The flaming Lips - 7 Skies H3 (100 minute edit) UPGRADE

 

 The Flaming Lips – 7 Skies H3

(100-Minute Edit by soniclovenoize)
April 2023 Upgrade

Side A:
1. I Can’t Shut Off My Head
2. Meepy Morp (Calliope Trance with Major and Minor Celestial Sections)
3. Radiation Wind
4. Battling Voices From Beyond
5. Electronic Toy Factory
6. In A Dream

Side B:
7. Metamorphosis

Side C:
8. Requiem
9. An Outpouring of Immaculate Light From The Heavens Consumes Your Body

Side D:
10. Meepy Morp (Reprise)
11. Riot In My Brain!!
12. 7 Skies H3 (Main Theme)
13. Can’t Let It Go

This is an upgrade of my own unique edit of The Flaming Lips’ epic 24-hour song, “7 Skies H3”, edited to the length of a 100-minute double-album.  Each of the song’s fourteen movements were extracted from the 24-hour piece to represent a “song” on the “album”; each song was then edited down to an appropriate length for that particular song in the context of a double-album.  In effect, some tracks act as mere transitions to others, while some tracks remained epic in scope (in the context of a double-album anyways).  While similar to the band’s own official 50-minute edit released on limited edition vinyl for Record Store Day in 2014, my 100-minute edit is twice that length and much more inclusive; not only allowing specific songs a more epic breath that they deserved but including music that was completely removed from the RSD release altogether.  All track segues are intact and this album can play as a continuous 100-minute piece--although one could separate tracks into four separate 25-minute sides of a vinyl record: tracks 1-6, track 7, tracks 8 & 9, and tracks 10-13.  

By the 2010s, The Flaming Lips have reached a mid-life crisis.  They had already made their cherished acid-punk indie releases in the 1980s; they already had their breakthrough noise-pop hit in 1993 with “She Don’t Use Jelly”; they already made their self-serving experimental four-disc 1997 album, Zaireeka; they had already made their critically acclaimed symphonic-pop masterpiece The Soft Bulletin in 1999; they had already managed the trick of gaining mainstream success while still retaining their core audience with Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots in 2002; they had already made a complete musical about-face into dark, hypnotic Krautrock for Embryonic in 2009.  If they refuse to break-up, what does a band who has already done everything do next?  The answer: whatever the fuck they want.

This of course meant a series of bizarre EP releases throughout 2011 which included: a song meant to be played on 12 different cell phones simultaneously; recordings released on flash drives encased in marijuana-flavored gummy skulls; and a six-hour song released inside a strobe light toy.  While one could perceive this as pure gimmick, this observer saw it as a result of the combined boredom with the typical rock-band archetype and the realization of ultimate artistic freedom, something earned after 30 years of making music.  But it was that six-hour song, “I Found A Star On The Ground”, that set a new bar for the band searching for something interesting to fill their time in 2011: how does one top a six-hour song?  With a 24-hour song, of course!

“7 Skies H3” tells the story of a protagonist whose love commits suicide, and the listener embarks on a psychedelic journey through his grief process as well as a musical representation of her afterlife.  The song—becoming an insane challenge for Flaming Lips fans to even listen to it in its entirety—was released to a limited edition of 13 copies on Halloween 2011, encased in an actual human skull.  It was also broadcast as a live webstream, which continually (and to this day) plays the song indefinitely.  While detractors found even more gimmick to condemn, there was one thing they could not argue: “7 Skies H3”contained some of the best music The Flaming Lips ever produced.

Unfortunately, much of that great music was lost to its own daunting massiveness.  Does one really have the time, energy and will-power to sift through a literal day of music to appreciate the highlights?  Some fans did... notably StrangePets who made both a 90-minute and 213-minute cut of "7 Skies H3" (which urged me to do the same!).  The Flaming Lips probably took notice, and issued their own condensed 50-minute version as an exclusive Record Store Day release in 2014.  Their "distillation" RSD cut showcased some of the most interesting music they'd made in their 30 year career as a standalone album, rather than a 24-hour endeavor.  Unfortunately not all of the magical moments from the full endeavor made the cut, notably the atmospheric interlude of "Radiation Wind", the quaint chaos of "Electronic Toy Factory", the ending jam of "Requiem" and it's following "The Other Side", and the driving ecstatic jam of “An Outpouring of Immaculate Light From the Heavens Consumes Your Body” and it's singular rainstorm breakdown.  And criminally, the centerpiece of 7 Skies H3--the seven-hour emotionally-catastrophic sound-experiment "Metamorphosis"--was reduced to a trite five minutes and lacked any of the nuances that made it one of The Flaming Lips' masterworks.  Is it possible to make a concise 7 Skies H3 as a typical album that could not only be enjoyed in one sitting, but also retain the aforementioned epic attributes?  I have found a run-time that precisely doubles the RSD release is the perfect length, assembled as a double LP--discs timing 50 minutes each--while still edited for continuous play just as the original 24-hour song.

Side A:
1.  “I Can’t Shut Off My Head” [8:01]
My 100-minute edit of 7 Skies H3 begins with one of the four lyric-based compositions that explains the concept of the album itself.  While the original full-length version of “I Can’t Shut Off My Head” contained eight verses and ran 25:39, the Record Store Day edit cut it down to three verses and running at 8:23 (as well as adding superfluous echo onto Wayne’s vocals).  My edit is structured similarly as the RSD edit, as I chose to include what I felt were the three best verses as well as an instrumental introduction.  Additionally, each verse was edited down from seven to five lines, omitting the two weakest lines of lyric for each verse.  The instrumental passages were then edited to match the length of each verse.  Because of this, my edit is a bit more concise than the official RSD edit, clocking in at 8:01. The upgraded version is a new edit, using verses 1, 3 and 6, rather than my original edit with verses 1, 2 & 4.  

