How to make it a real album
At the onset of the 1970s, nearly everyone in the record biz, if not the general public, had to realize that the Beatles were on the verge of calling it quits. The "Let It Be" album was still in artistic limbo and the fab four were all thinking about solo albums. But what the "suits" at US Capitol Records were thinking about was releasing another album of recycled songs to capitol-ize (pun haha) on the "Abbey Road" cash cow.
Which is OK, but they came up with a track list that could have been formulated by an ancient 1960s Fortran computer program.
Let's see... What are the biggest selling Beatles singles that have somehow not gotten on a Capitol album? "Can't Buy Me Love/Should Have Known Better" from 1964, "Paperback Writer/Rain" from 1966... and then of course the recent ones. Party on (sarcasm)!
That's not a record album, that's treating songs as if they're just data files. Instead of an LP, cassette or CD, it's random access memory for a hard drive or a cloud server, portending the demise of the album which was still a couple generations away. How long could anyone sit back and listen to an album like that anyway? Capitol Records controls the U.S. market for greatest back catalog in the history of music, and yet they're clueless.
It's so simple, even a record exec should be able to understand: Focus only on the recent songs so that the album has a coherent context. But skip "Don't Let Me Down", which was the B-side of "Get Back" and therefore ought to be on the upcoming "Let It Be" album and movie. Just beware that the politics behind that album are tenuous.
Then give a proper album home to the four songs from the recent "Yellow Submarine" movie. Other songs folks would love to hear are two that didn't get on the "White Album": George's "Not Guilty" and John's "What's the New Mary Jane". The album will thus be loaded with George songs, but that's good, since he had been on a hot streak since 1968.
An even better option would have been to release this album a year earlier before "Abbey Road", fresh off the release of the "Yellow Submarine" movie, when it could have been sold as an album of new songs. Several of the songs might have needed to have their post-production sped up or be deleted altogether, but those are reasonable options, especially since this is a very long album as proposed here. Any deleted songs can be added to "Let It Be", just as "Don't Let Me Down" was in the "Naked" version. John also campaigned for "Mary Jane" to be on "Let It Be".
In any event, John's "Mary Jane" would be a good foil for "The Ballad of John and Yoko". Another in a similar jocular vein is "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)" which John, Paul and the Rolling Stones' Brian Jones had been messing around with off and on for several years.
Just a small amount of thought would have made "Hey Jude" into a real album with real personality instead of just "data".
1 - Lady Madonna
2 - Only a Northern Song (George Harrison) - from "Yellow Submarine"
3 - All Together Now - from "Yellow Submarine"
4 - The Inner Light (George Harrison) - from B side of "Lady Madonna"
5 - Hey Bulldog - from "Yellow Submarine"
6 - Not Guilty (George Harrison) - from "Anthology 3"
7 - Revolution
8 - Old Brown Shoe (George Harrison)
9 - Hey Jude
10 - It's All Too Much (George Harrison) - from "Yellow Submarine"
11 - You Know My Name (Look Up the Number) - from B side of "Let It Be"
12 - What's the New Mary Jane? - from "Anthology 3"
13 - Ballad of John and Yoko
(all songs Lennon / McCartney except as indicated)
"Hey Jude" is definitely the album I would want to change the most from the way it was eventually released. So therefore it is the album for which external constraints play the most influence. Ideally, I could have wanted to hear it released during the White Album sessions, around August 1968, whenever its songs from those sessions were newly completed - namely Hey Jude, Revolution, Not Guilty, What's the New Mary Jane, and possibly "You Know My Name" as well.
ReplyDeleteMy goal would be for this to be a fresh new Beatles album rather than a rehash compilation, with only the "Lady Madonna"/ "Inner Light" single having been heard some months before.
But this means that the four "Yellow Submarine" songs would be released prior to the movie, which would probably violate the contract. Too bad, I say.
Also, "Old Brown Shoe" and "Ballad of John and Yoko" would not have been on it since they were recorded later. So they would have to be on "Let It Be", which no one seemed to want, in order to satisfy my requirement of a "complete Beatles library".
So to satisfy my desire for a fresh, coherent "Hey Jude" album released prior to the "White Album", nearly a year and a half sooner, the sanctity of the "Let It Be" album would have to suffer. And my "Hey Jude" album would only include three songs that eventually made it onto the actual "Hey Jude" album - Hey Jude, Revolution and Lady Madonna.
To me, those are all very small sacrifices, but this is the real world, isn't it?
Oh, if I'm going to change all that, I might as well put "Across the Universe" on my version "Hey Jude" album as well. Make it the great "Naked" version which wasn't actually mixed until 2003. And put it #2 in the track running order, right after "Lady Madonna". Both were originally recorded on consecutive days in February 1968. So that would also be deleted from the "Let It Be" album. Here is my full track listing:
Delete1 - Lady Madonna
2 - Across the Universe
3 - Only a Northern Song
4 - All Together Now
5 - The Inner Light
6 - Hey Bulldog
7 - Not Guilty
8 - Revolution
9 - Hey Jude
10 - It's All Too Much
11 - You Know My Name
12 - What's the New Mary Jane?
Voila! A brand spanking new Beatles album for mid-1968. Opus 12. ("White Album" becomes Opus 13.) Not one of their best, but merely good Beatles is better than almost anything else !!!!