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!

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Welcome to the Beatles Rarity Of The Week. The Beatles spent much of their day on January 25, 1969 recording George’s Harrison’s fun little twelve bar blues ditty “For You Blue.” Along with a lot of practice rehearsals in between takes, they recorded twelve proper takes on that day and it was the only day they worked on the song throughout the rest of the their time working as a complete band. George plays acoustic guitar while singing the vocal in a corner of the room while Ringo Starr steadily delivers the drumbeat. Paul McCartney played piano on the track with paper laid across the inside of the piano to give it a less dominating sound. John Lennon brings the track to life with the lap steel guitar accompaniment which he plays using a shotgun shell as a bottleneck.

The version of “For You Blue” that we hear on the Let It Be album is take 7, however George rerecorded his vocal track nearly a year later on January 8th, 1970. A cleaner sounding mix of this same take and newer vocal was also used on 2003′s Let It Be…Naked.

This week’s BROW treats us to an alternate version prepared for use in the Let It Be film. This is actually an edit created from three other takes recorded on Jan. 25, 1969, including the main part of the song coming from one take previous to the one on the album (i.e. take 6). Although a verse was trimmed off of the end, an extended instrumental intro is created by editing in part of the instrumental break from take 9.

The Beatles - For You Blue

George Harrison recording "For You Blue", Jan. 25, 1969

Extra info: “For You Blue” had a working title of “George’s Blues (Because You’re Sweet And Lovely).” When Phil Spector remixed the song for inclusion on the Let It Be album, he added a spoken introduction by John Lennon taken from dialog recorded at Twickenham Studios in early January where John says “Queen says no to pot-smoking FBI members.”

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

1) Let It Be (Remastered) – 2009 remaster of original 1970 LP, featuring “For You Blue”

2) Let It Be… Naked 2003 CD with special “stripped down” versions of the Let It Be album without the Phil Spector mix on the original 1970 release, and featuring “For You Blue”.

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!

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John Lennon wrote “#9 Dream” after being inspired by a dream he had in which he heard the repeated phrase “Ah! böwakawa poussé, poussé.” John never claimed to know what it meant, but used it as a repeated chorus line in the song. John had also recently worked with Harry Nilsson on his Pussy Cats album and liked a string arrangement he wrote for Harry’s cover of “Too Many Rivers To Cross” so much that he incorporated it into the song as well. The strings seemed to work perfectly with the dream-like feeling he wanted to develop for the sound and subsequently, this promo video. The voice calling to John in the song is that of his companion at the time, May Pang, who has revealed that the song went through two working titles before being officially named. The first was “So Long Ago” and secondly “Walls And Bridges” which, of course, ended up being his next album title with “#9 Dream” included as one of the tracks.

John recorded “#9 Dream” in the summer of 1974, along with the rest of the tracks on Walls And Bridges, and the album was released in September 1974. After the album’s lead single, “Whatever Gets You Thru The Night” made it’s highly successful commercial run, “#9 Dream” was released as the follow up single in December 1974, and appropriately peaked at #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on February 22, 1975. In the U.K. it peaked at number 23 on the Melody Maker chart on March 8 & 15, 1975.

By the time the promo video was filmed John was no longer with May Pang and that is why Yoko Ono appears in the clip instead.

Click the image above to play the video.

Extra info: Why is the song title “#9 Dream” (why not #8, or some other number)? I have heard from various sources that both John Lennon and George Harrison were fascinated with the number 9. George had his Cloud 9 song and album and both John and his son Sean were born on the ninth day of the month. John wrote or co-wrote “Revolution 9″, “One After 909″ and “#9 Dream.” There are countless other theories and coincidences that you can Google on the Internet relating John’s past with the number. They include apartment numbers and various dates and times.

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

1) Walls And Bridges – 2010 remaster of original 1974 LP, including “#9 Dream.”

2) Power To The People: The Hits – latest hits compilation (2010) using remastered versions of all the big ones from John’s solo years, including “#9 Dream.”

3) Lennon Legend – The Very Best of John Lennon – DVD compilation of John Lennon hits, including this promo video of “#9 Dream.”

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!

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“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!

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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!

