Which Beatles lps had G.Harrison songs they should have used

Harrisongs that I like. There are quite a few not so great LM songs I'd eject before those three. I'd prefer Not Guilty in place of the very ordinary WDWDIITR

 

Two reasons "Its All Too Much" didnt make the MMT album:

1 - Capitol no longer had the contractual right to demand extra songs for the US market (a la "Bad Boy")
2 - Capitol didnt like to release albums with more than 11 songs as a general rule, so I doubt they'd have even wanted another song to include on MMT anyway.

BTW - when was It's All Too Much given over to the YS movie/ST album, making it unavailable for MMT use anyway?

As to the question of George songs that could have been on albums but weren't, only two come to mind (I'm not counting the era in which a song was written - I'm talking about songs that were actually recorded for an album and rejected):

1 - Not Guilty - George was out of the country while the master reels for the White Album were finalized, so wasn't there to make his case for its inclusion, plus its possible that J&P didn't like the finger-pointing lyrics that were aimed at them and/or they just couldn't imagine giving George more than one song per side. Plus the album was already pushing 23 minutes a side without including it (and WTNMJ).

2 - Only A Northern Song - I've read somewhere that Martin told George the song was flat out not good enough for inclusion and that he'd have to come up with something else for the Pepper album. I don't really buy this, since:

a - its hardly the worst song they'd recorded/released up to that point in time
b - if it was that bad, why didnt Martin notice before they'd completely finished recording it?
c - if it was that bad then why did they include it later in the YS movie/ST album?

The only thing that makes sense to me is that they recorded their normal 14 songs for the next album (including the normal 2 songs for George and 1 song for Ringo) but when finalizing the album they noticed that the album was too long (containing as it did for the first time two songs which were each over five minutes long), so felt compelled to cut one song so as to avoid album sides of over twenty minutes.

Even after removing Only A Northern Song from the album, it was still their longest album released to that point in time.

 

I will take old brown shoe over most of the Beatles catalogue. Very underated and overlooked gem.

 

Honestly the three songs I suggested deleting I think detract from the albums they are on. To me, those three tunes and Mr. Moonlight are the only imperfections in their core catalog.

As noted, I think he had material that could have added nicely in their place, but if he didn't I would have been ok with shorter albums or with him singing some covers or Lennon McCartney tunes. As Sweet As You Are would have been great to have on a studio album.

 

Has it occured to anyone that "Sour Milk Sea" are extremely close sounding to "Savoy Truffle"?
Had both songs appeared on The White Album, he would likely have been accused for including 2 songs sounding alike.

Other than that, I can only imagine 2 Harrisongs on Beatle albums: All Things Must Pass and Isn't It A Pity.

 

And if they put Isn't It A Pity on a Beatle record, George could have put one less of 'em on ATMP.

 

Uptempo, but don't sound alike.

 

The greatest thing that came up in this thread for me is, why Mag Mystery Tour only has 11 songs instead of 12-13. There really is no additional Lennon in the can, so I'd say use All Too Much & All Together Now to make MMT a full lp like other Beatle lps.

As far as not having permission they had Across Universe, Northern Song, HeyBulldog, Xmas time is here, You know my name, to fulfill 4 song Yellow Sub commitment.

I looked up the running time on the LIB album its only 35 min. They easily could have fit a finished All Things Must Pass or Is Brown Shoe & Don't Let Me Down on LIB, Abbey Road also mastered in 1969 runs around 46-47 minutes...

Sgt Pepper in 67 was nearly 40 minutes they couldn't have fit both Strw berry fields & Penny Lane according to their 67 mastering practices, but they could've added a 2.30-300 minute Only A Northern song I believe bringing Pepper's runtime to maybe 42 min close but doable especially with all the cross fading

I think they should've added northern song. Imo it's not great or terrible, near the bottom of Pepper songs along with when I'm 64, but it wouldve been the 2nd Harrison track on Pepper, which following his 3 on Revolver would've suited me. Harrison is a bit under represented on Pepper in general, Paul played lead guitar on several tunes, a couple tunes had no guitar, Harrison's 1 big spotlight Within Without doesn't have the other Beatles, he's not on She's Leaving home at all, Harrison does very little on Day in the life, so for me yeah, restoring a little Beatles balance with 2 tracks from George would be good.