2.  “Meepy Morp (Calliope Trance with Major and Minor Celestial Sections)” [3:14]
Following is what fans called “Calliope Trance with Major and Minor Celestial Sections” but was officially titled “Meepy Morp” on the RSD record.  Originally an hour in length, I have reduced it down to just over three minutes to keep the album moving, featuring three different sections of the piece to give a feeling of variation as the instrumental progresses.  The same edit was used in this upgrade.  

3.  “Radiation Wind” [1:58]
An officially unnamed track “Radiation Wind”, originally running 37 minutes and not appearing on the RSD version at all, is reduced to a two-minute interlude before the battle begins.  This upgraded edit is slightly shorter, clocking in at 1:58 from my original edit’s 2:36.   

4.  “Battling Voices From Beyond” [4:10]
The epic “Battling Voices From Beyond” was a grueling two hours and 37 minutes on the original 24-hour "7 Skies H3".   While it was edited down to 3:05 on the RSD vinyl, my edit is a paced 4:10, which showcases several of the interesting sounds that dance around the pounding main vocal riff.  This upgraded version particularly focuses on the synth “vocal solos” found near the end of the piece.  

5.  “Electronic Toy Factory” [3:58]
Another track that was completely omitted from the 50-minute RSD edit, the 10-minute and unnamed “Electronic Toy Factory” (featuring the experimental duo Pitchwafuzz), is edited down to a reasonable 3:58, acting as simply a linking track between two main selections.   This updated edit is more representative of the original piece, since the runtime is almost doubled from my original edit length of 2:27.  

6.  “In A Dream” [3:39]
The original version of the second of four lyrical songs ran an hour and 4 minutes, which was edited down to a feasible 4:51 on the RSD release and included additional vocal overdubs to smooth of the mix.  Here I present an even more concise edit spanning 3:39, as opposed to my older hypnotic 6:28 mix.  

Side B:
7.  “Metamorphosis” [25:00]
The massive centerpiece of 7 Skies H3 is “Metamorphosis”, which originally ran seven hours in length!  It was reduced to an anticlimactic five minutes on the RSD edit, fading out at the end of side A.  With a theoretical double-album format, we can allow “Metamorphosis” to retain its true epic proportions.  My edit spans a reasonable 25:00 and features my favorite elements of the original seven-hour piece.  It is meant to span the entire second side of the first disc of our theoretical 7 Skies H3 double album.  

Side C:
8.  “Requiem” [5:15]
The second disc begins with the third of four lyric-based compositions on the album, which is also coincidentally the mid-point of the 24-hour "7 Skies H3".  Originally spanning 23:20—essentially a 3-minute song with a 20-minute jam—the RSD release unfortunately exorcised the ending 20 minutes completely.  Here I have restored the ending jam and showcasing the range of weird overdubs The Flaming Lips sprinkled throughout.  This upgraded edit runs 7:22, as opposed to my older edit of 5:14.  

9.  “An Outpouring of Immaculate Light From the Heavens Consumes Your Body” [17:38]
The series of musical movements which follow are mostly absent from the RSD edit, what Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne describes as “the other side of this long journey through death”, and seems to musically depict the significant other's journey in the afterlife. It starts with the unnamed but aptly fan-titled “The Other Side”; originally clocking in at over an hour, an edit of the serene piece eventually found a way onto 2013's The Terror as the outro to "You Lust".  Because of this, I have excluded “The Other Side” from my edit of 7 Skies H3 in the name of redundancy. Next is the unnamed yet fan-titled “An Outpouring of Immaculate Light From the Heavens Consumes Your Body” (but described by Wayne as a “Bb chord with varying accompaniment”, which would also suffice as a title, I suppose), originally spanning three and a half hours and also completely missing from the RSD release.  In reality, the movement is a loop of the same 26-minute no-wave jam in Bb with different sets of embellishments upon each repeat (with one even being played backwards!).   Although my original edit presented its complete 26-minute incarnation, this upgrade whittles it down to a respectable 17:38, which also includes one of the greatest moments of the original 24-hour edit: a between-rotation breakdown of a rainstorm, ticking stopwatch and chiming keyboards.  

Side D:
10. “Meepy Morp (Reprise)” [2:25]
“Meepy Morp (Reprise)”—also known as the fan-titled “Movement of Celestial Bodies”—was originally two hours and 15 minutes in length, although it is simply a loop of the same eleven-minute piece.  On the RSD edit, “Meepy Morp” is paired down to a short, two-minute interlude.  My upgraded edit runs 2:25, slightly shorter than my previous edit of 2:42.  

11.  “Riot In My Brain!!!” [3:31]
The destructive noise jam “Riot In My Brain!!!” originally totals an exhausting hour and a half, but was trimmed down to a digestible 4:28 on the RSD release; I have made a similar edit. This upgraded edit runs 3:31, more concise than my previous edit of 4:32.  

12.  “7 Skies H3 (Main Theme)” [10:34]
The gorgeous main theme to 7 Skies H3 (fan-titled “Forever Floating”) drifts on for two hours and 12 minutes and includes three movements; the RSD release condenses it down to 6:26.  While my original edit had that same runtime, I choose to expand it considerably to 10:34!  

