Back on November 11th, 2011, I featured the promo video for one side of the double A-sided Strawberry Fields Forever c/w Penny Lane single. I decided to follow that up this week with the other side.

The promo clip for Paul McCartney’s “Penny Lane” was shot at a few locations on the 5th and 7th of February, 1967, in preparation for the upcoming mid-February single release (specifically the 13th in the U.S. and 17th in the U.K.).

Although there were a few sequences shot in Liverpool’s Penny Lane (the subject of the song), The Beatles never traveled there to make the video. The footage, where The Beatles are in the city, was shot at a district of London called Angel Lane. This includes the scene where they are riding horseback through the streets (I’ve always wondered if it was a coincidence that George Harrison rode the “dark horse”). These scenes are interspersed with footage of the “real” Penny Lane in Liverpool, which show the #46 bus, the “shelter in the middle of the roundabout,” the barber’s pole, the fireman on the white horse, etc.

The banquet scene at the end, where Beatles assistant Mal Evans serves the band guitars instead of food, was shot at Knole Park, in the Sevenoaks district of Kent, U.K., where the “Strawberry Fields Forever” promo had been shot less than a week earlier.

As was the case with the “Strawberry Fields Forever” promo clip, the video was directed by Peter Goldman, who was given the position as a result of a recommendation by long-time Beatles friend Klaus Voormann, whom The Beatles had met back in their pre-fame days in Hamburg, Germany.

Click the image above to play the video.

Extra info: “Penny Lane,” along with “Strawberry Fields Forever,” was originally intended to be part of the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band LP, but since it was already early 1967 and the band had not put a single out since the previous August’s “Yellow Submarine” c/w “Eleanor Rigby,” it was decided to release it as a single ahead of time. Since singles tracks did not typically end up on albums in the U.K., neither song was included on Pepper. Both songs were later included on the U.S. Magical Mystery Tour LP; however the British double EP package of the same name included only the songs that were in the Magical Mystery Tour film.

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

1) Magical Mystery Tour (Remastered) – 2009 stereo remaster of original 1967 album, including “Penny Lane”.

2) 1967-1970 (Blue) Remastered – 2-CD 2010 stereo remaster of original 1973 Beatles hits compilation, including “Penny Lane”.

3) 1 – 2011 remaster of Beatles No. 1′s, including “Penny Lane”.

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 (Penny Lane/Spot The Oddity, Pt. 5) This will be the last week of the Spot the...
2. Strawberry Fields Forever (original 1967 promo video) This week’s video feature acknowledges this month as the 45th...
3. Beatles Rarity Of The Week – Penny Lane (mono mix RM10) Welcome to the Beatles Rarity of the Week. Back in...

“The Fool On The Hill” was a Lennon/McCartney original, used in the Magical Mystery Tour film and accompanying LP/EP set. It was actually conceived by Paul McCartney, who stated in an interview that he wrote the song with someone like Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in mind. He claims that he looked at the Maharishi as someone that was considered a fool to his detractors. However, the earliest memories of the song occur around the time of the sessions for the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album, a few months before The Beatles first met with the Maharishi. Paul had actually played the song for John Lennon on piano during a writing session for the “Pepper” track, “With A Little Help From My Friends.” The Beatles Anthology 2 CD set has the first recorded demo of the song, taped on September 6th, 1967, along with an account of take 4, made on September 25th, by which time the recording of the song in earnest had begun. The basic track for the master was completed by September 27th, and the flutes were added on October 20th as the finishing touch.

On October 30th, 1967, during filming of the Magical Mystery Tour television special, Paul, along with camerman Aubrey Dewar, traveled down to Nice, France, without the other Beatles. The idea was to shoot sequences of him prancing and skipping about in a rocky mountainous area, for use in the “Fool On The Hill” segment of the film. As seen in this video excerpt, the scene is portrayed as a daydream of Paul’s that occurs while he sits on the Magical Mystery Tour bus, waiting for the magic to begin.

