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Magical Mystery Tour

By Scott Plagenhoef

September 9, 2009

After the death of manager Brian Epstein, the Beatles took a series of rather poor turns, the first of which was the Magical Mystery Tour film. Conceived as a low-key art project, the Beatles were oddly nonchalant about the challenges of putting together a movie. They'd assembled records, they'd worked on A Hard Day's Night and Help! -- how hard could it be? Without Epstein to advise, however, things like budgeting and time management became a challenge, and this understated experimental film turned into a sapping distraction.

Musically, however, the accompanying EP was an overwhelming success. The EP format apparently freed the band to experiment a bit, not having to fill sides of a 45 with pop songs or make the grand statements of an album. The title track is a rousing set piece, meant to introduce the travelogue concept of the film. The remaining four songs released exclusive to the EP are low-key marvels-- Paul McCartney's graceful "The Fool on the Hill" and music-hall throwback "Your Mother Should Know", George Harrison's droning "Blue Jay Way", and the percolating instrumental "Flying". Few of them are anyone's all-time favorite Beatles songs, only one had a prayer of being played on the radio, and yet this run seems to achieve a majesty in part because of that: It's a rare stretch of amazing Beatles music that can seem like a private obsession rather than a permanent part of our shared culture.

As a more laid-back release, the EP suggested the direction the band might have taken on the White Album had it remained a full band, happy to shed the outsized conceptualism and big statements and craft atmospheric, evocative pieces. In the U.S., the EP was paired with three recent double-sided singles, ballooning Magical Mystery Tour into an album-- the only instance in which a U.S. release, often mangled by Capitol, became Beatles canon. With only the EP's title track married specifically to the film's themes, the overall effect of a title track/album sleeve as shell game was in line with Sgt. Pepper ' s Lonely Hearts Club Band .

Of the three singles, the undisputed highlight is "Strawberry Fields Forever"/ "Penny Lane", John Lennon and Paul McCartney's tributes to their hometown, Liverpool. Slyly surreal, assisted by studio experimentation but not in debt to it, full of brass, harmonium, and strings, unmistakably English-- when critics call eccentric or baroque UK pop bands "Beatlesesque," this is the closest there is to a root for that adjective. There is no definitive Beatles sound, of course, but with a band that now functions as much as a common, multi-generational language as a group of musicians, it's no surprise that songs rooted in childhood-- the one experience most likely to seem shared and have common touchpoints-- are among their most universally beloved.

The rest of the singles collected here are no less familiar: Lennon's "All You Need Is Love" was initially completed up for an international TV special on BBC1-- its basic message was meant to translate to any language. Harrison's guitar solo, producer George Martin's strings, and the parade of intertextual musical references that start and close the piece elevate it above hippie hymn. Its flipside, "Baby You're a Rich Man", is less successful, a second-rate take on John Lennon's money-isn't-everything theme from the considerably stronger "And Your Bird Can Sing". It's the one lesser moment on an otherwise massively rewarding compilation.

Much better from Lennon is "I Am the Walrus", crafted for the Magical Mystery Tour film and EP but also released as a double-sided single with McCartney's "Hello Goodbye". One of Lennon's signature songs, "Walrus" channels the singer's longtime fascinations with Lewis Carroll, puns and turns of phrase, and non sequiturs. "Hello Goodbye" echoes the same contradictory logic found in the verses of "All You Need Is Love", a vague sense of disorientation that still does little to balance its relentlessly upbeat tone. McCartney excelled at selling simplistic lyrics that risk seeming cloying, though, and he again does here-- plus, the kaleidoscopic, carnival-ride melody and interplay between lead and backing vocals ensure it's a much better record than it is a song.

