The Beatles 14th Album

It was recorded in Feb 1970, released in April 1971. I think I would include "It Don't Come Easy" instead of "Early 1970" for three reasons, IDCE is the better song, it sounds more "Beatley" and finally the lyrics to E1970 just wouldn't work on a Beatles album, imo.

Were any of the tracks on POB or Imagine copyrighted prior to 1970?

 

This is pretty close to what I was thinking although I would probably have side 2 as:

"Gimme Some Truth"
"Teddy Boy"
Lennon track
"Junk"
"All Things Must Pass"
"The Backseat Of My Car"

I would tuck "It Don't Come Easy" somewhere in the middle of side 1.

I wouldn't include "Cold Turkey" just because of Lennon's statements re the band not willing to work on it for whatever reason. If I need to stretch the rules to fill in with a Lennon track, it would probably be to add "Remember" and/or "Isolation".

 

Ringo's contributions to the 1970 album should be "Coochy Coochy" and "Early 1970." I thin he would qualify for getting two songs on each album by 1970!

 

Not Guilty for sure!

 

The Beatles: XIV
John Lennon: "Mother," "Isolation," "Love," "Instant Karma," "Give Peace A Chance."
Paul McCartney: "Every Night," "Junk." "Tedy Boy," "Maybe I'm Amazed," "Another Day (last minute addition to the album)."
George Harrison: "My Sweet Lord," "What Is Life," "I'd Have You Anytime."
Richard Starkey: "It Don't Come Easy."

 

I've always wondered how a Beatles version of Instant Karma would sound.

I think it may have been the first song Lennon wrote after leaving the group.

 

It would have depended on who produced it. I'm sure a George Martin production would have been cleaner and punchier. I would love to hear not only a Beatles performance of the early solo tracks but an Abbey Roadsound and production applied to them as well. I don't think McCartney would have stood for a Phil Spector production, so I assume a Beatles version would have sounded significantly different -- and better!

 

The Lennon Legend DVD is in 5.1, isn't it? What are the separations like for "Instant Karma"? If you could take out some of the multiple instruments -- there's, what, like 3 or 4 pianos on the song? -- and leave the basic tracks and vocals, you'd get a little closer to what a Beatles version would have been.

 

I love all of the above picks.
I don't believe John's "Remember" got a mention, but it would have been my own 1st pick for him, as one of those rocking, angry Lennon, simple-yet-not really-simple ones.

 

What makes this whole 1970-1973 period so much fun for me is that there's so much inter-Beatle cooperation on so many of the potential tracks for a "what if" Beatles album. With two Beatles on all of these tracks, they are already "Beatles-once-removed" and therefore easier for me to imagine on a "real" Beatles album. In addition, a lot fo the John/George/Ringo tracks have Billy Preston and/or Klaus Voorman and/or Nicky Hopkins on them, giving them a certain unity.

I'm not listing anything we don't already know, but off the top of my head, there's:

"Instant Karma" (John and George)
"It Don't Come Easy" (Ringo and George)
"Early 1970" (Ringo and George)
All of Plastic Ono Band (John and Ringo)
Most of All Things Must Pass (George and Ringo)
"Oh My Love" (John and George)
"Gimme Some Truth" (John and George)
All of Material World (George and Ringo)
"I'm The Greatest" (Ringo with John and George)
"Photograph" (Ringo and George)
"Six O'Clock" (Ringo and Paul)
"Sunshine Life For Me" (Ringo and George)
"You And Me Babe" (Ringo and George)

There's more; you could go on. Paul gets left out in the cold, obviously, but then again, he was making the most Beatley music at the time, so he'd fit into a fantasy Beatles album. The trick would be to take a hard look at the tracks and weed out those that wouldn't have been "allowed" on Beatles albums ("My Sweet Lord" and "God," probably, and the anti-Paul songs from Imagine, for example), and then sequence them following certain "rules" that a real Beatles album probably would have had to follow (same number of tracks for John and Paul, a quota increase for George, and at least one or two for Ringo).

It's a fun game, and I've wanted to do it myself for ever and ever, but I never got around to it. I think you could make several excellent "albums" that really do FEEL like Beatles albums, all the way up to 1980. No less an authority than John Lennon suggested that Beatles fans could cut-and-paste their favorite solo tracks and have any number of new "Beatles" records.

 

I've concluded that this is an impossible task (ignoring the fact that it's all fantasy anyway). If there had been a Beatles album after Let It Be (assuming there WAS a Let It Be), it probably would have happened in late 1970 or early 1971. If one takes the best songs from each writer's current batch, they simply can't exist on one album. In hindsight, the 1970-71 years were among the most creative and prolific for the four individuals. They actually had more high quality songs than the previous time they had too many songs for one album, The White Album. I'm assuming that a double album wasn't an option at this point, if only because they already did it, and there was a general sense at the time that there were too many mediocre songs on the White Album.

I tried to sequence a realistic 14th album with songs that seemed possible for one reason or another. Between ruling some songs in and others out and trying to get a decent sequence and considering the differences in production, I decided it can't be done in any way that makes sense.