Some of the anti Harrison folks here, probably don't dig the idea, but they could've without dropping or compromising any other song or album

 

I think they knew what they did subconsciously. They had known each other and played together since early teens. The Harrisongs they did not use made for a spectacular solo album. There'a a lot of hard learned wisdom in the songs on "All Things Must Pass" and the songs makes more sense after the breakup. "All Things Must Pass", "Isn't It a Pity", it's divorce songs, written while things were getting sour, you don't make a divorce album with your wife.

 

The album has only 11 songs, but several of them are rather long by Beatles standards. The running time is comparable to most other UK Beatles LPs, and longer than any of the Dexterized US versions. Lennon was on record as preferring to keep running times under 20 minutes a side, to preserve sound quality.

Getting back to the original topic - I wouldn't mind Not Guilty and Sour Milk Sea on the White Album (what to remove to make room would be a whole other deal), and All Things Must Pass on Let It Be. Before that period, I'm not sure how much more Beatles-caliber material George had ready to go.

Another intriguing parallel-universe scenario: Suppose that when the Beatles decided to disband, they compiled a farewell album of outtakes with just a few new songs. All Things Must Pass would have been a great choice for the title track.

 

You Know What To Do could have been squeezed on A Hard Days Night.

Don't think George released a song of his at all in 1964, I'm Happy To Just Dance with You was not written by him.

Everything else is fine as it is.

 

Unless you're Richard Thompson. Or a member of Fleetwood Mac.

 

MMT album was compiled by Capitol, who almost always compiled 11 track albums due to features of US licensing law thst made albums with more than 11 tracks less profitable.

 

The principle of MMT as a 33T was simply the grouping of all the 1967 singles A and B sides in one place. Simple really.
"It's All Too Much" had nothing to do with that.

 

After hearing "Not Guilty" for the first time on Anthology 3, I was always disappointed it wasn't included on The Beatles.

 

I know this is going to be controversial, but part of the problem with having many Harrison songs on a Beatles' records was the rule that "whoever wrote should sing it."

Lennon and McCartney were much better singers than Harrison, so that became another crucial element for picking more of their tunes.

It's the vocal peformance that drives stuff like "Why Don't we do it...", "Everybody's got something to hide..." or "Helter Skelter" which are not necessarily great songs in terms of melody, etc.

In others words, to truly justify a place in a Beatles' record, Harrison had to contribute a good song. If he came up with a just a standard song to fill the album, it was probably going to be less interesting than any average Lennon/McCartney tune, mainly because of the vocal performance.

 

I would definitely have preferred Only A Northern Song on Pepper and I would have liked to see the Let It Be album padded out a little extra material considering it was essentially a 10 track album. Another track each from John, Paul and George would have been nice.

 

Agreed.

Wracking my brains (sorry), what is Harrison's best vocal performance on a Beatles record?

 

I think it would "Something"

 

A 1967 solo album by George would have been the time to do one - before the Beatles went all roots.

The whole sitars meets mellotrons and fuzz guitars is a great intersection.

Sgt. Pepper and MMT are the sound of George and John putting LSD sugar cubes into the teacups of Paul's grandmother and Ringo's mum.

 

Regarding 'Isn't It A Pity' - it might have fit in well on the White Album most, if we're trying to find a Beatles album for it.

Seems he put the song aside for a while.

 

"Sour Milk Sea" (in a form resembling the Lomax/Beatles mashup remixes) should've been a single.

 

Sounds like your describing "Wonderwall Music", his 1968 soundtrack album.

 

In the end I am glad Not Guilty is not on the White Album because I actually prefer the version he did in 79, and this way we got both the Beatles version and that, though we had to wait a bit.