13.  “Can’t Let It Go” [8:30]
The closing song—the fourth lyric-based composition—originally ran eight minutes in length, with the RSD release not bothering to edit it at all.  While my original edit trimmed the song down to 6:08, my upgraded version does what the RSD release did: present the full, 8:30.  


 
Flac/shn --> wav --> mixing & editing in SONAR & Goldwave --> flac encoding via TLH lv8

*md5, artwork and tracknotes included

The Byrds - The Notorious Byrd Brothers (featuring David Crosby)

  The Byrds - The Notorious Byrd Brothers 

featuring David Crosby

(reimagining by soniclovenoize)

Side A:

1.  Old John Robertson

2.  Triad

3.  Dolphin’s Smile

4.  Change is Now

5.  Draft Morning

6.  Universal Mind Decoder

Side B:

7.  Lady Friend

8.  Don’t Make Waves

9.  Tribal Gathering

10.  Goin’ Back

11.  Space Odyssey 

In honor of the passing of the great David Crosby, I offer this album reimagining: an alternate version of The Byrds’ classic psychedelic rock masterpiece The Notorious Byrd Brothers, which presumes David Crosby had not left the band, and is featured as an equal to Roger McGuinn.  To do this, we will restructure the album to feature recordings made during the early sessions of the album, which actually featured Crosby.  

By 1967, the tumultuous relationship between The Byrds frontman Roger McGuinn and guitarist David Crosby had escalated to the boiling point.  From an early career of jangly Dylan covers, to their groundbreaking embrace of psychedelic and raga rock, The Byrds were always attempting to push new ground.  Unfortunately, there was disagreement about which ground to break.  

Coming into his own manhood of a songwriter, Crosby was fighting for his songs to be heard through McGuinn’s, and especially took a heavy hand in their first single of the year, his own “Lady Friend”, recorded in April.  In contrast, McGuinn & bassist Chris Hillman’s “Old John Robertson”, the b-side recorded the following month, showed the pair’s desire for a more Country-influenced sound that would emerge the following year.  Despite “Lady Friend”’s grandiose quality, the single was a relative flop as compared to their previous hits, with Crosby taking a hit to the ego and the band soldering on with a song already scratched from the theoretical running order of an album in the works.  Sessions resumed briefly in July with Crosby’s serene “Draft Morning”, but after sessions of percussive tension, drummer Michael Clarke was dismissed from the band.

Regrouping in August with session drummers Jim Gordon and Hal Blaine alternatingly replacing Clarke, the group recorded Crosby’s hippy anthem “Tribal Gathering”, as well as McGuinn & Hillman’s poppy “Dolphin’s Smile”.  But more inter-band stryfe reared its head when the group was offered “Triad”, a song about a throuple from the free-loving lady’s man Crosby.  Although recorded by the group, McGuinn took offense to the song’s subject matter and ultimately rejected it, leaving the song to later be recorded by Jefferson Airplane the following year.  After recording the McGuinn/Hillman’s “Change is Now”, the final straw was drawn as McGuinn insisted on recording the Goffin/King ballad “Goin’ Home” in September.  Crosby felt the song was meaningless filler, especially when compared to the majestic psychedelic rock the band had been recording the year thus far, as well as questioning why a band with three songwriters would bother recording a cover.  Crosby was finally cut from the band, and McGuinn became the defacto leader of the band.  

Regrouping in October with previously exiled backing vocalist Gene Clark, the fragmented band recorded “Goin’ Back”, as well as the experimental “Space Odyssey” influenced by Science Fiction writer Aurther C Clarke.  This was short lived, as Clark was once again asked to leave the band, and sessions continued in October with guitarist Clarence White, the newly remade Byrds recording “Bound To Fall”, “Moog Raga”, “Get To You”, “Flight 713”, “Natural Harmony”, “Wasn't Born To Follow” and “Artificial Energy”.  

Released in January 1968, The Notorious Byrd Brothers was released to critical acclaim and over time, became the band’s crowning achievement.   As for David Crosby, he had no time for feelings of resentment.  Soon after, Crosby started jamming with friend Stephens Stills of Buffalo Springfield and Graham Nash of The Hollies, and the trio formed the legendary supergroup Cosby, Stills & Nash.  But could The Notorious Byrd Brothers have been, well, less notorious and more harmonious?  

If we are going to create a Notorious Byrd Brothers album that would theoretically contain an active (and even leading) David Crosby, then we’ll need to almost exclusively use the material recorded before Crosby's exit.  There is not a lot of material–just enough to make an album–but luckily Byrds albums were historically short: eleven songs, running about 30 minutes.  All sources are taken from the 2011 remaster of The Notorious Byrd Brothers, as well as using some of the bonus tracks on the 2011 remaster of Young Than Yesterday.  All songs will be crossfaded together into two continuous sides of music.  

Side A begins with the most upbeat and staggering song of the bunch, “Old John Robertson”, using the very psychedelic mix found on the Notorious Byrd Brothers album, rather than it’s original single mix.  Next we restore “Triad” to its rightful place, here with some gentle volume adjustments in the verses; we are putting the song front and center, as Crosby is getting the attention he deserves.  This is then crossfaded in “Dolphin’s Smile” and “Change is Now”.  The side closes with “Draft Morning”-- which features one of my favorite 1960s artists, The Firesign Theatre!--followed by the outtake instrumental improvisation “Universal Mind Decoder”.  