In almost every instance on those singles, the Beatles are either whimsical or borderline simplistic, releasing songs that don't seem sophisticated or heavy or monumental (even though most of them are). In that sense, they're all like "All You Need Is Love" or childhood memories or Lewis Carroll-- easy to love, fit for all ages, rich in multi-textual details, deceptively trippy (see Paul's "Penny Lane" in particular, with images of it raining despite blue skies, or the songs here that revel in contradictions-- "Hello Goodbye"'s title, the verses in "All You Need Is Love"). More than any other place in the band's catalogue, this is where the group seems to crack open a unique world, and for many young kids then and since this was their introduction to music as imagination, or adventure. The rest of the Magical Mystery Tour LP is the opposite of the middle four tracks on the EP-- songs so universal that, like "Yellow Submarine", they are practically implanted in your brain from birth. Seemingly innocent, completely soaked through with humor and fantasy, Magical Mystery Tour slots in my mind almost closer to the original Willy Wonka or The Wizard of Oz as it does other Beatles records or even other music-- timeless entertainment crafted with a childlike curiosity and appeal but filled with wit and wonder.

On the whole, Magical Mystery Tour is quietly one of the most rewarding listens in the Beatles' career. True, it doesn't represent some sort of forward momentum or clear new idea-- largely in part because it wasn't conceived as an album. The accompanying pieces on the EP are anomalies in the Beatles oeuvre but they aren't statements per se, or indications that the group is in any sort of transition. But if there was ever a moment in the Beatles' lifetime that listeners would have been happy to have the group just settle in and release songs as soon as possible, it was just before and after the then-interminable 10-month gap between the Revolver and *Sgt. Pepper'* s . Without that context, the results could seem slight-- a sort-of canonized version of Past Masters perhaps-- but whether it's an album, a collection of separate pieces, or whatnot matters little when the music itself is so incredible.

[ Note : Click here for an overview of the 2009 Beatles reissues, including discussion of the packaging and sound quality.]

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“MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR”

(SMAL 2835)

Released November 27th, 1967

The Beatles had raised the bar to new heights with the release of their June 1967 album masterpiece “ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band .” The music, artwork, album packaging, and even the look of the group themselves had changed so dramatically with that release that no one would be surprised by anything else the group might have up their sleeves for the future.

Meanwhile, The Beatles were hard at work on a brand new project designed to further "turn on" their world audience, although a major portion of this audience would never experience it until many years later. The project was a new film entitled “Magical Mystery Tour,” which was debuted on British Television on December 26th, 1967. Plans to release it for American audiences were cancelled because of the overall critical slamming it received in the UK. Since American television didn't acquire the rights for broadcast, as far as the US market was concerned, there was no such thing as a “Magical Mystery Tour” movie. Most American fans didn’t know it existed until about a decade later.

What they did know, however, was the music. They knew that very well! With the echoes of “ Sgt. Pepper ” still ringing through the EMI studios, The Beatles took great pains to record six amazing psychedelic songs as the soundtrack to the film. The production values were still very high as they took their time to perfect these new audio creations.

According to the November 25th, 1967 issue of Billboard magazine, Capitol Records made a “decision to issue the six soundtrack recordings from The Beatles’ forthcoming TV fantasy spectacular, ‘Magical Mystery Tour,’ on an album in the US” These six songs would comprise side one, and the five tracks the group released as singles that year would make up side two. This decision was deemed a wise one since, on the coat-tails of the incredible success of “ Sgt. Pepper ,” American audiences were sure to jump on with both feet.

And jump they did. With an elaborately packaged fold-out album cover, complete with a 24-page booklet featuring costumed Beatles in a variety of ‘far-out’ poses as well as storyboard cartoon comics that tell the story of their "mystery" journey, the album was viewed as an incredibly imaginative follow-up to “ Sgt. Pepper ” that seemed to take the “summer of love” to yet another level. While the liner notes explained that the music was “from a color television film,” this apparently went unnoticed for most American fans. The music, along with the vivid imagery of the elaborate packaging, was more than enough for what the senses could handle. What better follow-up to “ Pepper ” could there possibly be?  

Origin Of The Album

To explain the origin of the album is to actually explain the origin of the film, which was the primary objective of what was to be their next project. “Privately, I’d got a camera and I would go out in the park and make films,” explains Paul McCartney. “We’d show our little home movies to each other, and we’d put crazy soundtracks on them. I used to do a bit of editing at home – I had a little machine and I was getting very into it. So for the next Beatles project, I thought: ‘Let’s go and make a film – what a great thing to do.’ It was all done on whims.”

