In 1965 The Beatles came off the road to work on new material and begin filming their next, still untitled movie. During the long days of filming the boys spent their downtime "having a laugh" and writing more songs. By the time they finished filming they had more than enough songs for an album with seven songs to be used in the movie and by the time they finished recording they had more than 20 more songs to deal with. Combined with the songs from the movie they had over 30 songs!
George Martin's plan was to let United Artists have the soundtrack songs and release another album, one or two EPs and some singles over time but the boys had other plans. Using their newfound clout as England's biggest hit-makers they managed to convince EMI/Parlophone to release everything as a double album!
In spite of its size, this comp will fit on a single CD.
Side One
1 I've Just Seen A Face
2 Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
3 Think For Yourself
4 The Word
5 It's Only Love
6 Girl
7 In My Life
8 I'm Looking Through You
Side Two
1 Nowhere Man
2 You're Going To Lose That Girl
3 You Like Me Too Much
4 Michelle
5 If You've Got Trouble
6 You've Got To Hide Your Love Away
7 Drive My Car
Side Three
1 Day Tripper
2 What Goes On
3 Wait
4 Run For Your Life
5 If I Needed Someone
6 Another Girl
7 The Night Before
8 We Can Work It Out
Side Four
1 Dizzy Miss Lizzy
2 You Won't See Me
3 That Means a Lot
4 Act Naturally
5 Tell Me What You See
6 I Need You
7 Yesterday
Reality Notes
I have heard George Harrison say that Rubber Soul and Revolver are sister albums. Personally, I have always connected Rubber Soul with the Help! album. The two albums have a similar feel and production. Especially as someone who grew up with the US version of Rubber Soul, hands down my favorite Beatles album and the only one which I prefer the US version over the UK version. If they had replaced Michelle (my least favorite Beatles song) with something else it would have been perfect.
My one big complaint is the length. The US albums always clock in at around 30 minutes. Because of this I started to expand the album by reinstating the songs Capitol removed and adding more songs from the Help! album. It was while listening to my latest version that this story started to emerge.
I used the 2009 mono remasters as my baseline. Previous versions used the stereo mixes but due to the odd mixing of putting vocals on one side and instruments on the other, I would always switch the playback to mono, especially if I was working nearer to one speaker than the other in my listening room.
I did use the US stereo version of I'm Looking Through You to have the false start but folded the song down to mono to fit in with the rest. When the original CDs were released I never even noticed that the false start was not there. My brain filled it in for me every time. I also included the two outtakes from the Help! sessions, If You Got Trouble and That Means A Lot and included an unlisted snippet of 12 Bar Original for good measure.
Side one is my condensed version of the US Rubber Soul. This is the core of the album to me and the sequence that evokes the greatest amount of nostalgia when listening. From there I sequenced each side for maximum flow and impact as well as making sure that each side would flow into the next on CD.
I kept Help!/I'm Down and Ticket To Ride/Yes It Is aside for non-LP singles. We Can Work It Out/Dizzy Miss Lizzy are still released as a single on the same day as the double LP. The Yesterday and Nowhere Man EPs are still released as planned to give the buyers a choice.
This post is more than a simple "what if" scenario. The idea here is to take a timeline and lay it on top of another timeline to see how one affects the other. The two timelines do not have to be from the same person or band. In essence, I take one or two elements from the overlay and apply it to the current events.
I have another project like this one where I lay the timeline of the recording of G'N'R's Use Your Illusion over the events of the White Album. This project takes the events from the time The Beatles went to Rishi Kesh through the completion of the White Album and layers them on top of the events from the filming of Help! to the completion of Rubber Soul. The elements from '68 that are shadowed in '65 are the downtime of Rishi Kesh and the glut of songs that led to a double album.
G'N'R?
ReplyDeleteIn that scenario I ask "What if the White Album was released during the CD era?" Basically I expanded the album to fill two CDs to about 70 minutes each ala Use Your Illusion. Still working on it but it looks cool.
DeleteAaaahhhh, I get it, nice...look forward to it, even if it goes against your normal instinct on double albums expressed above and before...just like this one LOL
DeleteJust noticed you having chimed on this idea over on SLN's April Fool's post, and I also noticed this [http://resequencer.wordpress.com/2019/01/22/beatles-white-album-glass-onion] not so much as a guide but a structure of sorts? Even in the alt-album universe, good ideas seldom occur alone, that's why I have essentially four reconstructed/reimagined/remastered versions of the WA, not counting SLN's 'joke' (that isn't one even if it is, Revolution 19 is mad as a hatter but it's the best track that never existed I've ever heard)
DeleteSonic's Rev19 was the catalyst for the upcoming WA project. This will not be my first de/reconstruction of the WA either. On my Alt-Beatles blog I break it down to solo albums. I used some ideas from there as well. It's a great batch of songs to mess around with.
DeleteThat's a great idea! But I'm much more of a fan of the triple LP format. Take all the outtakes and songs started, but not finished, during the WA sessions, and make them into a standalone LP, to be sandwiched in between Discs 1 and 2:
Deleteside three
REVOLUTION - single version from Past Masters
SOMETHING - Abbey Road version
MAXWELL'S SILVER HAMMER - with Anthology 3 intro
CHILD OF NATURE - the Esher demo, as the album's "lo-fi" track
TEDDY BOY - from McCartney
WHAT'S THE NEW MARY JANE? - cuts out at 3 minutes
LOOK AT ME - from Plastic Ono Band
THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD - Let it Be version, with orchestration
side four
ACROSS THE UNIVERSE - Wildlife version
LET IT BE - the regular Let it Be version
MEAN MR. MUSTARD - still segues into PP
POLYTHENE PAM - fades out before seguing into the medley
SINGALONG JUNK - mashup of Junk and Singalong Junk, from McCartney
NOT GUILTY - full version, plus 30 seconds of the WTNMJ coda as hidden track
HEY JUDE - single version from Past Masters
I like the idea but adding songs that for me belong in the Get Back era or later even if they do have origins this far back feels weird. I like how they turned out as they did and when they. Quite a few on your list did make the comp though. I think you might like it. The backstory is fleshing out nicely. One of my more elaborate scenarios.
DeleteWell, that was something I didn't expect!
ReplyDeleteI can see why Rubber Soul would be better associated with Help! rather than Revolver; the 1966 album has a heavy psychedelic sound whilst Rubber Soul is more folk-sounding. I think George meant they were sisters in terms of song-writing over sound, sort of building up to what became Sgt. Pepper.
Kinda interesting how we sort of went in opposite directions this week; you turned a single album into a double and I went vice-versa for Beatles '68. :P
I've heard George explain it that they started to experiment with sounds (fuzz bass, harpsichord, some studio trickery like inventing ADT) on Rubber Soul but I only hear it on a few songs, not so much a leap forward but more like subtle enhancement. The songwriting did take a leap forward but that was happening at least every other album from the start. Rubber Soul does lead up to Revolver and Revolver definitely is a precursor to Sgt Pepper.
ReplyDeleteAs far as a single disc White Album goes I don't think it can be done with any real universal acceptance. There is just too much good stuff on there. I've seen some good ones, yours included but there's always something you miss from what was taken off.
You could split it into two groups, one more mainstream and one goofy experimental to be released on Zapple. I've seen a few of those that turned out nice. I just don't like losing songs.
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DeleteAgreed, it's tough to do a single WA, with all the songs, and everyone has their favs. I have my own single disc that I listen to, but it's basically Harrison and Lennon stuff. To me, there's enough for 2 sides of really good stuff, a side of ok and purely solo stuff, and one side of just plain crap. Of course, it's all subjective.
Delete