Side B begins with Crosby’s glorious “Lady Friend” which melds into the admittedly low-hanging fruit “Don’t Make Waves”, included here as it was recorded during the “Lady Friend” sessions.  The jaunty “Tribal Gathering” follows, tallying five songs lead by David Crosby!  Closing the album an outtake version of “Goin’ Home” which does feature David Crosby on guitar, recorded before his departure, followed by a song recorded just after departure, “Space Odyssey”, as it was needed to fill out the album; a piece of “Moog Raga” is used as an outro to the album.  

The most impressive aspect of this reconstruction is the cover art, which was in reality the genesis of this reconstruction in the first place!  Replacing the horse with Crosby, it’s like he never left!  

Sources used:

The Notorious Byrd Brothers (2011 Remaster)

Younger Than Yesterday (2011 Remaster)

flac --> wav --> editing in SONAR Pro and Goldwave --> flac encoding via TLH lv8

*md5, artwork and tracknotes included

The Beach Boys - SMiLE (Hitsville Mix)

The Beach Boys - SMiLE

(stereo “Hitsville Mix” by soniclovenoize)

Side A:

1.  Our Prayer

2.  Do You Like Worms

3.  Wind Chimes

4.  Heroes and Villains Part I

5.  Heroes and Villains Part II

6.  Surf’s Up

7.  Good Vibrations

Side B:

8.  Cabin Essence 

9.  Wonderful

10.  I’m In Great Shape

11. Child is Father of The Man

12.  The Elements

13.  Vege-Tables

14.  The Old Master Painter

Need something to be thankful about this Thanksgiving?  How about a new SMiLE?

I have gotten many requests for an update to my SMiLE mix lately… and while I don’t necessarily see any pressing need to upgrade my previous SMiLE reconstructions (as yes, I do stand by my ‘67 reconstruction!), I thought it would be a fun challenge to make a completely different SMiLE mix!  I call this the “Hitsville Mix” (named after a Brian Wilson ad lib while recording “Heroes and Villains”) and it is unassociated with my previous mixes.  It is a completely different mix and ideally, a different SMiLE listening experience, intending to be more unpredictable and bizarre, much like the actual Smiley Smile album.  Here, I am using ALL NEW stereo mixes I’ve made over the last few months, except “Good Vibrations”, which is the brand new 2022 official stereo extraction mix, which sounds the best it ever has! 

What is the theme/concept of the Hitsville Mix of SMiLE?  I gave myself a few guidelines:

1)  Unlike my previous “1967” mix, I am not beholden to strict “historical accuracy” or the theoretical artistic intent of Brian Wilson.  This is the mix that I wanted to make, rather than the mix I presumed Brian Wilson wanted to make.  

2)  ALL STEREO.  This requires, as aforementioned, new stereo mixes to be made for all songs, except “Our Prayer” and “Good Vibrations”, whose official stereo mixes are just fine. 

3)  As a challenge, I chose to limit myself to using the handwritten “Capitol Trackllist” as submitted to Capitol Records in January 1967 and subsequently printed on the reverse cover slicks.  The majority of SMiLErs discard this track sequence for various reasons and create their own track sequence–often based upon either Dominic Priore’s suggested tracklist in Look! Listen! Vibrate Smile! or Darian Sahanaja’s tracklist on Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE.  Here, we will try to make sense out of the long-derided track order.  

The end result of my Hitsville Mix is exactly how I hoped: it is a little more bonkers and less logical than my previous reconstructions, and keeps the vibe of Smiley Smile, albeit more hi-fi.  Songs are allowed to be fragments and don’t necessarily go anywhere; the listener is thrown curve-balls and the trajectory of the album is fairly unexpected; Side B is specifically bizarre but ends with a wow! 

Side A begins like any other mix–with “Our Prayer”, the stereo mix from Made in California as an unlisted introduction to the album.  This is hard edited into a new stereo mix of “Do You Like Worms”, which uses the tracking sessions from The Smile Sessions as a base, with isolated vocals from the Smile Vocal Montage, Unsurpassed Masters 17 and the (lousy) 2022 stereo mix from Sounds of Summer.  Following is “Wind Chimes”, here ignoring the stereo Made in California mix and instead presented as a similar structure as Brian’s 1966 test edit, using a pitch-corrected backing track taken from The Smile Sessions, with vocals taken from The Smile Vocal Montage and Unsurpassed Masters 16.  

The project’s flagship song “Heroes and Villains” follows, which is a completely stereo version of the classic “Cantina Mix”, including the Verse and Three-Score-Five sections!  But instead, after Whistling Bridge there is a cut to Bridge To Indians and Prelude To Fade to create an ending (since I am using the proper Fade to end the actual album).  Next is my attempt to create the theoretical “Part II” of “Heroes and Villains”, that would have been found on its 7” single (or combined to the legendary six-minute “Heroes and Villains”, if you are so inclined).  Using the Gee and Part 2 iterations as a base combined with excerpts from the Brian Wilson led psychedelic sounds, mock interviews and experimental raps, we are able to create a faux Vaudeville variety act!  What I am intending is that the listener can imagine The Beach Boys as a psychedelic barbershop quartet who are literally framing a series of comedy sketches, all onstage and concluding with a laughing audience!

One gripe SMiLErs have with the Capitol Tracklist is the placement of “Surf’s Up” in the middle of Side A; while strange, we will embrace it and own it, as a song about a maestro artist on-stage literally follows an on-stage performance!  Here is a brand new stereo mix I’ve created using the tracking sessions from The Smile Sessions as a base, combined with the isolated vocals from the Feel Flows boxset.  Here, I’ve chosen to use Carl’s lead vocal instead of Brian’s, which seemed more appropriate with the song’s placement on the album.  Following is the fantastic 2022 stereo extraction mix of “Good Vibrations” from Sounds of Summer. 

