So how precisely were decisions made about what singles to release in later years of the Beatles?

'Fraid not. In the UK, the singles were reissued on the same label as the original releases, i.e. Parlophone or Apple. So uncut apples don't enter into it.

 

Would that make this thread Room 12A, Colin?

 

I came here for an argument, but I seem to have ended up in room 12 with Mr. Barnard.

 

Oh, like when he mentioned he only helped George out with Taxman under duress? Or how he was ALWAYS coincidentally absent at any session when they recorded George songs from ~'67 onward, yet that bastard Paul always seems to be playing and singing on them? That guy?

 

Paul might be a selfish ego-maniac but the man always gave 100% when recording and always tried to make things better. No matter who's song.

 

In fact he did some of his best work on the songs of the others.

 

But in addition to The Inner Light, Piggies, and For You Blue, John did also participate in sessions for While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Old Brown Shoe, and Something. It's not his fault George kept wiping his parts afterwards!

 

Only someone who was there would know that. Were you there?

 

Really?!?!

 

Beatles Bible says you can still hear some of his guitar on While My Guitar Gently Weeps. If you count 1967, Only A Northern Song, Blue Jay Way, It's All Too Much (1968). A bit of
his piano survives on Something.

 

Oh, he wasn't absent, George wiped his part later. Educate yourself before making plain wrong comments. Paul played and sang on them, of course he did, would he want a bad sounding record to go out with The Beatles name on it? We were specifically talking about WRITING the songs.

 

In keeping, of course, with the title of this thread.

 

The whole "wiping tracks" business is interesting, since it seems like it would cause resentment, or at least disagreement. You'd think we would have heard more complaints from John during his post-Beatles interviews. Did the person who wrote the song have "wiping rights", or did everyone have to agree?

 

One only need look at "Something" as a prime example (among many). His bass guitar and backing vocals are immense

 

I'm plenty well educated, thank you . I didn't make a "plain wrong comment"...John was absent from loads of George sessions (especially in 1968 & 1969), and as you correctly point put, on several George tracks ("Old Brown Shoe," "Here Comes the Sun," etc) his parts were wiped. What does that say about his effort level during the sessions when they worked on George's songs?

As for the writing thing, besides the aforementioned "Taxman" comment, there's also John saying in the early 1970s that the Beatles has to break up because since George was writing so many songs, "we would've had to either have released a double album every time or given George 1/3 of the albjm for his songs, and neither Paul or I would have gone for that." (I'm paraphrasing but that's an actual quote...I'll try to dig up the link)

 

Nothing. It tells you George wanted to add something by himself. John was not absent from 'loads' of George sessions. He wasn't on Long Long Long and Here Comes The Sun. His enthusiasm for George's songs is apparent in, for example, his great playing on 'Something' and his overheard encouragement and contribution to that song while Paul ignores George.

 

I don't know that John isn't on "Long Long Long", though: there are some very Lennonesque "Oh, Oh" vocalising on the track (which could be just a clever simulation by George, by George!!!)

 

I've never ever seen any indication or evidence from anyone, Lewisohn or otherwise, that John was on the song. I'm 99.999% sure he wasn't.

 

Only Paul would know.

 

Best post on this thread.

 

You can't expect Ron to remember every little detail about something 50 years ago. I can't even remember what happened last week. You Beatle fanatics are too much. Man, they were just four guys who played great music for 8 years. They didn't cure polio.

 

Recording career as a 4 piece, Six years, 11 months. September 1962 to August 1969.
Performing career as a 4 piece, Five years 8 months. December 1961 to August 1966.

 

So why didn't they release HJ/Rev as a double A-side? Seemed logical to do so or had they started the mind games by this point?

 

Maybe because the design of the Apple label, one side full apple, one side sliced, kind of personified the look of an A side and a B side. The Beatles went on TV and did both sides, as they had for most of their earlier singles.

 

August 1960 to April 1970. On Wikipedia.