Magical Mystery Tour (album)
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Magical Mystery Tour is an album and double EP by British rock band The Beatles, first released in late 1967. The double EP was recorded at the end of an extremely creative 18 month period.
It is also a one-hour 1967 television film that originally aired in the UK. After critical and public response to the premiere proved negative, plans to air the show on ABC Television were cancelled, and Magical Mystery Tour didn't appear in the US until 1976, as a theatrical release on the midnight movies and college circuits.
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History of the project
After Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Paul McCartney wanted to create a film based upon the Beatles and their music. This film was to be unscripted; various "ordinary" people (including John Lennon's uncle Charlie Lennon) were to travel on a charabanc bus and have unspecified "magical" adventures, in the manner of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters. The Magical Mystery Tour movie was made, but it turned out that no interesting adventures actually occurred. (At least, none that would have suited the original concept; during the shoot, more and more cars followed the hand-lettered bus to see what its passengers were up to, until a running traffic jam had developed. The spectacle ended after John Lennon angrily tore the lettering off the sides of the bus.)
The film, originally appearing twice on BBC-TV over the 1967 Christmas holidays, was disparaged by critics on its release; however, it is often praised by filmakers like Steven Spielberg. The soundtrack itself was far more favorably received, released in December 1967 as a double EP in the UK.
The American version was released in late November 1967 as an LP; its cover depicts the original EP in an orange border, with a list of song titles above it. The LP Magical Mystery Tour was divided into two halves; the first side being the actual movie soundtrack, and the second side being a collection of A and B-sides released in 1967.
The first side, identical to the British EP, was a prime example of music from the psychedelic era, with "Flying", one of two Beatles instrumentals (the first being the often forgotten and very early "Cry for a Shadow"); "Blue Jay Way", a George Harrison mood piece; and the title track itself. "I Am the Walrus", at the end of side one and full of crashing orchestras and dubbed vocals, was Lennon's response to learning that an English master at his alma mater Quarry Bank Grammar School was making his class analyze Beatles songs. The song, which appears very deep but in fact means nothing at all, was created to mock the fans who overanalysed the meanings of the Beatles' songs.
The songs on the second side were the band's non-album singles from the period. To keep to its release schedule, Capitol Records used a stereo simulator on the monaural single master tapes, rather than wait for the stereo tapes to be sent from Britain. Even so, the seemingly random choice of songs shows the band at its creative peak. It included two starkly contrasting, semiautobiographical songs, Lennon's "Strawberry Fields Forever" and McCartney's "Penny Lane". Originally released as a double A-side single, Lennon's "Fields" was a dark and troubled account of a childhood memory, while his bandmate's "Penny Lane" was about the same subject, but light and poppy. Both songs were in fact recorded during the Sgt. Pepper sessions, but had been left off that album, a decision that producer George Martin later regretted.
The remaining tracks on side two include McCartney's counter (and A-side) to "I Am the Walrus" with one of the brightest pop songs ever, "Hello Goodbye". John also offers "Baby You're a Rich Man" (actually the first song recorded specifically for the Beatles' animated Yellow Submarine, which would be released to theatres one year later), and the anthem of the Our World program and psychedelia itself, "All You Need Is Love" finishes the LP.
When standardizing the Beatles' releases for compact disc in the late 1980s, the American LP version (which had actually sold better in the UK as an import than the double EP, and was issued by Parlophone Records in Britain during 1976) was included with the British album lineups instead of the British EP, with true-stereo recordings replacing the earlier processed ones. (The true-stereo version of the Magical Mystery Tour LP was first issued in Germany in 1971, but the 1976 Parlophone issue used the Capitol masters with the fake stereo.) The remaining Beatles non-LP single sides were compiled as Past Masters, Volume One and Past Masters, Volume Two.
Track listing (LP, CD)
- All songs written by Lennon-McCartney, except where noted.
Side one
- "Magical Mystery Tour" SAMPLE (122k)
- "The Fool on the Hill"
- "Flying" (Lennon-McCartney-Harrison-Starkey)
- "Blue Jay Way" (Harrison)
- "Your Mother Should Know"
- "I Am the Walrus" SAMPLE (133k)
Side two
- "Hello Goodbye"
- "Strawberry Fields Forever" SAMPLE (141k)
- "Penny Lane" SAMPLE (192k)
- "Baby You're a Rich Man"
- "All You Need Is Love"
Track listing (double EP)
Image:MagicalMysteryTourDoubleEPcover.jpg
- All songs written by Lennon-McCartney, except where noted.
Side one
- "Magical Mystery Tour"
- "Your Mother Should Know"
Side two
- "I Am the Walrus"
Side three
- "The Fool on the Hill"
- "Flying" (Lennon-McCartney-Harrison-Starkey)
Side four
- "Blue Jay Way" (Harrison)
Release history
| Country | Date | Label | Format | Catalog |
| United States | November 27 1967 | Capitol Records | mono LP | MAL 2835 |
| stereo LP | SMAL 2835 | |||
| United Kingdom | December 8 1967 | Parlophone | mono double EP | MMT 1-2 |
| stereo double EP | SMMT 1-2 | |||
| United Kingdom | November 19 1976 | Apple Records, Parlophone | LP | PCTC 255 |
| Worldwide reissue | August 8 1987 | Apple, Parlophone, EMI | CD | CDP 7 48062 2 |
| Japan | March 11 1998 | Toshiba-EMI | CD | TOCP 51124 |
| Japan | January 21 2004 | Toshiba-EMI | Remastered LP | TOJP 60144 |
See also
External link
| The Beatles |
|---|
| John Lennon | Paul McCartney | George Harrison | Ringo Starr Pete Best | Stuart Sutcliffe |
| Management |
| Brian Epstein | Allen Klein | Apple Records |
| Production |
| George Martin | Geoff Emerick | Norman Smith | Abbey Road Studios |
| Official Studio Albums |
| Please Please Me (1963) | With the Beatles (1963) | A Hard Day's Night (1964) | Beatles for Sale (1964) | Help! (1965) | Rubber Soul (1965) Revolver (1966) | Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) | Magical Mystery Tour (1967) | The Beatles (1968) | Yellow Submarine (1969) | Abbey Road (1969) | Let It Be (1970) |
| Films |
| A Hard Day's Night (1964) | Help! (1965) | Magical Mystery Tour (1967) | Yellow Submarine (1968) | Let it Be (1970) |
| Related Articles |
| History | Discography | Bootlegs | Long-term influence | Beatlemania | Beatlesque | Fifth Beatle | Paul Is Dead | British Invasion | Yoko Ono | 1960s | Apple Corps |
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