Tuesday, Apr 5, 2016 • 10min

Anthology 3

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British music journalists and Beatles experts Kevin Holwett and Mark Ellen discuss the classic Anthology releases, shining a light on the fascinating stories behind these albums which tell the story of the development of The Beatles career.

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Kevin Howlett

Mark Ellen

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Mark Ellen

00:00

Hello, this is Mark Ellen with Kevin Howlett, and we have the joyous task of listening to these fantastic

Anthology

collections, and the last one,

Anthology

, shows their kind of evolution again from being the multi-track instrumentalists of the psychedelic period to going back to being a simple rock and roll band.

00:20

And this states from 1968 to very early 1970 when the group broke up. And the thing that struck me most was just the sheer amount of work, there's a wonderful orchestral piece called "A Beginning", well-worth hearing, it's about a minute long, and it was a

George Martin

piece that he wrote and conducted with an orchestra, which was meant to be a prelude to "Good Night".

00:42

And even that's interesting that all the groups were involved in the process of making this record, and you can hear them on this take discussing it.

John Lennon's

lyrics are still in evolution, he's given the song to

Ringo

to sing. The idea they're putting so much effort into and eventually finished up being the last track actually on the

White Album

Kevin Howlett

00:59

What's interesting about the

White Album

is it's been portrayed as an album in its making, that was very difficult, and there were a lot of arguments and a lot of bickering. But the documentary evidence in

Anthology

seems to counter that. They seem to be very collaborative and very cooperative.

01:17

For a start, before they started to make the album, they all went around to

George's

place in

Esher

and recorded these demos and that seems to be a very collaborative process. They're all encouraging each other and they're all playing each other their songs. They've just come back from

India

with Maharishi in

Rishikesh

and it did provide a wonderful opportunity for them to do a lot of song-writing.

01:41

So they had a stack of songs to record. So, they recorded 23 demos at

George's

House and seven are included in the

Anthology

. So, you can really have a great time listening to an early version, for example of

"Glass Onion"

, which I know you like.

Mark Ellen

01:56

I love that one, where you can hear him singing backwards at one point. He's trying to emulate the sound of his own voice being run backwards on a tape. So, it makes your point very clearly, you were saying earlier that it's about them writing records, not writing songs. They're writing songs, but within their own heads, the sound, crucially the sound of what those songs would sound like very much to the fore.

02:17

And there's a later version of

"Glass Onion"

where you can see it's changed and

John's

made this fantastic little loop of a football commentator going, it's a goal, it's a goal that's the sound of breaking glass and it's all that experimentation is there, which was never actually finished up on the original.

02:30

But the atmosphere in the studio, I love those moments you get a little tiny insight to what it would have been like. There's a bit on the radio paladar where

John

goes, this is take one for the united jumbo band, which I think is sending up possibly the fact that doesn't like this song, which I think they spent about three nights recording or whatever.

02:48

And there's a lovely bit before

"Hey Jude"

starts, singing that song about in the heart of the black country, they're down in Boston place, and also a song called Lost Paranoias, which is fabulous, which is just an improvised kind of samba shuffle

Paul

starts just based on something

John

says, and I love that idea that just little tiny details are woven into the performance.

Kevin Howlett

03:08

"Rocky Raccoon"

is a lovely fun song, and when

Paul

is doing take eight that you hear on

Anthology

, he just does a fluff, you know? Instead of saying "Stinking of Gin" he says "Sminking of Gin".

Mark Ellen

03:23

It's brilliant. Again, I can't think of any other way now. And an incredible version of

"Helter Skelter"

where there's a four-minute edit of a 12-minute version of the song and it's just a song finding its feet, was finding its rhythm, was finding its sensibility.

Kevin Howlett

03:35

That's really good actually, that

"Helter Skelter",

because it's so different to the finished master that you're used to. But it's kind of... the bass on it is very funky actually.

03:44

And also, this idea that the

White Album

was this very troublesome album to make and that they weren't getting on, again, I'm baffled when you hear

John

trying to get the acoustic guitar part right for Julia and you can hear

Paul

on the talkback encouraging

John,

really being supportive, you know, at the end,

John

says that one was perfect, wasn't it?

Mark Ellen

04:06

Wasn't that the last song of the whole?

Kevin Howlett

04:09

That was the last song to be recorded for the

White Album

, and that's lovely.

Mark Ellen

04:13

I love those things. I love finding out those things. I was so thrilled to find out that "I'm So Tired" was recorded through the night, which is absolutely perfect and it sounds like it. And I didn't know until recently,

"Come Together"

was almost recorded live. It's just the four of them playing and they did it very, very quickly, and the drum pattern, and the base pattern on

"Come Together

" are absolutely astonishing. It's just magnificent.

Kevin Howlett

04:35

Because

we're now talking about recordings they made in 1969.

04:37

Having done the early sessions for what became

Let It Be

in January'69, when they make their last recorded album together,

Abbey Road,

they didn't know it was going to be their last recorded work, I think at that point. But they all are really trying, as usual, to raise the bar as high as possible and to make the best possible recording they ca, and in collaboration very much with

George Martin

Abbey Road,

who hadn't been so involved in the

Let It Be

session.

Mark Ellen

05:05

That's right, and the best example of that probably would be "

Because

", which you hear a version here of just the vocals, and you get the three Beatle voices overdubbed twice. So there are nine harmony vocals, it's just breath-taking, real vocal symphony.

