The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper 50th Anniversary outtakes only (Content and Discussion thread)

Sgt. Pepper was always the weakest point among bootleg collectors: there were even more 1960 home tapes available than Sgt. Pepper sessions. I can only remember an early take of "A Day In The Life", instrumental of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", home demo for "Good Morning" + demos/outtakes of "Strawberry Fields" and 7-minute overdub session for "Penny Lane". Plus "Anthology 2". Nothing else.
So Pepper sessions was always a kind of holy grail for me. And I've been waiting to hear those outtakes since 2001. So it was an amazing experience, just as if I turned back to my teenage years and had the same emotions when first heard "Anthology" or "Unsurpassed Masters".
The most impressive for me were:
Sgt. Pepper - no fade ending is so psychedelic))
Lucy In The Sky take 1 - funny to hear it even without a chorus overdub.
Fixing a Hole - interesting to hear those early powerful vocals from Macca.
Lovely Rita - very rough and live, sounds so different!
When I'm 64 - in my teenage years I tried to imagine the first takes of this song and they sounded in my head like that. Later I thought that the early takes didn't have vocals + they almost immediately recorded trumpets. And now, 16-17 years later - here it is, just as it was in my fantasy!
A Day in the Life - the OM ending is so unexpected for me, what a gem!
The whole ouutakes CDs are priceless for those who are really interested in unreleased materials. Quality is the best, as if it was recorded today.
And, yes, it's 1000 more interesting than boring "Get Back" sessions.

 

I only have disc 2 of outtakes.
The drums, bass, and guitar playing with and off each other in Good Morning is a hoot and a blast and I like the more austere but not overly precious incomplete version of ADITL which also feels a little more intimately heard here and I love the counting number effect. I think Fixing A Hole is one of if not the best of all these outtakes. I like the opening SP for less decor and just lean band detail. Perhaps 64 is the best of the whole lot that's on the lp. What a difference it is here without too much cuteness or the makeup on the finished track. A good disc of outtakes imo plus with the piece of music of SLH being very impressive and just superb.

 

I had to bow out of the other threads. The pile of circular negativity just became too much....

 

Fixing A Hole (the take that's on iTunes (take 1?)

Am i the only one suspecting an edit to another take for the outro? Lusten carefully. There is a small glitch in the audio just on the first down beat of the outro. On the syllable "fix". And the coda is noticable slower. The same glitch is there when they come to an, unnatural sounding, dead stop.

 

Yes, I noticed the glitch. It's actually Take 3 on the 2CD edition. I don't think it's an edit to another take (there aren't any others), but maybe a part has been edited out.

The SDE also has Take 1 (which became the basis for the master). No glitch on that one, but Paul does appear to have re-recorded his vocal at that point in the take.

 

Outedited section. Certainly a possibility. Perhaps an embarresing mistake happened that they didn't want out despite all good intentions on keeping it real.

 

Barrett and Lewisohn both say that Take 3 was a breakdown. I suppose it's possible that it did break down at the end and they then recorded a pick-up section to be edited on (but without calling it a new take, similar to how Take 1 of Within You Without You seems to have been recorded).

 

I don't think George ever enjoyed being fab again after 1966.

 

I think you are right on there.

 

I think George had his moments when he liked being a Beatle, and others when he didn't. He definitely was more prone to being grouchy and not afraid to show it.

For example, the week-long Lady Madonna/Inner Light/Across The Universe/Hey Bulldog sessions in February 1968 seem to have been a very enjoyable and productive spur of activity:



And some of the sessions in the summer of 1969 for Abbey Road (particularly when it was mostly Paul and George, before John had fully recuperated from his car accident) are another positive time for George:

 

You get what I mean though, right? I truly believe after they quit performing he would have been equally happy not making any more Beatle albums.

 

"Wait until they hear "All Things Must Pass".

"That's nothing,wait until they hear "McCartney".

 

Lovely Rita: Does anybody find it even remotely probable that Paul kept reciting latin while he started playing.

Now i am all for some editing here and there. But that one simply does spoil the "in the room" illusion. Simply because i can't picture that happening for real.

Like it would have been pretty hard for him to sing free now while commenting on the vocal take.

 

Yeah it does kinda sound like an overdub - maybe it's like Take 1 of SFF where the overdubs don't mean it's a new take...


I do like it tho

 

The entire vocal is an overdub. Take 9 is a reduction of the instrumental Take 8, plus overdubbed vocal.

 

As aside on all the great photos that have emerged recently from the Pepper sessions..

In my mind there was always a bit of mystery around the sessions. I've seen film of the big orchestra, clown noses, and all the stories of playing chess, etc.

But we see in the photos the band pulled in close together, right on top of each other, guitars leaning on chairs, tea cups everywhere. At the center of the hurricane are the four boys, working hard together on making a particular noise. Maybe it got more boring at the overdub stage, but at the beginning it was just them being a band.

I think those photos and the adjustment of my understanding of the sessions mean more to me than the remixes themselves.

 

Thanks for this - I tried it and he still sounds a tad chipmunk-ish, but then when I slowed it down further the backing starts to sound anomalous. Which is a bugger cos now I've noticed it I can't not notice it

My ears are terrible at this kind of stuff, is the backing track also faster on take 9 of Lovely Rita @slane @Kim Olesen @brainwashed ?

 

off the top of my head: yes.

 

Did the Beatles make raw demo recordings for any of the songs on Pepper? They were known to do that - mainly home recordings like the one on Anthology 2 for "Strawberry Fields Forever."

 

It's All Too Much is one of the more Psychedelic Beatles songs ever

 

They did

 

Check your levels when you do this - these CD's are already mastered at maximum volume, so any fiddling like a speed/pitch change can slightly alter the output level and push it over the limit. If this is the case, you probably need to reduce the volume to something negligible like 97% before applying a speed/pitch change.

 

And one more early Pepper-era demo, late 1966/early 1967

 

I only have the 2-CD set, but I do love that the second disc is comprised of alternate takes or instrumentals in the running order of the album!

My favorite still has to be that Take 8 of "Good Morning, Good Morning"! I first gave the second disc a spin while heading to the beach this past Sunday, and I found myself singing the words to the instrumental only tracks!

I love what they did with the 2-CD set! Hopefully the SDE will be a Father's Day present, because I want more!

 

Man, it's not an enjoyable recording (due to musical reasons as well as the sound quality), but I still kind of wish they stuck this on the set, just to show how much was done in the studio to make a full-blown recording out of a rudimentary little sketch.