Album Packaging

All in all, the artwork was colorful and the packaging much more elaborate than that of the usual '60s pop album. As with their music, The Beatles raised the bar very high when it came to album covers which made the competition think of ways to top what they were offering their fans. As for The Beatles, after the “ Pepper ” and “Magical Mystery Tour” sleeves, how could they possibly top it? Maybe just a plain white jacket with nothing on it at all!

The idea of converting the film’s soundtrack into a full album was copied throughout the world, even Britain succumbing to the concept in December of 1976. Nine years later, the era of EP’s was dying out in the UK so Parlophone had to recognize that the album format for “Magical Mystery Tour” was a good one after all.

Success Of The Album

“Magical Mystery Tour” eventually went on to sell over six million copies in America alone, which showed Capitol to have made a very smart move in packaging the film’s music as an album instead of an EP. While their recently renegotiated contract with The Beatles stipulated that future released albums were to contain the same amount of material in the US as in Britain, American fans didn’t feel "ripped off" by the album only containing eleven songs. Most of the Capitol Beatles albums up to this point only featured eleven anyways, and most fans in the states were not aware that this was a makeshift album. Having fewer tracks than “ Sgt. Pepper ” surely didn’t affect album sales.

  Written and compiled by Dave Rybaczewski

CLICK ON THE SONG TITLES BELOW TO READ THE IN-DEPTH HISTORY OF THE SONGS ON "MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR"

• MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR
• THE FOOL ON THE HILL
• BLUE JAY WAY
• YOUR MOTHER SHOULD KNOW
• I AM THE WALRUS
• HELLO GOODBYE
• STRAWBERRY FIELDS FOREVER
• BABY YOU'RE A RICH MAN
• ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE

CLICK HERE to hear the author's new album " Clarity "

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• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 0.01 ounces
• Date First Available ‏ : ‎ July 28, 2010
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0040ZYNO0
• Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 1
• #5,391 in Classic Psychedelic Rock
• #6,514 in Soft Rock (CDs & Vinyl)

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‘Magical Mystery Tour’: Inside Beatles’ Psychedelic Album Odyssey

By Douglas Wolk

Douglas Wolk

The year leading up to the release of the Magical Mystery Tour album in November 1967 was turbulent but fantastically fertile for the Beatles – they were working on its songs more or less simultaneously with the ones that ended up on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and the Yellow Submarine soundtrack. With touring no longer a question, they had the luxury of fine-tuning their songs at length in the studio; the same band that had recorded its first album in a single day was now tinkering with individual recordings for weeks on end. 

If Sgt. Pepper was a blueprint for the Beatles’ new utopianism – a culture of vivid sensory experience, for which they could be the entertainers and court jesters – the Magical Mystery Tour project was an attempt to literally take that idea into the world. Paul McCartney ‘s concept was that the Beatles would drive around the British countryside with their friends, film the result and shape that into a movie over which they would have total creative control. But like a lot of Sixties attempts to turn utopian theory into practice, the movie fell on its nose: The Beatles simply weren’t filmmakers.

“You gotta do everything with a point or an aim, but we tried this one without anything – with no point and no aim,” McCartney admitted the day after it premiered. The Magical Mystery Tour soundtrack, on the other hand, did what the movie was supposed to do – despite being a grab bag of the group’s 1967 singles and songs recorded specifically for the film, it holds together surprisingly well as an addendum to Pepper , giving us an image of the psychedelic Beatles refining their enhanced perceptions into individual pop songs so potent that they changed the whole landscape of music.