Here is what I tried:

Side One
Instant Karma
It Don't Come Easy
Every Night
Remember
All Things Must Pass
Oh My Love

Side Two
Maybe I'm Amazed
Behind That Locked Door
Give Me Some Truth
Junk
Beware Of Darkness
Back Seat Of My Car

I tried to only include songs that had some tie to the group (rehearsed by, or written prior to 1971). "Remember" is there because the Beatles jammed on something that sounded similar while recordin "Something". "Behind That Locked Door" sounded right, and it was drenched in Spector. For "All Things Must Pass", I used the demo version. I also tried to not include every single from this era because there is no way they could all be on one album. "Instant Karma", "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey", "Imagine", "My Sweet Lord", "What Is Life", "Another Day" can't live with each other. I limited the "hits" to the approximate number that might be on any of their other albums (in this case 3 or 4). I also tried to include songs that weren't particularly personal and would be stylistically compatible (thus, no "Let It Down" or "Hear Me Lord"). Where possible, if more than one Beatles was on the song I included it.

Nonetheless, I have problems with the mix. I couldn't figure out how to get another Paul song on side one. I still don't really think all of those songs could belong to one album. "Back Seat Of My Car" doesn't sound right in this context.


Whatever... at least I didn't create a new thread for this.

 

I did put together a Beatles 1: the solo years...it was pretty "Paul heavy" (ok w/me)...but I think I ran out of space with "Pipes of Peace" (# 1 in the UK).

 

I would choose "Come And Get It" as an opener for this album. It's weird that nobody has mentioned this song before.
Can't imagine the album without "Maybe I'm Amazed" also.

 

I tried that, but then decided that since he gave it to Badfinger who had a hit with it, and it would have been no less than a year or more before a new album could be released, "Come And Get It" would be old news, so he would be unlikely to revisit it.

 

I agree 100% with this observation. If they had stayed together and made albums in 1970-71, they would have been the peak of their career, the same way that Sticky Fingers and Exile are the peak of the Stones' career.

 

There's a lovely demo of "If I fell" by John that includes the same exact yodel that ended up at the end of the verses of Imagine. I'd put "Imagine" in there for sure.

 

Agreed, having been a hit for another artist in late '69, the Beatles would not have released this song.

 

If that's the case, then I would definitely include it in the fantasy album. I remember hearing Lennon doodling around on the piano during the LIB sessions, and he was playing a piano figure very similar to the "Imagine" riff. It was not yet fleshed out, but the seed was there, so I could stretch and include it as well.

So if we can agree that Lennon would have contributed "Jealous Guy", "Gimme Some Truth", "Imagine' and "Remember" then we could make a good run at "Beatles 14". We could cherry-pick from Paul's "The Backseat Of My Car", "Every Night", "Another Day", "Junk", "Teddy Boy" and George's "Hear Me Lord", "Let It Down", "Isn't It A Pity", "All Things Must Pass" to make a really solid album. Would any Ringo tracks qualify? Not necessary though, as LIB didn't have any Ringo cuts.

 

This is a good looking album to me so far . I'd buy it.

 

yeah... the trick now would be the differences in production. McCartney's tracks wouldn't be so troublesome since they most resemble Beatles production tracks anyway. Lennon's are borderline, and Harrison's tracks would be the most challenging. I'd have to get out the boots and give a listen, see if there are any more Beatle-y sounding versions available.

 

Yeah. To go from "Every Night " to "Let it Down" with the wall of sound and all the reverb would be quite the sonic shock.

P.S. I don't know if they are still selling it but there is a GREAT Beatles band around here
(American English) that recorded a CD of solo songs as if the Beatles were still together and had done the songs.

P.P.S. I just checked out their website (americanenglishbeatles.com) and they don't show the disc anymore. Check out their sound samples of the later era Beatles though. Great.

 

Veech,
How about John's impromtu "What About Brian Epstien".
It's sort of got a "Surfin USA" type of sound. It might make a nice mash-up???

 

"Remember" seems like such a solo song that I can't imagine it, even if John was working on it during LIB. I'd consider "Love" or "Look at Me" before that one.

Personally, I wouldn't be so stuck on the "conceived before fall 1969" limitation. Heck, if they'd made a record in 1970, why not include songs they wrote by 1970? etc etc....main thing is, make it something fun to listen to!

 

yeah, that would be the simplest approach assuming that most of them were written while the Beatles still (technically) existed. I just recently became aware of a great George Harrison solo track called "I Don't Want To Do It" which was demoed in 1970. It was most likely written and conceived during the Beatles days as well.

Wikipedia says "Look At Me" was from the Beatles days, is that verified? It does have the same finger-picked guitar style as other Lennon Beatles tracks.

As for "Remember" it's probably my favorite track on POB so any excuse to include it works for me.

We will never know what "Beatles 14" would consist of, but for historical credibility it should be tunes we know were shared with the others one way or another.

 

Bob Dylan wrote it, George was going to use it for ATMP.