Side B begins with a new, improved stereo mix of “Cabin Essence”, using the backing tracks from The Smile Sessions, combined with the extracted vocal from 20/20 and The Smile Vocal Montage.  Next is a brand new stereo mix of “Wonderful”, with a more defined soundstage, sourced from the Good Vibrations box set and The Smile Vocal Montage.  Using the Insert as a segue, we can modulate up to “I’m In Great Shape”, which combines the backing track from The Smile Sessions and the vocal from the Humble Harve demo, hard edited onto a stereo “I Wanna Be Around”; this follows the BWPS structure, which was how I always envisioned the song being constructed.  

Next is a new stereo mix of “Child is Father of the Man”, using a structure that best fits this album’s track sequence, rather than any version that Brian Wilson specifically designed.  Next is an edit I am fairly proud of–a completely new version of “The Elements”, again made to fit this album sequence, rather than any historical accuracy.  It begins with the Earth section, represented by a brand new stereo mix of “Barnyard”; then it is overlapped with the Wind section, represented by the alternate Whispering Winds from Sunshine Tomorrow; Fire is next represented by “Mrs O’Leary’s Cow”, proper, without any Chimes or Heroes and Villains Intros which is otherwise common; concluding is the Water section, represented by the alternate Water Chant from Sunshine Tomorrow.  

The concept of this new mix of “Vege-Tables” is to make an all-stereo version of a specific edit of “Vege-Tables” I made 20 years ago, which mainly constituted Brian’s mono mixdowns from Unsurpassed Masters 17 and Mark Linett’s mix on the Good Vibrations boxset.  Thus, using the stereo mix from Made in California, tracking sessions from The Smile Sessions and vocals from The Smile Vocal Montage and Unsurpassed Masters 17, we are able to have both the extended reverb at the end of the first two verses, as well as the unique crossfade between the Do A Lot chorus and the Fade, now in true stereo!  The Hitsville Mix of SMiLE ends with a big send-off: “The Old Master Painter”, featuring a brand new (and more accurate!) stereo sync.  Note that the Barnshine Fade is used here to end the track as originally intended before it was gutted for the Cantina mix of “Heroes and Villains”, giving this SMiLE and joyous finale.  

Sources used:

Feel Flows (2021 CD box set)

Good Vibrations: Thirty Years of The Beach Boys (1993 CD box set)

Made in California (2013 CD box set)

The SMiLE Sessions (2011 CD box set)

Sounds of Summer (2022 deluxe edition)

Sunshine Tomorrow (2017 CD)

Unsurpassed Masters Vol 16 (1999 bootleg CD)

Unsurpassed Masters Vol 17 (2000 bootleg CD)

The Beatles - Between The Lines

The Beatles - Between The Lines

(a soniclovenoize reimagining)

Side A:
1.  Let ‘Em In
2.  Crackerbox Palace
3.  Silly Love Songs
4.  Cookin’ In The Kitchen of Love
5.  Warm and Beautiful

Side B:
6.  See Yourself
7.  San Ferry Anne
8.  Beautiful Girl/Dear One
9.  Beware My Love
10. Tennessee

Hey folks.  Sorry about my absence…  A mix of being busy at work, a break-up, depression, etc etc etc.  I’ll try to “get back up on the horse” and drop some soniclovenoize reconstructions and reimaginings, starting with one that I think will be fairly unexpected and possibly exciting
for some (and loathed by others!).  I know long ago I said I would never do this, but during the pandemic (I had assembled this in November 2020, actually) I buckled down and made some Albums That Never Were I never expected to!  And you know what?  I actually really liked this one!  

If you couldn’t figure it out by the tracklist, this is an album “re-imagining” that postulates “What if The Beatles never broke up?” and is a part of my previous series of similar albums, including Instant Karma!, Imagine Clouds Dripping, Living In The Material World, Band On The Run, Goodnight Vienna and Skywriting By Word of Mouth.  This theoretical album– called Between The Lines (the tentative title of Lennon’s follow-up to Rock and Roll that was scrapped after being domesticated in 1975)-- encompasses The Beatles solo material spanning 1975 and 1976, and would have been theoretically released in fall 1976.  

As with my previous Beatles 70s Albums, I will adhere to three rules, although there are some slight modifications for these albums that follow Lennon’s real-life domestication and retirement:
1)  One album is represented per year, culled from tracks each Beatle recorded that year; this rule is revised so that one album spans two years instead of one.  Not only will this accommodate a lack of new material from some of the Beatles during this time, it will also force the outcome to be of better quality.  
2)  Generally speaking, to include five Lennon songs, five McCartney songs, three Harrison songs and one Ringo song; this rule is revised to presume that Lennon largely retired from The Beatles, occasionally contributing as a studio musician but leaving most of the heavy lifting for
Paul and George.   
3)  The chosen songs must be Beatle-esque in nature; we will attempt to avoid the idiosyncratic musical tangents each Beatle pursued in the 70s and vie for the solo songs that would have been most likely recorded by The Beatles (i.e. not vetoed by the rest of the band).
4)  The songs must flow together and make a unified album that shares a specific tone.

Between The Lines collects the highlights from Paul’s Wings at the Speed of Sound, George’s Thirty-Three and a Third, Ringo’s Rotogravure and, well, the six solo Lennon demos that date from his early Dakota era, approximately simultaneous to the aforementioned albums.  Both sides of the  re-imagining are edited to be two continuous sides of music.  The cover is taken from a Miro painting that somehow evokes the feel of this curious little album.  