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For those of us that were around in the late sixties and first half of the seventies, if you have the right kind of funny bone, then you may have fond memories of the Smothers Brothers. Tom and Dick Smothers were not only comedians, but were also musicians whose act included arguing with each other between folk songs. Dick played a string bass and Tom an acoustic guitar. Between 1967-1969, they hosted their own Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour on the CBS network. It soon become one of the most controversial American television programs of the Vietnam War era. This was mainly because their material was critical of the political mainstream and sympathetic to the anti-war movement that was gaining momentum with the younger generation at the time. This actually led to the program being discontinued by CBS with one show left un-aired. In 1968, while still a member of The Beatles, George Harrison made a surprise appearance on the show but did not perform any music.

In 1975 the show returned to television for a short run as The Smothers Brothers Show, and it was during this time that Ringo Starr made an appearance on the program to promote his latest Goodnight Vienna LP. The show aired on April 28, 1975 and also included actress/comedian Lily Tomlin, John Stewart (of the Kingston Trio) and comedian Pat Paulsen. This week’s BROW is an audio excerpt from that broadcast where Ringo is joined by the brothers singing his recent hit single “The No No Song”.

The “No No Song” was a cover originally performed by the late Hoyt Axton who had co-written the song with David Jackson (although the record label only credits Hoyt Axton as composer). It was the second of three singles released from Ringo’s 1974 Goodnight Vienna album and after it’s January 27, 1975 U.S. release date, it made it to #3 on the U.S. Billboard singles charts for two consecutive weeks in April 1975, just previous to Ringo’s appearance with the Smothers Brothers. It was actually a #1 in Canada. On the studio recording Harry Nilsson and John Lennon can be heard on backing vocals. As a 37 year old recording from a television set, the sound quality here is not up to today’s standards but is hopefully good enough for you to appreciate with a little bit of your own mental equalization.

Tom and Dick Smothers on The Smothers Brothers Show, 1975 (can you spot Ringo?)

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

1) Goodnight Vienna 1993 CD remaster of original 1974 LP, featuring “The No No Song”.

2) Photograph: The Very Best of Ringo
– 2007 2-CD Ringo Starr hits collection, including “The No No Song”.

3) Ringo 2012 [Amazon.com Exclusive CD+DVD Version] – Ringo’s latest CD with bonus DVD of commentary and performance footage.

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!

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John Lennon’s “Whatever Gets You Thru The Night” was the lead off single release from his October 1974 LP Walls And Bridges and features harmony vocals and piano from Elton John. Elton was so sure it was a number one hit that he made a bet with John that if it did top the charts, John would appear at one of Elton’s concert as a surprise guest. John had not had a #1 since he began his post-Beatles career and was just pessimistic enough to agree to the wager. On November 16, 1974, the song topped the Billboard singles chart and John ended up performing the song with Elton and band 12 days later at New York’s Madison Square Garden. He also accompanied Elton on two Beatles songs while he was on stage – “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” and “I Saw Her Standing There.”

John’s inspiration for the song actually came from a quote by Reverend Ike (a famous black evangelist). John was watching him on television and he said “Let me tell you guys, it doesn’t matter. It’s whatever gets you through the night.” John loved the line and wrote it down as he often did, for later brainstorming on a set of lyrics. The studio recording of “Whatever Gets You Thru The Night” featured here was made in July 1974 and aside from John and Elton, includes Klaus Voormann on bass, Jesse Ed Davis on guitar and Bobby Keys playing the exhilarating saxophone that in my opinion “makes” the record. We actually hear more of that sax during the outro on the video as it fades a little earlier on both the single and album version of the recording.

There are actually two promo videos in existence for the song. John designed one where he lip-syncs the song while walking through Manhattan. The one seen here, designed by Yoko Ono took a more creative approach and actually brings many of John’s animated drawings to life (and yes, those copulating rabbits were originally drawn by John).

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) Walls And Bridges 2010 CD remaster of original 1974 John Lennon LP, including “Whatever Gets You Thru The Night”.

2) Here & There 1996 expanded 2-CD edition of original 1976 Elton John live LP Here And There featuring live performances with John Lennon of “Whatever Gets You Thru The Night”, “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” and “I Saw Her Standing There”.

3) Power To The People: The Hits 2010 remaster CD + DVD hits compilation set containing video seen here and CD w/”Whatever Gets You Thru The Night”.

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!

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From February 4 – February 14 (St. Valentine’s Day) ,1965, Paul McCartney went on holiday to Hammamet, Tunisia with his girlfriend Jane Asher. Inside the house on the grounds where they were staying was a lavish bathroom with perfect acoustics for songwriting. This was where Paul wrote “Another Girl”.

