Sunday, August 19, 2007

The Inner Groove

There is a difference between the US and British version of Sgt. Pepper which I neglected to mention in my previous post: The famous inner groove, which is a bunch of sped up gibberish that played over and over. It was never on the Capitol album.

In his book "Many Years From Now", Paul says they are saying "It really can't be any other", which it does kind of sound like.

The myth is that if you play it backwards, it says "We'll f*** you like Superman". But to me it sounds like "Never to be Abbey Hoffman".

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Capitol Albums Vol. 3 Thoughts

Fans are busy speculating about what should be the contents of The Capitol Albums, Vol. 3.

Suggestions include The Beatles Story, A Hard Day's Night, Revolver, "Yesterday"...and Today, Hey Jude, Live at the Hollywood Bowl, Rock 'n Roll, Sgt. Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour.

After thinking long and hard about it, I think the answer is pretty simple. The collection is called The Capitol Albums, right? And the purpose of the project was to give fans the Capitol versions.

Taking The Beatles Story out of the picture (it's obviously been nixed. It would've already come out as part of Vol. 1), I think it's a no-brainer. Each set has four albums, and there are four Capitol albums left. Forget A Hard Day's Night (yes, I know Capitol got the rights to it in 1980, but it was originally a United Artist album), and Hey Jude (Apple). We'll get those eventually, along with Hollywood Bowl and the collections (Rock 'n Roll, Love Songs, etc.)

I'm pretty certain that Vol. 3 will contain:

"Yesterday"...and Today
Revolver
Sgt. Pepper
Magical Mystery Tour

It doesn't matter that Pepper and MMT are identical to the British versions. What we'd get are stereo and mono versions which we don't have. And the Pepper mono version is considered by many to be superior to the stereo one. And sure, Revolver doesn't provide any change of material except for three missing Lennon tunes. But it's the version we heard back in the Summer of '66.

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Patti's Tell-All

Check out the "Beatle News" link to your right, and see the story about Patti's upcoming book. There's a video interview that is mildly interesting.

The interview is mostly about the George/Patti/Eric Clapton triangle, which doesn't interest me as much as other inside stories she might reveal in the book, e.g., George's general feelings and moods, during and after the Beatles, regarding his status in the band and fellow members.

My take on it, is that he must've had some major highs and lows. 1965/66 seemed quite promising. He was getting lots of album space and with the end of touring, he was probably pretty excited. But there was very little output from George again until the White Album. Did John and Paul shove him aside? Did his foray into Indian music sidetrack him? Was he just being lazy? Maybe she can shed some light on it.

And I'm curious if she's still in touch with Paul, Ringo, Jane Asher, Cynthia, Yoko, etc.? And what about her post-marriage relationship with George? I'm lead to believe they remained friendly.

I assume she's met Olivia and Dhani. Did she attend the Concert for George a few years back? On the recent "Larry King" show with Paul, Ringo, Olivia and Yoko, they played "Something" during one of the bumpers. Larry asked Olivia about it, along the lines of: "How does it feel hearing that one?" She said something polite, like "oh, it's a wonderful song", but I sensed some tension. I was hoping for a more truthful reply as in: "He wrote it for his first wife, Larry. I feel nothing."

Hopefully it will be a decent book and have some new info and insights.