Magical Mystery Tour

This is the sound of a pop-culture phenomenon hitting a brick wall. By the time the Summer of Love began to turn cold, Brian Epstein was dead, and the Beatles were not only the biggest act in show business but the most respected. They were practically living gods to the public's mind, and no one could tell them what to do anymore. They were a group that had, for the first time in the history of modern music, gained complete and total artistic freedom. And they almost dropped the ball.

Granted, the Beatles sounded better coasting than most other bands did when they strained. That's because the Fabs had already gone too far into their own minds to ever be banal again; they couldn't if they tried. And they didn't have to try, because every innovation they'd made had stood the test of time. But now ego began, for the first real time, to rear its swollen head. And the failure of Magical Mystery Tour is a direct result of that.

The Fabs, for the first time, began to believe that merely being there was entertainment enough, as witnessed by the paucity of content in the MMT film. And while the accompanying EP (the first six songs listed here) didn't quite stoop to those levels, they did sound like a band spinning its wheels. There were two types of problems here: sins of omission ("Blue Jay Way" and "Flying" are great ideas, horribly unformed and left to die), and sins of commission ("Your Mother Should Know" and "Magical Mystery Tour" are limp attempts to recapture the spirit of "When I'm Sixty-Four" and "Sgt. Pepper's" theme, respectively.) What we're left with, then, are two songs of note: Paul's evocative "Fool On The Hill" and John's stunning avant-garde opus "I Am The Walrus".

The Fool On The Hill A strange ballad from Paul: wistful but also implacably sad. Fascinating in its gravity, however - it's the tension between minor and major that works so well. This was a leftover from the Sgt. Pepper's sessions, which is just as well, since it works better here. Only Paul knows what it means.

Flying Original Title: Aerial Tour Instrumental
The only one of the Beatles' instrumentals to make it to an official release while the band was together; it's actually not bad, just unfinished. It's anchored by a great blues groove that seems wasted here, but it does serve to show how timeless the music really is (listen to the first few bars and think: Beck).

Blue Jay Way A drone by George that loses one's interest after about a minute or so. Pity that it keeps going. (Although Ringo does do some of his finest work here.) Written while George was waiting for Derek Taylor to show up at his rented house in California, hence the lyrics (the street George's house was on was Blue Jay Way).

Your Mother Should Know The lamest song in Paul's "20's" Beatles trilogy ("When I'm Sixty-Four" and "Honey Pie" being the others). Paul could probably write this in his sleep. No wait, that was "Yesterday".

I Am The Walrus John's ultimate indulgence in Carrollian wordplay; after this, he'd begin to use his lyrics as pointed sticks more than watercolor pictures. Or maybe he'd started already: this song takes definite, direct swipes at the Establishment (corporations, police). Psychedelically, it's the Beatles' best song, in part because the chord structure is so jerry-built and the effects are so random that the effect is completely disorienting. What you're hearing in the background is a BBC radio production of King Lear that was being broadcast; John, genius that he was, mixed it into the song live. And, amazingly, it works. By far the project's best song, and not coincidentally the one that took the longest to perfect.

Hello Goodbye Original Title: Hello Hello Another example of an uninspired song made inspiring by beautiful production (the contrapuntal background vocals, the walkdown at the end, the coda). Again, ask Paul what it means.

Strawberry Fields Forever Very possibly the apex of everything the Beatles had done, or had aspired to be. A wonderful, personal and childlike song, given a heavy beat and a swirling, risky production -- it's practically a template for Beatlessong. Originally conceieved as an ode to an orphanage John had spent happy times in in hi syouth, it metamorphosed into a cosmic reflection on the nature of being an outsider. George Martin tried two versions of the song, one with brass and strings and one with a more conventional, "band" arrangement. When only half of each version sounded correct, Martin simply spliced the two takes together, bringing one down a half-step and creating an effect that's never been ATTEMPTED, much less equaled.

Penny Lane THE quintessential Paul story-song, wistful without being cloying, and sentimental without being unsubstantial. Once again, the musical and lyrical details are what make the song, from the nice (the "Yellow Submarine" - esque sound effects) and naughty (you don't want to know what "four of fish and finger pies" are). And once again, there's a dramatic major to minor change and a strangely disconcerting ending. Paul doing what Paul does better than anyone in the world.

Baby, You're A Rich Man A sadly underrated Beatle song, seemingly lightweight fun that, as always with this group, also contains a shot at convention and a bit of a nasty streak (it's pretty certain that they sing "...rich fag jew" at the end as a slur to manager Brian Epstein, who wasn't dead when the song was recorded). The weird sound is a clavioline, which you can find out about below. A wonderful number that was recorded in six hours, it represents one of the last true joint writing efforts of John and Paul, as it combines two songs together much in the way "A Day In The Life" was done. Think of this as the happy flip side.