Side A begins with my own unique edit of “Let ‘Em In”, which replicates the very rare original radio edit, only released as a promo disc; this is significant because that is the version I grew up listening to on the radio, and it is otherwise lost to time–and the unnecessarily long and repetitive album version.  This is followed by George’s classic “Crackerbox Palace”, which seems to somehow fit seamlessly before “Silly Love Songs”; like “Let ‘Em In”, this is my own unique ‘single edit’ since the song is likewise unnecessarily long.  Next is Ringo’s token song, written by John, “Cookin’ In The Kitchen of Love”, with the side closing with Paul’s ballad “Warm and Beautiful.”   Side B begins with George’s “See Yourself”, followed by Paul’s “San Ferry Anne”.  Next is a massive Paul-esque medley of George’s “Beautiful Girl” and Paul’s “Beware My Love”, using a brief bit of George’s “Dear One” to bridge the songs.  I couldn’t not have a John song, so concluding is the voice of our old friend: my own custom edit of “Tennessee”; although a Lennon home demo would sound drastically different from Paul & George ‘s studio output at this time, I believe this song works here as a closing piano solo.  

So sit back and imagine, if you will, an alternate timeline…
Although The Beatles went on an indefinite hiatus following the short 1974 tour for their hit album Goodnight Vienna, all four remained friendly, although not musically active with each other.  Paul took the opportunity to perform a solo tour (featuring wife Linda and his old friend Denny Lane as accompaniment) playing stripped down selections of his Beatles favorites from the last fifteen years.  George released a solo album Extra Texture, which had a lukewarm response despite featuring a moderate hit “You” (a duet with Ronnie Spector of The Ronnettes).  Ringo continued acting, building his filmography to include the role as The Pope in Listztomania, the voice of God in Monty Python and The Holy Grail and Uncle Ernie in the film adaptation of The Who’s Tommy.  John chose to stay home with his wife Yoko Ono and newborn Sean.  But the release of The Beatles’ Live at Madison Square Garden in late 1975 renewed some interest in the group continuing as a studio band, much like their late-60s era.  

Gradually, three of the four Beatles found themselves in each other's periphery and began plotting a new album, to be begun in early 1976.  John was only able to casually commit to the album, as he was no longer interested in living the rock star life.  While making only scant appearances on rhythm guitar and some backing vocals (although he distinctly took the lead for Ringo’s contribution to the album), a question emerged in the fans’ collective mind: is it really a Beatles album without John?  Regardless, a Paul-and-George -driven quartet released Between The Lines in October 1976, promoted only with a handful of live television  performances.  Most notable was their performance of “Let ‘Em In” on Saturday Night Live, in which Chevy Chase guested on a marching-band snare, prompting John Lennon to lead the entire show’s cast in a march outside and around Rockefeller Plaza.  

The moderate success of the double A-side single of “Silly Love Songs” and “Crackerbox Palace” encouraged the group to plan a follow-up in this short-lived and strange era of the band, and broad talks were made to reconvene in a year or so to see what the trio (and hopefully quartet) could muster…  

 

Sources used:
Paul McCartney & Wings - Wings at The Speed of Sound (2014 Remaster)
George Harrison - The Dark Horse Years 1976-1992
John Lennon - Between The Lines (2006 bootleg)
Ringo Starr - Ringo's Rotogravure (2009 Rhino Remaster)


 flac --> wav --> editing in SONAR Pro and Goldwave --> flac encoding via TLH lv8
*md5, artwork and tracknotes included

The Beatles - Get Back (Upgrade)

The Beatles – Get Back

(soniclovenoize reconstruction)

February 2022 UPGRADE

Side A:

1. Get Back

2. Dig A Pony

3. I’ve Got a Feeling

4. All Things Must Pass

5. Don’t Let Me Down

6. Two Of Us

Side B:

7. One After 909

8. For You Blue

9. Teddy Boy

10. I Want You

11. The Long and Winding Road

12. Dig It

13. Let It Be

This is an inevitable update of the legendary unreleased Beatles album Get Back, what eventually was cleaned up by Phil Spector as Let It Be. Originally intend as a throwback to the band’s early days of live, in-studio recording in order to boost their diminishing morale and comradery, The Beatles set out to rehearse and record an album’s worth of material without overdubs, concluding with an actual live performance and a television special documenting the process. Unfortunately the end result, compiled twice by Glyn Johns, was simply too rough and sloppy to be release-worthy and was shelved. Phil Spector was later appointed to make an album out of the tapes in 1970 and, even though better performances were selected, Spector infamously added his own orchestration, going against the live “warts and all” concept of the Get Back album. This reconstruction attempts to offer what a fully-realized Get Back album would have sounded like if it had been properly completed in April 1969. This reconstruct features a number of custom, unique edits, most notably a full-band Beatles studio take of "All Things Must Pass".  As a bonus disc, I am including my own personal lossless rip of the streaming only Apple Rooftop Performance.