The finished film premiered on December 26th (Boxing Day) in the U.K. on BBC1 and has been on several VHS releases throughout the late 1970s and up through the 1990s. The most recent official release of the film was on DVD in 1997, and it is currently out of print. Fortunately, it still can be found if you visit the right stores. (I have added a link below to a 3rd party Amazon vendor who still has copies, if you are interested.)

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) Magical Mystery Tour (Remastered) – 2009 remaster of original 1967 LP, including “The Fool On The Hill”.

2) The Beatles – Magical Mystery Tour – 1997 DVD of the complete 1967 film, including “The Fool On The Hill”.

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 (I Am The Walrus/Spot The Oddity, Pt. 1) Happy New Year! I decided to try something different this...
2. The Beatles – I Am The Walrus (1967 clip from Magical Mystery Tour film) I toyed with the idea of April-fooling everyone into thinking...
3. Strawberry Fields Forever (original 1967 promo video) This week’s video feature acknowledges this month as the 45th...

This week’s video feature acknowledges this month as the 45th anniversary of John Lennon’s writing of “Strawberry Fields Forever.” Two documentaries – The Beatles Anthology and Imagine: John Lennon – show footage of the clip, but both are incomplete. To this day, I am not aware of any EPK or DVD release by Apple that gives the entire clip to us, as it appears here.

John Lennon’s “Strawberry Fields Forever” was coupled with Paul McCartney’s “Penny Lane” and released as the first Beatles single of 1967, on February 13th. It was promoted as a double a-side. Since The Beatles were no longer touring, the idea for promoting the new single was to do it with an artsy film instead. An old friend of The Beatles from their pre-fame Hamburg Germany days, Klaus Voormann, suggested Swedish television director Peter Goldmann to shoot the clips, and the Beatles agreed to give him a try.

For the “Strawberry Fields Forever” clip, Peter filmed the band at Knole Park in the Sevenoaks district of Kent, near London, on January 30th and 31st, 1967. Instead of doing a run-of-the-mill promotional clip of pretending to perform the song, The Beatles opted for a more surreal approach, where we see Paul jumping in backwards motion up to the branch of a tree and “turning off” the daylight. A piano is connected to the tree by a web of strings and gets a nice psychedelic look as The Beatles dab globs of paint on it. At the end of the clip, the piano capsizes as The Beatles (and Paul’s sheepdog Martha) walk off into the darkness. And all of this way before anyone ever heard of MTV.

The clip was aired on various television broadcasts around the world, including the popular program American Bandstand in the U.S., where some confused and seemingly bewildered teenagers reacted to it with mixed emotions. Seemingly, teenage America was not quite adapted to the new look and psychedelic appearance of the Fab Four.

Click the image above to play the video.

Extra info: “Strawberry Fields Forever,” along with “Penny Lane,” was originally intended to be part of the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band LP, but since it was already early 1967 and the band had not put a single out since the previous August’s “Yellow Submarine” c/w “Eleanor Rigby,” it was decided to release it as a single ahead of time. Since singles tracks did not typically end up on albums in the U.K., neither song was included on Pepper. Both songs were later included on the U.S. Magical Mystery Tour LP; however the British double EP package of the same name included only the songs that were in the Magical Mystery Tour film.

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

1) Magical Mystery Tour (Remastered) – 2009 stereo remaster of original 1967 album, including “Strawberry Fields Forever”.

2) 1967-1970 (Blue) Remastered – 2-CD 2010 stereo remaster of original 1973 Beatles hits compilation, including “Strawberry Fields Forever”.

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 (Penny Lane/Spot The Oddity, Pt. 5) This will be the last week of the Spot the...
2. Penny Lane (original 1967 promo video) Back on November 11th, 2011, I featured the promo video...
3. Beatles Rarity Of The Week – Penny Lane (mono mix RM10) Welcome to the Beatles Rarity of the Week. Back in...

