recording of it to please George Martin, while still vying to release their own composition “Love Me Do” as their first single. As the story goes, Martin gave “How Do You Do It” to Gerry and the Pacemakers, who topped the charts with it in both the U.S. and the U.K. The Beatles felt better about releasing “Love Me Do” as their own song, but did not top the charts themselves until the following single, “Please Please Me”.

In 1984, when Geoff Emerick was preparing “How Do You Do It” for release on Sessions, he made an edit that changed the first line in the final chorus. On the original recording, that line is Wish I knew how you do it to me, I’d do it to you. Geoff replaced it with the line Wish I knew how you do it to me, but I haven’t a clue, which is simply a copy of a line John sings earlier in the recording. This 1984 edit is the version used on the officially released CD set Beatles Anthology 1 and numerous bootleg versions of the Sessions LP. For this week’s BROW, I give you the original unedited version of the recording.

The Beatles - How Do You Do It

The Beatles, September 1962 at EMI studios

Extra info:

The original track listing for Sessions went like this:

Side 1 – “Come And Get It”, “Leave My Kitten Alone”, “Not Guilty”, “I’m Looking Through You”, “What’s The New Mary Jane?”

Side 2 – “How Do You Do It”, “Besame Mucho”, “One After 909″, “If You’ve Got Trouble”, “That Means A Lot”, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, “Mailman Bring Me No More Blues” (aka “Mailman Blues”), “Christmas Time (Is Here Again)”

All but the last track can now be found on the Beatles Anthology CDs.

Here are some Amazon links to read more on, or purchase, some music related to this post:

1) Anthology 1 – 1995 CD collection of Beatles out-takes and alternate live recordings during the formative years up to late 1964, including 1984 ‘Sessions’ mix of How Do You Do It.

2) Anthology 2- 1996 CD collection of Beatles out-takes and alternate live recordings during 1964 through 1968, including tracks from 1984 aborted ‘Sessions’ album.

3) Anthology 3- 1996 CD collection of Beatles out-takes and alternate live recordings during their final years (1968-69), including tracks from 1984 aborted ‘Sessions’ album.

4) More Amazon links for any of your favorite Beatles-related music: The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

No related posts.

For this week’s BROW, I first want to talk about a guy who was a Capitol Records A&R executive in the 1960′s named Dave Dexter. Capitol Records was actually owned by the U.K.-based company, EMI, that were handling the distribution of Beatles records in Britain through their Parlophone subsidiary. When EMI sent “Please Please Me” to Capitol for consideration as a U.S. single release, it was Dave who turned it down, citing he didn’t think it had what it took to be a marketable piece of music for the American audience. Dave, being in his forties at the time, had grown up with jazz and big band music, and apparently was not totally tuned in to picking out the best in rock and roll. Dave also declined the next couple of Beatle-offerings from EMI too: “From Me To You” and “She Loves You”. At this point, Beatles producer George Martin was infuriated. The singles did get a U.S. release anyway through either Vee Jay Records or Swan Records, but with very little promotional efforts and no backing from a major label, there was no interest generated for The Beatles in America. Fortunately Beatles manager Brian Epstein was able to persuade Capitol Records president, Alan Livingston, to play a few sample Beatles singles himself, including the new “I Want To Hold Your Hand” record, and that was all it took. Capitol agreed to begin distributing The Beatles with major promotional backing by the end of 1963.

Although, he initially passed on The Beatles, Dave Dexter soon came around to the idea, once he saw how the power of “Beatlemania” was taking hold in the U.S. He became the man in charge of compiling the American versions of the Beatles albums, which were arranged quite differently than the LPs released in England. U.S. albums typically contained 11-12 songs, whereas the norm was 14 tracks in the U.K. Dave held some songs back from the British LPs and added singles tracks, so that 2 English LPs meant 3 LPs in America, and thus more sales. The cover art and album titles were also different, such as the U.K. LP “With The Beatles” shortened and becoming “Meet The Beatles!” in the U.S. The mixes of the songs were also changed for the American market. Dave would add lots of echo to the “cleaner” sounding British mixes, because he felt that this added ‘ambiance effect’ was preferred in the U.S. This was okay on some of the music, but was overdone on a few occasions too. “I Feel Fine” and “She’s A Woman” are two tracks that suffer the most from this overabundance of ‘reverb’. These tracks appear on an American single and the Beatles ’65 album. Most listeners today seem to prefer the crisp British mix over the murky sounding American mixes of these two songs, but to each his own.