Recognizing a possible end to the band, The Beatles came up with a novel idea: write, rehearse and record an album as they first started in 1962, live in the studio without overdubs. Going “back to basics” and abandoning their now-commonplace methodology of extraneous overdubbing would theoretically allow The Beatles to once again operate as a cohesive unit. An album would be compiled from these sessions displaying, as John Lennon once quipped, “The Beatles with their pants down” and the January 1969 rehearsals and recording sessions would be filmed for a television special by Michael Lindsay-Hogg. As the first week progressed, it was pitched to conclude the sessions with an actual live performance, although the band could not agree on where or even if it should be done at all (with George the most adamant against it). While a good idea in theory, the reality was that this project—eventually titled Get Back—was doomed from the start, as none of the band’s issues from the White Album sessions where solved and seemed to be exacerbated by the band’s new setting: the cold, uncomfortable Tickenham film studio, working regular 9-to-5 hours, Paul’s aptitude for bossiness, ambivalence towards George’s songwriting and John’s girlfriend Yoko Ono ever-present.

The rehearsals at Twickenham studios did not go according to plan. Paul offered an endless amount of new original compositions and thoroughly dictated his songs' arrangements to the rest of the band; Lennon seemed distant, completely uninterested and often communicating only through Yoko Ono, himself head-deep into a writer’s block and a heroin addiction; George was resentful over John and Paul’s disinterest in his own compositions, of which there were now plenty of high quality to choose from; Ringo simply went along for the ride, played solemnly and remained stoic and reserved. George eventually quit the band after an argument and refused to rejoin The Beatles until they had vacated Twickenham and nixed the notion for a televised concert.

With George temporarily subdued, The Beatles returned to the basement of their new Apple Studios with engineer Glyn Johns at the helm, intending to properly record the material rehearsed at Twickenham, live without overdubs. With Glyn needed in Los Angeles to track with The Steve Miller Band and Ringo needed to film The Magic Christian, the band had until the end of the month to record fourteen new songs. The serious contenders for the Get Back album included “Don’t Let Me Down”, “Get Back” “I’ve Got A Feeling”, “Two of Us”, “Dig A Pony”, “Teddy Boy”, “One After 909”, “All Things Must Pass”, several iterations of a jam loosely titled “Dig It”, “Let It Be”, The Long and Winding Road”, “For You Blue”, “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”, “She Came In Through The Bathroom Window”, “I Me Mine” and “Across The Universe”. Further newly-written songs were introduced as the sessions progressed: “Oh Darling”, “Old Brown Shoe”, “Something”, “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” and “Octopus's Garden”, among others scantily observed. Although sessions were initially unproductive, the addition of keyboardist Billy Preston livened up the mood and forced The Beatles to not only settle their differences, but to perform better!

As the weeks soldiered on, it was unclear what the goal of the proceeding was: were The Beatles rehearsing for a live performance at the end of the month? Or were they recording an album live in the studio with the cameras rolling? The answer was a combination of both, as it was decided to rehearse and keep the great takes as possible masters, while prepping for the concert itself. In the process, The Beatles successfully tracked master takes of “For You Blue” on January 25th, “Get Back” on January 27th and “Don’t Let Me Down” on January 28th. Additionally, a passable master of “The Long and Winding Road” was tracked on January 26th by Glyn Johns’ account, although The Beatles themselves thought they could do better. The quintet concluded their sessions with a now-legendary concert on the rooftop of Apple Studios on January 30th, capturing lively masters of “I’ve Got a Feeling”, “Dig a Pony” and “One After 909”, as well as admirable takes of “Get Back” and “Don’t Let Me Down”. The following day, The Beatles with Preston recorded three additional tracks back in the basement studio, songs that didn’t suit a live electric set: “Two Of Us”, “Let It Be” and a penultimate “The Long and Winding Road.”

As February arrived, The Beatles went their separate ways, the album a wrap. Or was it? Out of the goal of recording fourteen new songs, they had only tracked masters for nine. With five songs short, The Beatles reconvened in February 22 with Ringo and Glyn called back from their obligations to record John’s “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”, a song the quartet had rehearsed a handful of times the previous month. Although the song wasn’t completely finished, it is generally believed that this session was meant as a Get Back “clean up” session. On February 25th, George recorded solo demos of his three key offerings for Get Back: “Something”, “All Things Must Pass” and “Old Brown Shoe.” Furthermore, it was decided that “Get Back” and “Don’t Let Me Down” were to be rush-released as a single and The Beatles decided to break their Get Back rule—overdubbing of a second vocal track onto “Don’t Let Me Down”, and an edit piece from an alternate take of “Get Back” from January 28th was edited onto the master take from the 27th as a coda.

Around this time, Glyn presented to the band a rough mix of some of the tracks recorded in January, presented in a “fly-on-the-wall” fashion, purely from his perspective as an outsider to The Beatles’ inner circle. Tasked to make a full album in this fashion, Glyn spent March compiling his vision of a Get back album. Although admirable, there were a number of shortcomings that ultimately led to the compilation’s rejection: sloppy takes of “Don’t Let Me Down”, “Dig a Pony” and “I’ve Got a Feeling” were chosen from January 22nd, rather than the master takes from the 28th and 30th; a rough “Two of Us” from January 24th was chosen instead of the superior master from January 31st; Glyn’s favorite rehearsal of “The Long and Winding Road” from the 26th was chosen over the final performance master from the 31st; and five minutes of the meandering “Dig It” and almost four minutes of a painful rehearsal of “Teddy Boy” both made the cut.

Just as the “Get Back” b/w “Don’t Let Me Down” single was released in April, there was an explosion of recording activity, mostly of songs already woodshedded in January: both “Old Brown Shoe” and the backing track for “Something” was recorded on April 16th; additional overdubbing on “I Want You” was done on April 18th and 20th; “Oh Darling” was recorded on April 20th; and “Octopus’s Garden” was recorded on April 26th. Finally, The Beatles again broke their own rule, as George overdubbed a new guitar solo onto “Let It Be” on April 30th. Simultaneously, Glyn Johns was tasked to mix and assemble an album in the documentary-style of his March acetates. Could these April sessions have also been meant to complete the Get Back album for release the following month?