After the highly successful Wings Over America tour in 1976, Paul McCartney planned a follow up tour of the United States for 1977, but this was not to be. Linda McCartney soon discovered that she was pregnant with their third child (James). Although they abandoned tour plans, Linda’s condition did not prevent getting in a little bit of recording. Paul chose a more relaxed atmosphere though, and set up a studio on a yacht called Fair Carol in the Virgin Islands, with the idea of putting an album together called Water Wings. As Linda’s pregnancy progressed, Paul did eventually end up putting the sessions on hold after finishing up both sides of the next single – “Mull Of Kintyre” (written with Wings bandmate Denny Laine) and “Girl’s School”. “Mull Of Kintyre” became a huge hit in the U.K. and historically the first single to sell over two million copies in that country. It barely charted in the U.S. with “Girl’s School” charting higher than the A-side (#33 on Billboard). James was born in September, but also around that time Wings drummer Joe English became homesick for America and ended up leaving the band. Guitarist Jimmy McCulloch also left to join a reunion version of the Small Faces. So by the time the “Mull Of Kintyre” single was released in November, Wings was down to Paul, Linda and Denny. However, this line up worked fine on Band On The Run, so no need to think it would not work again, especially with many of the sessions already completed earlier in the year. The album was finished up by January 1978 and released in March. Even though much of the album was recorded in the Virgin Islands, the Water Wings title was rejected in favor of the ironic title London Town, after the song on the disc that I am featuring here.

The first single from the LP, “With A Little Luck” was a commercial success on both sides of the Atlantic, however the two follow up singles “I’ve Had Enough” and “London Town” barely made a “splash”. Although, the rise of punk kept many songs like “London Town” from getting much recognition during this time, I’ve always placed it as one of my favorite Wings tracks of the period. The promo video features a surprise appearance of one of Paul’s old friends from the Beatles movie-days – Victor Spinetti, who starred in A Hard Day’s Night, Help! and even Magical Mystery Tour. Thanks for stopping by this week…

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) London Town – 1993 remaster of original 1978 LP plus bonus material. Of course, it includes the “London Town” title track.

2) The McCartney Years – 2007 3-DVD set by Paul McCartney, the first two DVD’s contain music videos, including “London Town” and “Mull Of Kintyre” mentioned above. The third disc contains concert footage.

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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I toyed with the idea of April-fooling everyone into thinking I was taking the day off, and then tell everyone to come back for VOW next Friday, but then I decided that wouldn’t go over too well. Besides I have to admit, I’d feel a little guilty. So here I am with the expected Friday VOW. After all, when I started these up nearly 15 months ago, I did “vow” to keep them going. So here we go again…and Happy Friday!

I am sure many Beatles fans in the summer of 1967, after the unfathomable direction taken by their latest Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band release, wondered where the band could go from there. Was it possible to get even more “way out”? One of the answers to that question was I Am The Walrus. Walrus was a bizarre, yet fascinating composition by John Lennon, which he says was inspired by hearing police sirens in the distance while sitting at his home in Weybridge, U.K. The recording of the song began on September 5, 1967, just after the death of Beatles manager Brian Epstein. It was necessary to bring in 16 outside musicians for the track, to play the cellos, clarinet, horns and background vocal chanting. An interesting overdub was added to the fadeout that was a radio broadcast of a production of Shakespeare’s King Lear from the BBC’s Third Programme. The song went on to be featured in the Magical Mystery Tour film, as seen here, as well as on the associated U.S. album (originally released as a double EP in the U.K.). It was also the B-side of the Hello Goodbye single in both the U.S. and U.K (and there are some slight mix differences between the U.S.and U.K. and mono vs. stereo mixes). An alternate stripped down version of take 16 is included on the Beatles Anthology 2 CD set. In Britain, the BBC banned the song due to John’s use of the word ‘knickers’. John commented on this ban by saying “It always seems to happen now, that people misinterpret what we write or say. We’re happy with the words and I don’t see how they can offend anyone.”

Click the image above to play the video.