By late 1965, some of the differences between the U.S. and U.K. catalogs were starting to diminish. The Rubber Soul album was released in December of that year with the same cover art and title on both sides of the Atlantic. This was a first. The track listing was still slightly modified as the U.S. album had a couple of leftover tracks from the U.K. Help! album and also a few U.K. Rubber Soul tracks were left off the U.S. version (such as “Nowhere Man”) to appear later on the U.S.-only LP, “Yesterday”…And Today. Dave Dexter continued with his practice of adding an additional layer of echo on the stereo version of the album, but not all first pressings of the record contain these “Dexterized” versions of the songs. For pressings released in the sixties, it seems that most, if not all, of the east coast pressings have the added echo effects, while other pressings can have either the cleaner sounding mixes heard on the U.K. versions, or the echo enhanced versions. Later pressings, from the 70′s and beyond, have the cleaner sounding mixes, as do the CDs, to include the Rubber Soul disc packaged with the Capitol Albums Vol. 2 box set.

If you have an American Rubber Soul vinyl LP, you may be curious about whether of not yours contains the “clean” or “Dexterized” mixes. Rather than go into details about discerning what vinyl pressing you may have, I thought it might be more effective to suggest a good audio-test instead. The details are forthcoming, so read on…

This week’s BROW, in honor of this Saturday’s anniversary of the birth of George Harrison, is a track he penned for the Rubber Soul album in 1965, about someone, unrevealed, that George had parted ways with. This was an interesting time in Beatle history and one of the key reasons was that George was coming into his own and honing his skills, not only as a guitarist and vocalist, but also as a composer. The song is called “Think For Yourself”. A fuzzbox was added to Paul McCartney’s bass in the recording to pepper the sound with a bit of distortion. Since the “Dexterized” version of the song is no longer readily available, I have chosen to share it with you here, allowing you to hear how much more echo-laden it actually sounded on many of the U.S. stereo albums in the 60′s. The audio comparison test I mentioned earlier is to focus on the song’s ending, because the chords terminate cold and dry on any of the Rubber Soul CD issuances, but echo away with an unmistakeable bit of delay on the mix heard here. Take it away George…

The Beatles, circa 1965

Extra info:

1) Although George prepared two songs for Rubber Soul, “Think For Yourself” was his only track on the U.S. Rubber Soul album. The other track, “If I Needed Someone” appeared in the U.S. on the album “Yesterday”…And Today, released in June 1966.

2) Alternate audio-test: Since the initial stereo issuances of Rubber Soul had the vocals primarily on the right channel, you may be able to play the stereo vinyl (US) LP and adjust your amplifier’s balance control to the right. If it seems like you have more echo in the isolated vocal track than what appears on a Rubber Soul CD or digital file, then you may have an album with the “Dexterized” mix. A good song to try this on is “Girl”.

I would like to thank Fab 4 Radio’s “Beatle Ed” for inspiring me to do the research necessary for this post.

Here are some Amazon links to read more on, or purchase, some music related to this post:

1) Rubber Soul (Remastered) 2009 remastered stereo CD with original stereo U.K. LP from Dec. 1965. Includes stereo mix of “Think For Yourself” (not the “Dexterized” mix).

2) Capitol Albums Vol. 2 Box Set – 2006 remastered 4-CD box set of U.S. Capitol Beatles albums Early Beatles, Beatles VI, Help! and Rubber Soul. The set contains both mono and stereo versions of the original four U.S. LPs from 1965. Features mono and stereo mixes of “Think For Yourself”. Note: The Rubber Soul disc does not include the “Dexterized” mixes discussed in this post.