Regardless, these recordings were never destined to make it onto Get Back, as The Beatles must have decided at some point in the summer of the album’s lost cause, instead earmarking the new recordings for an even newer album, tentatively titled Everest. Returning to the studio in July and August, the band finished the new batch of recordings, now titled Abbey Road, released to critical and commercial acclaim in late September. As for the actual January sessions, The Beatles were still hopeful for it’s eventual release as editing for the film dragged on and various versions of the soundtrack were mixed by Glyn and subsequently rejected by Apple.

By January 1970, director Michael Lindsay-Hogg had decided to include rehearsal footage of “Across The Universe” and “I Me Mine” into his cut of the documentary film—two songs never properly tracked by The Beatles in January. While Glyn simply made a new “stripped down” mix of the original 1968 take of “Across The Universe”, The Beatles—minus John—reassembled at EMI to properly record “I Me Mine.” Additionally, more work was done to “Let It Be”, including horns, bongos and backing vocal overdubs, along with a spicier guitar solo. The changes greatly improved Glyn’s cut of Get Back, but Apple regardless rejected his compilation yet again. By March, the legendary producer Phil Spector—himself building a working relationship with both John & George—was tasked to remix and compile a completed album, now titled Let It Be. Although Spector ultimately used better takes of the material, he heavy-handedly added orchestration to “I Me Mine”, “Across The Universe” and “The Long and Winding Road”, as well as a number of smaller changes to “Dig a Pony”, “For You Blue” and “Get Back” (not to mention dropping “Don’t Let Me Down” entirely!). Released as Let It Be in May 1970, a month after Paul’s first solo album and effectively after The Beatles ceased to exist, the album was a hodge-podge and a far cry from the band’s original concept. Can we reconstruct what both Glyn Johns and Phil Spector failed to accomplish?

The key tenet of my Get Back reconstruction is to use the nine master takes from January as the core of the album—specifically the studio versions of “Get Back” and “Don’t Let Me Down” released as a single, the master of “For You Blue” that excluded all later overdubs, “Dig a Pony”, “I’ve Got a Feeling” and “One After 909” from the rooftop performance on the 30th and “Two Of Us”, “Let It Be” and “The Long and Winding Road” from the basement performance on the 31st. To round out the album, we will assume the early mix of “I Want You” from February was meant for Get Back and finds it’s place here (the early April takes of “Old Brown Shoe” and “Oh Darling”, as head on the Abbey Road SDE, are also fair game, but not necessary). We will also use a little less than a minute of “Can You Dig It” as miraculously, The Beatles had intended the jam to appear on Get Back in some form or another, and creating a concise edit of “Teddy Boy”. Finally, we will be construct a complete Beatles version of “All Things Must Pass”, which was originally meant as George’s second Harrisong for the album.

Side A begins with the Giles Martin single remix of “Get Back” from 1+, with the actual studio dialog intro restored using an edit of Giles’ LP remix and the WBCN acetate. “Dig a Pony” and “I’ve Got a Feeling” follow, taken from my own 24/48 rip of the lossless Tidal stream of the Get Back Rooftop Performance. My own reconstruction of a Beatles “All Things Must Pass” follows, which utilities George’s demo from Anthology 3, the drums, bass and backing vocals from A/B Road and Billy Preston’s electric keyboards from The Beatles Rockband Stems. This crossfades into Giles’ 2021 single mix of “Don’t Let Me Down” that includes it’s natural studio chatter intro. The side closes with Giles’ 2021 remix of “Two Of Us.”

Side B starts with the energetic “One After 909” from my rooftop stream rip, followed by Glyn John’s original 1969 mix of “For You Blue”, which was mistakenly included on the Get Back disc of the Japanese Let It Be SDE; this is the only professional mix that excludes the later vocal overdubs. Next is my own edit of “Teddy Boy” that follows the song’s structure as heard on McCartney, limiting the song to just over two minutes and making the song reasonable. “I Want You”, clearly intentionally recorded for Get Back, follows from the Abbey Road SDE with a tad of reverb via Wave’s Abbey Road Chamber plug-in to make it fit with the rest of the reconstruction. Next is the superior take of “The Long and Winding Road” from 1+ and a bit of “Can You Dig It” from the Let It Be SDE, as a link track to Glyn’s 1969 mix of “Let It Be”, also from the Let It Be SDE, the only professional mix to exclude the song’s later overdubs.

 

Since it does not seem to have a physical or even downloadable release, I have included my rip of the Apple Rooftop Performance as a bonus, sourced from the Tidal lossless stream into a Scarlett 2i2 into SONAR Pro at 24/48.  Some slight EQ changes were made to make the master sound more like the original 1970 Spector mixes and it was downsampled to 16/44. 

 

Sources used:

• 1+
• A/B Road (bootleg, Purplechick 2004)
• Abbey Road (Super Deluxe Edition, 2019)
• Anthology 3
• Get Back Rooftop Performance (24/48 rip of lossless Tidal stream, 2022)
• Let It Be (Super Deluxe Edition, US and Japanese, 2021)
• Rockband Extraction Stems
• The WBCN Acetate (bootleg, Masterjedi 2019)
  

flac --> wav --> editing in SONAR Pro and Goldwave --> flac encoding via TLH lv8
*md5, artwork and tracknotes included