Kevin Howlett

05:20

I find that really moving to hear, actually, on

Anthology

, when you hear just the vocal track for

"Because",

you can hear all that amazing intricate harmony and you have to realize that that was the last song they recorded with

John

present, and so, it's his song and they are working so hard to bring out this beautiful harmony vocals.

Mark Ellen

05:44

And the last song that they recorded as

The Beatles

, is

"I Me Mine"

, which was recorded in early January. I always think that's significant to when you hear this version here and you hear that fading chord at the end. That is the last time that you hear

The Beatles

performing. In the same way that actually

"Get Back"

is the last time you hear

The Beatles

performing live to an audience.

Kevin Howlett

06:03

"I Me Mine"

John

was in Denmark, so it's just the three of them, and there's a lovely little jokey comment before they do "

I Me Mine

Mark Ellen

06:08

He says something like, "Dave Dee's away, and Mick, Tich and I are going to carry on the good work as we've gone down at Studio 2", which is so fantastic.

Kevin Howlett

06:18

Yeah, and it's a

George

song, you know, "Even those tears", it's again just so moving to hear that is the last recording.

Mark Ellen

06:24

Talking of great

George

songs is an original demo of

"While My Guitar Gently Weeps"

on here, which is just extraordinary, and there was an instance of him putting two versions of a song on one of his own records. And you kind of think, why didn't they do that here?

Kevin Howlett

06:38

That's right. When he made his first solo album,

All Things Must Pass

, there are two versions of

"Isn't It A Pity"

, because he couldn't decide between the two and they're both good.

Mark Ellen

06:46

But this is exactly the same, these are both absolutely brilliant.

Kevin Howlett

06:49

Startlingly different. That's the thing, because the version of

"While My Guitar Gently Weeps"

, you hear on the

Anthology

is just

George

with his acoustic guitar with

Paul

playing just a subtle little organ part in the background. There's an extra verse in there too, which is again, it's fascinating to hear a verse you've never heard before.

07:07

Beautiful, gentle, lyrical version of

While My Guitar Gently Weeps

. Then they have another idea. It's a rocky version and

Eric Clapton

plays guitar, but that is such a contender for the track, they should have included at the time.

Mark Ellen

07:23

Absolutely, and another one, I suppose, in fact, we ought to just mentioned tracks that were quite glad they didn't include. I think it's fair to say that

"What's The New Mary Jane",

John Lennon's

song, which he became completely obsessed with.

07:33

He believed at one point it ought to be in a single, but it went from being a possible contender for a single to have not ever released or worked up at all. It is peculiarly, it just doesn't seem to work at all, strangely. But in terms of tracks that should have been put out, not guilty by

George Harrison

is an absolute masterpiece.

07:51

It's so typical of

George

, it's got the

George

sensibility, it's got that kind of anti-establishment tilt to it in the grand tradition of

Taxman

and

Piggies

and

Northern Song

. It's an "Us versus Them" tune and it's also got a wonderful lilt in a lightness of touch and it's so completely George. And there were 99 different takes of it.

08:12

So, it's not that they didn't consider this song seriously. They worked at it really hard. It's so funny that I find it now impossible after hearing this

Anthology

collection to think of,

Let It Be

without hearing

Paul's

voice "this is going to knock you out" before he starts playing.

Kevin Howlett

08:28

And when you hear the tracks on

Anthology

, they are just so beautifully produced. That's the thing that I always struck by as they were working in

Abbey Road

with really top engineers, who are incredibly young at the time, you know,

Geoff Emerick

was 20, was working on

Revolver

and

Pepper

, but everything is so wonderfully recorded.

08:50

It's a joy to listen to these recordings on

Anthology

3, and in fact,

Anthology

2 and 1. It really gives you an amazing insight into how

The Beatles

put these recordings together You're used to the magic of the complete master, and you've just given this glimpse of them in the studio coming up with ideas, joking around being so relaxed in creating this marvellous music. It's fascinating.

Mark Ellen

09:16

There are times when you listen to it and you'd like to be in the studio, you feel you actually are in the studio, and if you're new to

The Beatles

, then I suppose your next port of call would be the

compilation, the 27 #1 records that they had, or maybe the Red and Blue compilations, which are mostly greatest hits orientated. But if you're in the deep end like myself, then this is just fascinating.

Kevin Howlett

09:40

I think that the more you know about the completed recording, the more fun you get when you hear the incomplete, the early version.

09:48

But, even if you're brand new to

The Beatles

, if you go to some of the tracks that we've mentioned, the tracks that should have been released at the time, you'll be astounded that any group would have the confidence to not include that on a record.

Mark Ellen

10:01

It's absolutely amazing. It's like seeing the x-rays of what was behind the finished picture or it's like reading about the circumstances of making a great film or something. It's just, the more, you know about its construction, the more you enjoy it, the more you get out of it.

Kevin Howlett

10:14

In fact, I know that

Paul McCartney

had been impressed by a tv film in which Picasso was filmed doing a painting and you could see layer after layer being put on by Picasso. And

Paul

often talked about that. How fascinating it was to see Picasso creating a work of art.

10:31

And I know that when they were doing

Let It Be

, that was a sort of philosophy he had in his mind, inspired by that Picasso film that you can see

The Beatles

evolving the tracks that would then be as the initial idea was, be performed in a televised live concert.

10:47

And you can apply that

Paul McCartney

philosophy of "let's show the different layers of how we got to the final piece of work" by listening to

Anthology

and hearing these early versions.

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