3) More Amazon links for any of your favorite Beatles-related music: The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

Related posts:

1. In My Life – HQ promo for Beatles Anthology DVD documentary set After mentioning In My Life in the last BROW segment,...
2. Beatles Rarity Of The Week – I’m Only Sleeping (U.S. mono mix) Welcome to this week’s Beatles Rarity Of The Week. This...
3. Beatles Rarity Of The Week – Run For Your Life (take 5) Welcome to the Beatles Rarity of the Week. It became...

Most Beatles fans are well aware of the John Lennon demos Yoko Ono gave to Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr in 1994, and the magic that was breathed into them for use on the Beatles Anthology project. Although even casual fans have seen both of the resulting video clips more than once, it has been awhile since I have seen them and thought a revisit of one of them wouldn’t be out of line.

“Real Love” began as a piano demo recorded around 1979 by John with an audio cassette recorder that he sat on top of his piano. The tape Yoko Ono gave to the surviving Beatles also included “Free As A Bird”, “Grow Old With Me” and “Now And Then”, but only “Free As A Bird” and “Real Love” were used for the Anthology project.

Original Beatles producer George Martin was initially offered the opportunity to produce, but declined due to his hearing limitations and Jeff Lynne, who had worked with George Harrison and the Traveling Wilburys, was given the job to co-produce with The Beatles instead.

Since John’s piano and vocal were on a single track, his voice could not be separated from the piano and so it was used on the final production. On the original demo recording, John had added a simple drum-machine beat and a second vocal track.

In February 1995, the additional work began on the demo by first carefully removing the hum, hiss and clicks from the cassette recording and transferring the mono source to two 24-track analogue tapes. George and Paul then added acoustic guitars, George the lead guitar and Ringo the drum track. Paul added two bass tracks, first playing an electric bass guitar and then adding the stand-up bass he had recently acquired, that had been used by Bill Black on Elvis Presley’s recording of “Heartbreak Hotel”. George, Paul and Ringo all added some additional percussion sounds while Paul and George sang backing and harmony vocals. Paul then recorded a vocal track as an addition to John’s lead, not to duet with him, but to strengthen the occasionally thin sound that was a consequence of the cassette recording.

The video features shots of the surviving Beatles recording the song in Sussex, mixed in with various footage taken throughout The Beatles’ career. There are actually two variations of the video but both use the same approach. The video was used in the second installment of the Beatles Anthology television mini-series and also in the Beatles Anthology VHS/DVD sets.

“Real Love” opens the Beatles Anthology 2 CD set and was also released on a CD single in 1996. One of the six original demo takes recorded by John was used in the 1988 film Imagine: John Lennon and is included on it’s soundtrack CD.

While the composition credit for “Free As A Bird” was modified to Lennon/McCartney/Harrison/Starr due to additional lyrical development and chord structure additions, “Real Love” remained solely a Lennon composition.

Click the image above to play the video.

Here are some Amazon links to read more on, or purchase, some music related to this post:

1) Beatles Anthology 2 CD set 2-CD set covering Beatles years 1965-1968 and opening with The Beatles version of “Real Love”.

2) The Beatles Anthology (DVD set) 2003 5-DVD set giving expanded version of original 1995 television mini-series, including videos for both “Real Love” and “Free As A Bird”.

3) Imagine: John Lennon Soundtrack CD soundtrack of 1988 film Imagine: John Lennon, featuring acoustic demo version of “Real Love”.

4) More Amazon links for any of your favorite Beatles-related music: The Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
Visit www.thebeatlesrarity.com for a new Beatles rarity each week, plus lots more!

Related posts:

1. Beatles Rarity Of The Week – Free As A Bird (home demo) This week’s BROW honors a request from last week for...
2. The Beatles Anthology CDs get iTunes release On June 14, 2011, iTunes will exclusively issue all three...
3. Beatles Rarity Of The Week – Here There And Everywhere (take 7) Welcome to The Beatles Rarity Of The Week. On the...