Beatles meeting Oct '69, where's the tape?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by YpsiGypsy, Jul 16, 2018.

  1. Ken Wood

    Ken Wood Forum Resident

    Corrected version:

    Wouldn`t it be better - because we, we didn`t really dig them - you know - fear(?) to do songs that you talked [about] - and Ob-La-Di and Maxwell to be given to people who like music like that, y`know, like Mary or whoever it is that needs a song. Why don`t you give that to them? The only time we need anything (a vagues?) qualities for single. And for an album we could just do our new stuff (somebody whistles) that we - that we really dug.
    (I think underneath the next half sentence we hear Paul trying to interject: "The ... the thing is")
    (It`s been?) fabulous to (put up stuff?) on the album and nobody dug it including the guy who wrote it. It`ll be (that was?) something popular (you know?). `Cause the - the pop LP was not to be popular ... that version.
     
  2. Ken Wood

    Ken Wood Forum Resident

    More corrections:
    I really cannot make out that bit: (a vagues) - now it sounds like "away did`ya" - now it sounds like "baby job"
    The next to last sentence is: "Just because it was gonna be popular (you know?)"
     
  3. Colin Rouge

    Colin Rouge Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    Wouldn't it be better, because we…we didn't really dig 'em (Paul: mm), you know, for you to do songs that you dug, and for Ob-la-di and Maxwell to be given to people who like music like that, you know? Like Mary or whoever it is that needs a song. Why didn't you give them to them you know? The only time we need anything of [vaguely…] that quality is for a single, and for an album we could just do only stuff that we…you really dug. (Paul tries to answer: […] you see, the thing is) And it seems madness to put a song on the album that nobody dug including the guy who wrote it, just because it was going to be popular, you know. 'Cause er… the pop…the LP doesn't have to be popular that way.
     
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  4. Ken Wood

    Ken Wood Forum Resident

    You got it I think! Thanks!
    Now where is the rest of the tape?
     
  5. Ken Wood

    Ken Wood Forum Resident

    I should add that there are two different off-air recordings circulating, both with the same content but one slightly clearer in my ears.
     
  6. Usagi75

    Usagi75 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tokyo, Japan
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  7. SunSon

    SunSon Lucky Boomer

    Location:
    Sea Of Holes
    Interesting that no one knows who owns the tape.

    Also what was the "mind set" of the 4 Beatles when they when into the studio to record Abbey Road. Some say they knew it was the last album but did something change during the recording and then had this meeting to discuss recording more.
     
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  8. idreamofpikas

    idreamofpikas Forum Resident

    Location:
    england
    Some, like George Martin, say they thought the end was coming soon. Not that they knew it was the end, but that the bad blood along with the fact that in 1969 a band lasting as long as the Beatles had was strange. Even before the bad blood journalists were constantly asking when it would be over. Bands lasting decades was not something that was the norm in the 60s'
     
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  9. Usagi75

    Usagi75 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tokyo, Japan
    According to that podcast, a six minute sample (two short clips) was released when the tape was up for sale. Those six minutes are what everyone is talking about. I believe they said the tape was recorded September 8, 1969 shortly before John Lennon played the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival festival.
     
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  10. 2141

    2141 Forum Resident

    I think this is a key point. Bands going on for years and years, that was really uncharted territory in the 60s. There was always this assumption that rock bands would naturally split up after a couple, few years. Heck, lots of journalist types didn't even think guitar bands would last! So it's not surprising The Beatles might feel it very natural to just call it a day at the end of the 60s, especially since business affairs had gotta so out of hand and they really didn't know how to deal with it. If Epstein had been around I'm sure that would have helped, too. In hindsight it's easy to see they probably could have kept going quite a bit longer with a little attitude adjustment. :agree:
     
  11. Beatlebug

    Beatlebug Another box set won't do any harm

    Location:
    Garswood, UK
    "Vaguely near".
     
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  12. beatleroadie

    beatleroadie Forum Resident

    My guess is that Lennon was surprised at how good Abbey Road turned out to be. My speculation is that John thought something like "Wow, I put three songs on this record plus some old leftovers and it turned out really well, what if we did another one, and I only have to do 4 songs?" Seems like John was really into the idea of giving the Beatles one more go, but not interested in a pop record (maybe the beginnings of his desire for a real confessional, honest and personal album which led him to POB). Perhaps he wanted Paul to get on that level of emotional forthrightness on an LP, and only consider an overtly commercial sound for the single?

    Fact is they probably should have just focused on a Christmas-timed single and not the pressure of a whole new record. George had lots of songs then, so I would think maybe a Paul-led A-side, George b-side, and if they had just done "Cold Turkey" then all 3 writers would have done a new song with the band in the fall of '69 post-AR.