Here are a few links from Amazon to read about or purchase releases related to this post:

1) Magical Mystery Tour (Remastered) – 2009 remaster of original album featuring I Am The Walrus

2) Beatles Anthology 2 – featuring alternate version of I Am The Walrus

3) The Beatles – Magical Mystery Tour – DVD of original 1967 film (currently out of print but available in like new or used condition through independent sellers on Amazon)

4) More links for 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 (I Am The Walrus/Spot The Oddity, Pt. 1) Happy New Year! I decided to try something different this...
2. The Fool On The Hill (1967 Magical Mystery Tour film sequence) “The Fool On The Hill” was a Lennon/McCartney original, used...
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Welcome to the Beatles Rarity of the Week. Back in 1967, pop and rock singles were released in mono. Stereophonic sound, as a general rule anyway, was limited to LPs. On December 8th of that year, the six Magical Mystery Tour film songs were released to vinyl as a double EP set in the UK. Since EPs did not usually sell well in the US, Capitol Records opted to create a full Magical Mystery Tour album by adding five 1967 singles tracks to these six songs to fill it out. For three of these five singles tracks (Penny Lane, Baby You’re A Rich Man and All You Need Is Love), Capitol had no stereo mixes of the songs on hand and used the mono mixes to create ‘fake stereo’ mixes of these songs for the stereo edition of the album. This is no longer an acceptable practice but was fairly common in those days. The US album was issued on November 22, 1967. The current 2009 remastered CD edition of Magical Mystery Tour (as well as the original 1987 issued CD) has true stereo mixes on all tracks.

Promo copy of Penny Lane 45 (Capitol 5810)

Another common practice that was done then and is still done today, is the issuance of a promo single to be issued to radio and other media outlets to play and create public awareness of new releases, so that sells will be better once they are in the stores. In the case of the Penny Lane single (commercially released on Feb. 13, 1967 as a double A-sided disc b/w Strawberry Fields Forever), the promo single issued in the US and Canada contained an earlier mono mix of the song than the mix heard on the commercial release. This mix (known as mix RM11) featured a trumpet overdub over the ending of the song that was shaved off of later mixes, including the mix heard on the commercial single and the Magical Mystery Tour EP set in the UK and LP in the US. For a 1980 US compilation by Capitol, titled The Beatles Rarities, a forged stereo mix of this version was created by editing in the trumpet riff ending on a newer stereo mix of the song, however this Rarities LP was never released on CD and is now long out of print. This stereo forged version was featured in an earlier BROW here. For this week’s BROW, I have taken a step back even before the original mono mix RM11 on the promo single, to the previous mix RM10 which still has the piccolo trumpet overdub, but along with it are a few seconds of warm-up in the beginning and other very minor differences you may or may not be able to spot. Happy listening.

Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane double A-side single, issued Feb. 1967

Want to make a suggestion for a future Beatles Rarity of the Week? If so, I will do my best to deliver, so let me hear from you. To browse for ideas, check out this search-able listing of thousands of Beatle-related recordings to choose from. Then let me hear from you here.

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

1) 1967-1970 (Blue) Remastered – hits compilation featuring 2009 remaster of the standard stereo mix of Penny Lane

2) Magical Mystery Tour (Remastered) – featuring 2009 remaster of the standard stereo mix of Penny Lane

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 (Penny Lane/Spot The Oddity, Pt. 5) This will be the last week of the Spot the...
2. Penny Lane (original 1967 promo video) Back on November 11th, 2011, I featured the promo video...
3. Strawberry Fields Forever (original 1967 promo video) This week’s video feature acknowledges this month as the 45th...

This week for the BROW I am honoring a request I received a few weeks back, to put together a small series of Beatles “take 1s”. So I am kicking this off with one I’m sure you’ll recognize. Hello Hello was the original working title of Paul McCartney’s Hello Goodbye. Although it wasn’t completed in time for the Magical Mystery Tour film, it’s coda played over the ending credits. Recording began on October 2, 1967, when the band ran through 14 takes of the backing track. Take 14 was considered the best and went on to have vocals and overdubs superimposed on it. It was quickly released on 45 as the A side of the Christmas single, and topped the charts in the US and UK by the end of the year. This recording of take 1 includes piano, drums, organ and tambourine. Paul and Ringo can be heard slowly going over the chords before engineer Ken Scott announces the take number. Apparently there were plans for an extra verse and chorus at this point as it is played through with one here. Although there is some work yet to be done on this, it would seem they were off to a good start. Note how enthusiastic Ringo is with his cymbals on this first take. For a finalized account of the song, check out the Video of the Week from a couple weeks back, which is found here.