The Beatles convened the day after his return on February 15th to begin the sessions for the upcoming Help! album and film. Having polished off “Ticket To Ride” in the afternoon session, they used the evening session to work on “Another Girl” and George Harrison’s “I Need You”.

“Another Girl” was knocked off in one take and 10 edit pieces. The 4-track recording had bass and drums on track 1, John Lennon’s Fender and George’s Jumbo Gibson acoustic on track 2, and Paul’s lead vocal along with John and George’s backing vocals on track 3. Track 4 had a few extra vocals from Paul and John, tom-toms from Ringo Starr and George playing his Gretsch at the end. The song was finished off the following day with the recording of Paul’s lead guitar track. This was most likely combined with track 2.

Mono and stereo mixes of “Another Girl” were prepared by February 16th with the mono mix having a much quieter rhythm track than the stereo. On the mono edition of the U.S. Help! soundtrack, however, the mono mix is simply a reduction of the stereo mix.

“Another Girl” went on to be one of the seven new songs used in the Help! film, released in the summer of 1965. In the movie clip shown here, Paul can be seen lip-syncing the song while standing on a coral reef on Balmoral Island in the Bahamas and playing a girl in a bikini as if she is a guitar. This clip features the stereo master of the song.

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) Help! (Remastered) 2009 remaster of original 1965 U.K. stereo album, featuring “Another Girl”.

2) Help! 2007 DVD remaster of original 1965 film with 5.1 surround mix plus bonus DVD with lots of extras. Contains stereo and 5.1 mix of “Another Girl”.

3) The Capitol Albums Vol. 2 (Brick) – 2006 4-CD box set containing both stereo and mono mixes of the US Capitol Beatles albums released in 1965. These include The Early Beatles, Beatles VI, Help! and Rubber Soul. Contains both stereo and mono reduction mixes of “Another Girl”.

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!

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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!

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Welcome back for another edition of The Beatles Rarity Of The Week. After the filming of their surprise concert on the roof of Apple during the cold afternoon of January 30, 1969, The Beatles thought they had enough footage for their Let It Be documentary film. Well, almost anyway. There were still a few songs not appropriate for the rooftop show that they knew should be covered in the film with finalized versions. Those three numbers were “Two Of Us”, “The Long And Winding Road” and “Let It Be”.

So on the following day, The Beatles and Billy Preston returned to the Apple basement to perform these songs for the camera until they had releasable takes. “Two Of Us” was worked on first and knocked off fairly quickly. The other two required a bit more time. The final results of these recordings are seen in the Let It Be documentary just before the rooftop show which is used to wrap up the film.

This week’s BROW comes from a warm-up rehearsal from this January 31st session, recorded just before getting serious with the initial takes of “Two Of Us” were made. While in a skiffle mood, with acoustic guitars in hand, Paul McCartney leads the group into a singalong medley of Lonnie Donegan’s “Take This Hammer” which continues with Donegan’s “Lost John” with both John Lennon and Paul singing. George Harrison then joins in to steer the band into Johnny Cash’s “Five Feet High And Rising”. After they’ve played about as much of the song as they remember, Paul moves them into the musically similar tune “Bear Cat Mama” (a Jimmie Davis number from the 1930′s). Keeping the same backing, John leads them into the chorus from Koerner, Ray and Glover’s “Black Dog”. This is a traditional song that’s melody was later appropriated for the chorus of his own song, “Crippled Inside” that made it’s way onto his Imagine album in 1971. George and John then go into a few bars of Carl Perkins’ “Right String, Wrong Yo-Yo”. To wrap up the medley John duets with Paul for a verse of their own “Run For Your Life”, the closer for their 1965 Rubber Soul album. The medley ends with a brief reprise of “Black Dog”. The audio dropouts heard here are a result of the source tape coming from an extraction from an old stack of camera reels. A proper studio recording of the warm up sessions was not considered a necessary expense at the time.

By the end of the day, The Beatles had completed acceptable takes of “Two Of Us”, “The Long And Winding Road” and “Let It Be”, all three of which were used in both the film and Let It Be album in 1970, thus bringing to a close the so-called “Get Back” sessions of January 1969.

John Lennon, January 1969

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

1) Let It Be 2009 remaster of original 1970 Let It Be album.

2) Let It Be…Naked – 2003 remastered stripped down version of original 1970 Let It Be album, w/bonus Fly On The Wall EP containing studio chat and session fragments.

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!

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