The Beatles - The BEATLES II

Released on the same day as its sister ELP, The BEATLES II was another full collection of songs covering the same range of styles as its companion album.

While containing fewer songs, this disc is actually longer than the first disc. Two tracks here are almost epic in length. Hey Jude is 7:12  and Revolution 19 clocks in at 10:32!

While initially the more popular of the two albums, most fans would eventually purchase both sets to even out the sales. Future editions would package the two discs together along with bonus discs of out takes and demos.

01 Helter Skelter
02 Yer Blues
03 Mother Nautre's Son
04 Not Guilty
05 Junk
06 Sexy Sadie
07 While My Guitar Gently Weeps II
08 Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey
09 Birthday
10 Hey Jude
11 Long, Long, Long
12 Heather
13 Honey Pie
14 Child Of Nature
15 Across the Universe
16 Savoy Truffle
17 Cry Baby Cry
18 Can You Take Me Back?
19 Revolution 19
20 Good Night

Reality Notes

A big shout out and infinite thanks go to SonicLoveNoise for his amazing sync up of the full version of Revolution 1 and Revolution 9 to create his Revolution 19, without which this comp would not have come out as good. The syncing of the two songs transformed the track from an abstract soundscape to a long freak out jam. He created this mashup for his recent April 1 post of a crazy single WA disc. Please go there and check his blog out. He has some wonderful constructions and his attention to detail is impressive.

This project is my attempt to expand the White Album by including everything of note possible in as a polished and complete form as I could. As with many of my constructions I did more than just compile the tracks. I did many edits and transitions to create a flow to match the original album and dropped no tracks other than the merging of Rev 1 and Rev 9 (thanks again Sonic).

At the heart of this comp is the White Album we all know and love and debate and argue about and bond over. I kept the original tracks for the most part in their original order slipping in new songs where appropriate. I did extend a few songs but refrained from using any alternate versions such as the earlier version of Ob-La-Di which I think is just as good. The idea was to expand the album rather than change it up completely. Think of it as an extended movie director's cut with all the deleted scenes put back in.

Songs and edits of note are as follows:

Not Guilty: Take 102 from the 2018 remix bonus disc.

Junk: This is an edit I did for my Paul '68 solo album. I took the instrumental version from the McCartney album and slipped the vocal version inside it to extend the song to over three minutes. Even though this was recorded in 1970, the primitive way Paul recorded the tracks at home helps it fit in with the '68 tracks.

While My Guitar Gently Weeps II: This is the Love version of George's demo with George Martin's orchestral score. The first of two repeated titles across both albums but both alternates are so different they can coexist. This is one of the elements passed down from the Use Your Illusion timeline as those albums each contained a different version of Don't Cry.

Hey Jude: The single version. Maybe having the full version on a record they would have edited the single version down some.

Heather: From a tape of Paul and Donovan trading songs. While not from the WA sessions themselves, it is contemporary so why not include it? We have the room. I did do some cleaning and editing to polish it up a bit.

Child Of Nature: This is my enhanced Esher Demo. Normally when I do these I have all of the songs in front of me in a sequencer. The program I use is flexible enough to do some simple but creative editing but this song and Goodnight were worked on individually before being brought into the project as a whole. The editing I was doing wasn't anything complicated but became frustrating when in the context of the full project. I added more birds from Across The Universe which follows the song and flew in some crashing waves from my sound effects library for the intro. This song was later reworked by John for the Imagine album as Jealous Guy. A better song for sure but this is still an interesting listen.

Across the Universe: I used the Wildlife version from Past Masters but transitioned the song out of the previous song by having the bird sounds before they take off appear during the fade out of Child of Nature.

Can You Take Me Back?: I took a bigger chunk from the full take one to justify its own track listing.

Revolution 19: Sonic's masterpiece. This was the catalyst for this comp (the story came later). I was perfectly happy to enjoy the 2018 deluxe White Album and everybody else's constructions until I heard this. By syncing up Revolution 9 with Revolution 1, we were able to eliminate a redundancy that allowed us to include the single version on disc one and improve the overall flow of both discs. Without this we would have to make a choice on which Revolution to eliminate (most likely keeping the single version as a single only and moving Rev 1 to disc one) even if No. 9 sounds little like the song it was built upon.

Good Night: I added on the guitar version with harmonies before seguing into the finished orchestral version extending the song to over three and a half minutes.

This is now my preferred way to listen to The White Album. Even though we have more music, by separating the tracks into two groups makes for a more manageable listen to me. I liken it to having a double scoop ice cream cone taken away from me but given back two full bowls. And thanks to the 2018 remixes of the Esher demos which, while still rough, improved them enough that I felt no qualms including the ones I did. In fact I feel they fit in nicely in this format.

I modeled the covers on the original of course but now we have a white album and a black album.