A big tip of the hat goes out to Stacia, who not only had the cool idea of the take 1 series, but also requested this particular take 1 as a favorite. I think if Apple can do a compilation of number 1s, Beatles Rarity can do the same with take 1s and next week’s BROW will follow with another.

The Beatles, 1967

Extra note: I have the site listed on BeatleLinks.net now so if you’d like to rate this site and maybe even give a review, the link is here. Kind words will make an even happier Nat.

Want to make a suggestion for a future Beatles Rarity of the Week? If so, I will do my best to deliver, so let me hear from you. To browse for ideas, check out this search-able listing of Beatle-related recordings to choose from. Then let me hear from you here.

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

No related posts.

I’m hoping everyone reading out there has had a splendid New Year’s holiday. Unfortunately for the most of us, it’s now time to get back to the grind. The first BROW of 2010 is due so I’m going to jump right in.

Let’s listen in to an overdub session The Beatles held on September 6, 1967. George Harrison’s musical transcendence during this year was never more evident than on Blue Jay Way. George developed an uncanny skill with studio effects such as flanging, backwards tapes, strings and swirling organs and uses them perfectly on this song to capture the feeling of being lost in the fog in a strange city. The end result: another psychedelic masterpiece.

The same vocal track is heard here that adorns the master heard on the Magical Mystery Tour film/EP/album. Some of the backing vocal overdubs heard in the master are missing here while other overdubs are apparent here that were removed from the master, including additional percussion, among other things.

Enjoy, and once again, all the best in the new year!

George Harrison, 1967

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!

Related posts:

1. The Red and The Blue Just so you know…. Coming October 19, 2010! The Beatles...

In celebration of the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album being released for the Beatles Rockband format earlier this week, I thought I’d post a Pepper-era BROW. Your Mother Should Know was not released on the Sgt. Pepper album but recorded immediately afterward on August 22, 1967 for the upcoming Magical Mystery Tour film. This was immediately before the band would travel to Bangor to meet the Indian guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi for the first time, and just 5 days before manager Brian Epstein was found dead of a drug overdose. This is an early acetate of the song (initially penned by Paul) that has no organ or bass added yet and background vocals that are entirely different from the finalized version. It is believed to be take 8. Upon completion, the music from the film would be released as a double EP in the U.K. the following December 8th and as a complete album in the U.S. a week and half earlier.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967

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!

Related posts:

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2. Beatles Rarity Of The Week – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band/With A Little Help From My Friends (mono mix) Welcome to this week’s BROW. Many of the mono versions...
3. Beatles Rarity Of The Week – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (unconnected) Welcome to the BROW. It’s pretty common knowledge that by...

This will be the last week of the Spot the Oddity series, however the normal BROW will be back in February. The idea is to figure out what is different about this version of Penny Lane vs. the one you normally hear on the radio these days (i.e. the version on the Magical Mystery Tour album). The version presented here was also out officially at one time or another. As a bonus see if you can determine where (i.e. on what release) this version first surfaced. Put your answer in a comment here. Of course, if your going to try this don’t read the comments until you do (that is, if there is any, this time). Good luck to all.

Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane US 45 picture sleeve, 1967

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!

Related posts:

1. Beatles Rarity Of The Week – Penny Lane (mono mix RM10) Welcome to the Beatles Rarity of the Week. Back in...
2. Penny Lane (original 1967 promo video) Back on November 11th, 2011, I featured the promo video...
3. Beatles Rarity Of The Week (I Am The Walrus/Spot The Oddity, Pt. 1) Happy New Year! I decided to try something different this...