The Beatles: Magical Mystery Tour - 1967
"They half knew what they wanted and half didn't know, not until they'd tried everything. The only specific thought they seemed to have in their mind was to be different" - Ken Scott
After the world-conquering glory of Sgt. Pepper, The Beatles "went weird".
Certainly in the eyes of many they did - including The Queen, rumoured to have said they were "turning awfully funny" - and they released a perplexing, much-heralded and frankly odd and pretentious mini-film that premiered on national TV on Boxing Day 1967.
The accompanying EP of six tracks that was released as an album in the USA containing other single releases. This was eventually released as a UK album and has been available as such for many years now. So, it sort of is an album, but it isn't.
Roll up.....
The tracks from the EP are variable in quality. Magical Mystery Tour is rousing and goofily appealing, with some excellent Ringo drums. We all know it, so there isn't much more to say other than it is vibrant, joyful and hugely nostalgic.A thoroughly unremarkable instrumental, Flying is one of the few songs credited to all four and is based on the traditional blues 12-bar chord sequence. It doesn't sound too bluesy to me, though.
George Harrison's Lennon-esque, psychedelic Blue Jay Way has never really worked for me either, hanging as it does on the coattails of Revolver's much better material. Having said that it is far more credible from a "rock band" than the pretty awful piece of jaunty McCartney whimsy of the next track, Your Mother Should Know, yes, it is all very nostalgically sensitive (especially considering it was written by one still comparatively young), but I would always rather hear The Beatles doing "weird" than this, any day. Let's be honest, it's bloody awful.
Did I say "weird"? It must be time for some classic Lennon and it duly arrives in the yellow matter custard eggman magnificence of I Am The Walrus. I remember my mother, who although in her forties at the time, loved and knew her pop music, being completely nonplussed by this upon its release. Its effect, together with the film, was massive at the time. This bonkers song has been analysed and re-analysed endlessly over the years, so I won't start, but its cultural effect and the consequent public perception of The Beatles changed dramatically with this one song. They now became bearded oddballs - why, even that loveable Ringo has gone a bit funny.
As for the other tracks that turned an EP into an album, there is some great stuff. I remember being on a bus in late 1967 going to the pictures with my parents on a dark November night and some teenagers were playing Hello Goodbye at the back on their tinny transistor radio. That was the first time I had heard it. Every time I hear it I can't help but recall that night. It is so damn evocative. I've never forgotten that moment, as if I knew I was listening to a part of history.Talking of evocative - as, of course, is Lennon's quirky masterpiece of utterly beautiful hippy psychedelia, Strawberry Fields Forever. Tracks like this are so good and so well known it is difficult to write too much about them. It's all been said, hasn't it? I'm not going to re-analyse it. I just love the whistling organ (?) intro and then when Ringo's distinctive drums kick in it is Beatles nirvana. Agree? Yes, of course you do.
An excellent McCartney song, Penny Lane is wonderfully nostalgic for the post war years in which he grew up. Of course, these last two tracks pre-dated Sgt. Pepper by five months. Imagine how even greater Pepper would have been with these two on it, replacing, for me, When I'm 64 and She's Leaving Home.
This is an often-forgotten John Lennon song with Eastern influences, a great bass line, infectious drums and some cynical lyrics about money from the increasingly wealthy Lennon. It was the 'b' side to the hippy anthem, but also strangely melancholic next track All You Need Is Love. On this one Lennon seemed to be almost mocking the group's past as he sang brief snatches of Yesterday and She Loves You in the fade out. Why the intro to the French national anthem was used I have never quite understood. It is a simple song with a simple but beautiful message, perfectly suiting the "summer of love".
Peace, man.