    What if the band had done "Cold Turkey" to be a b-side to "Here Comes the Sun" in Oct, pulled together a Christmas single in Dec, completed "I Me Mine" for George in Feb, then in March John brings "Instant Karma" to the band as a single? That really might have bought them time to figure other business dealings out and maybe after a summer/fall break in 1970, reconvene in late 1970 for the next Beatles LP to be released in 1971.
     
    Last edited: Oct 28, 2019
  13. Ken Wood

    Ken Wood Forum Resident

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  14. idreamofpikas

    idreamofpikas Forum Resident

    Location:
    england
    John's on record not liking side 2 in a few interviews. I don't think he was that impressed with the album

    • "I liked the A side. I never liked that sort of pop opera on the other side. I think it's junk. It was just bits of song thrown together. And I can't remember what some of it is. Come Together is all right. And some things on it... It was a competent album, like Rubber Soul in a way, it was together in that way, but it had no life really." - John 1970
     
  15. beatleroadie

    beatleroadie Forum Resident

    John in late 1970 versus John in October 1969 were two completely different people in terms of how he expressed himself in interviews about the Beatles (even his own) past work.

    There's this:


    And also the outtakes and the master takes showing John enjoyed himself while making the medley. He trashed a lot of his past stuff in those 1970 interviews. It was just the trip he was on, basically that the past stuff was garbage and the new solo work with Yoko is genius. Very hyperbolic times for Lennon. Not to be taken as scripture.
     
    Last edited: Oct 28, 2019
  16. thrivingonariff

    thrivingonariff Forum Resident

    Location:
    US
    Yes, but OTOH the negative opinions that you're referring to do reflect something real and enduring about his musical tastes.
     
  17. PhilBorder

    PhilBorder Senior Member

    Location:
    Sheboygan, WI
    My understanding is that John was less than helpful on George's songs. So him advocating for George having an equal number seems a bit unlikely, though not impossible given his mercurial nature.
     
  18. paul62

    paul62 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Down to Earth
    Who's to say that the 4+4+4+2 equation wasn't something that Allen Klein thought up to keep John, George and Ringo pacified, happy and completely in his corner as he battled Paul and the Eastmans? If Paul had have accepted this "quota system" as "the new normal" for an on-going group known as The Beatles, it would have been seen as a master stroke of Klein by the other three.
     
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  19. dave9199

    dave9199 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Durham, NC
    It could've meant that's fewer songs John would have to work on.
     
  20. nikh33

    nikh33 Senior Member

    Location:
    Liverpool, England
    Lennon admitted he was drunk during the 1970 Rolling Stone interviews, and he does sound it, uncharacteristically harsh, bitter and dogmatic. That was why he didn't want it published as a book in 1971 as Lennon Remembers, but Wenner went ahead anyway. His interviews in 1971 and up to 1980 are more usual, with laughter, jokey interludes and warmer opinions of other people as well as his own work in and out of The Beatles.
     
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  21. Ken Wood

    Ken Wood Forum Resident

    I think it was a bad idea. Sure, in the later years more often than not a song tended to be mainly composed by one Beatle so the Lennon-McCartney songwriting credits were indeed a "myth" if you want so. But it spared them a lot of breaking their heads about how much contribution of one to another would make a composition a joint one. Not a few songwriting partnerships probably brpoke up because of that "who contributed how much and who is entitled to whatever". So basically the L-M partnership was the master stroke, not the other way around.
    Basically John in this conference ends the L-M partnership. If he says from now on there only will be Lennon songs etc. and wants the myth destroyed he says he does not want to compose with Paul anymore. I think that`s pretty crass.
     
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  22. DrBeatle

    DrBeatle The Rock and Roll Chemist

    Location:
    Midwest via Boston
    John in 1970 was trashing anything and everything to do with the Beatles. I'm not saying he didn't really feel that way, but I'd also take it with a huge grain of salt.
     
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  23. thrivingonariff

    thrivingonariff Forum Resident

    Location:
    US
    I'd agree that his dismissive comments are often more a reflection of a certain mood than of thoughtful judgment, but I'd still say that what he said about Side 2 of AR very much reflects his musical tastes, and even some of us who enjoy side 2 can acknowledge its weaknesses.
     
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  24. DrBeatle

    DrBeatle The Rock and Roll Chemist

    Location:
    Midwest via Boston
    Oh for sure. I'm sure he didn't really like it, but at the same time he spent an awful lot of time working on it with Paul and seemed to be enjoying himself during the sessions. As with everything related to John, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle, but we all know how much he likes extremes!
     
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  25. idreamofpikas

    idreamofpikas Forum Resident

    Location:
    england
    George Martin also says that John did not like the medley. I don't think this is John rewriting history in 1970, it's just a fact that it was not the kind of music he enjoyed.
     

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