The songs that would end up on Magical Mystery Tour began taking shape in late 1966, well before McCartney was struck by his cinematic vision. From November 24th, 1966, to mid-January 1967, the Beatles worked extensively on a pair of new songs, intended for what would become Sgt. Pepper : John Lennon ‘s “Strawberry Fields Forever” and McCartney’s “Penny Lane,” both reminiscences of the Liverpool of their childhood. By the end of January, though, EMI was demanding a new Beatles single – there hadn’t been one since “Yellow Submarine” the previous August, an impossibly long gap in those days. George Martin wasn’t happy about pulling “Penny Lane” and “”Strawberry Fields Forever” off the album-in-progress, but there wasn’t much else in the can. Released on February 17th, the single was a worldwide hit, and a statement of purpose for the rest of the Beatles’ recordings that year: reflective, druggy, a little nostalgic, and more inventively orchestrated and arranged than anything else around.

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Magical Mystery Tour CD (Remastered)

Digitally re-mastered digipak edition of this classic 1967 album from The Beatles featuring "I Am the Walrus", "All You Need Is Love", "Strawberry Fields Forever", "Penny Lane", "Magical Mystery Tour" and many more. The album has been re-mastered at Abbey Road Studios in London utilizing state of the art recording technology alongside vintage studio equipment, carefully maintaining the authenticity and integrity of the original analog recordings. Within the CD's new packaging, the booklet includes detailed historical notes along with informative recording notes. A newly produced mini-documentary on the making of the album is included as a QuickTime file on each album. The documentary contains archival footage, rare photographs and never-before-heard studio chat from The Beatles, offering a unique and very personal insight into the studio atmosphere. Tracklist

1. Magical Mystery Tour 2. Fool on the Hill 3. Flying 4. Blue Jay Way 5. Your Mother Should Know 6. I Am the Walrus 7. Hello Goodbye 8. Strawberry Fields Forever 9. Penny Lane 10. Baby You're a Rich Man 11. All You Need Is Love

• The Beatles’ songs – complete A-Z list

Magical Mystery Tour

Recorded just four days after the completion of the Sgt Pepper album, ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ was Paul McCartney ’s attempt to maintain momentum within The Beatles and to give them a new direction and sense of purpose.

John and I remembered mystery tours, and we always thought this was a fascinating idea: getting on a bus and not knowing where you were going. Rather romantic and slightly surreal! All these old dears with the blue rinses going off to mysterious places. Generally there’s a crate of ale in the boot of the coach and you sing lots of songs. It’s a charabanc trip. So we took that idea and used it as a basis for a song and the film.

Inspired by Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters and their LSD-fuelled bus, McCartney decided The Beatles should try something similar. He devised a rough concept for the new project, which would involve the group travelling around the England in their own coach, filming whatever took place.

I used to go to the fairgrounds as a kid, the waltzers and the dodgems, but what interested me was the freak shows: the boxing booths, the bearded lady and the sheep with five legs, which actually was a four-legged sheep with one leg sewn on its side. When I touched it, the fellow said, ‘Hey, leave that alone!’ these were the great things of your youth. So much of your writing comes from this period; your golden memories. If I’m stuck for an idea, I can always think of a great summer, think of a time when I went to the seaside. Okay, sand sun waves donkeys laughter. That’s a pretty good scenario for a song.

The resulting TV film was a mess, and critically panned, though the soundtrack double EP (expanded to a full album in the US) was a best-seller.

‘Magical Mystery Tour’ was co-written by John and I, very much in our fairground period. One of our great inspirations was always the barker. ‘Roll up! Roll up!’ The promise of something: the newspaper ad that says ‘guaranteed not to crack’, the ‘high class’ butcher, ‘satisfaction guaranteed’ from Sgt Pepper . ‘Come inside,’ ‘ Step inside, Love ‘; you’ll find that pervades a lot of my songs. If you look at all the Lennon-McCartney things, it’s a thing we do a lot.

The title track was McCartney’s initial idea, based on ideas written on an overnight flight from America on 11 April 1967 , though what he took to the studio was little more than the title and three chords. He attempted to rouse the other Beatles into contributing lyrics, but their enthusiasm was low and later completed the lyrics alone.

Because those were psychedelic times it had to become a magical mystery tour, a little bit more surreal than the real ones to give us a licence to do it. But it employs all the circus and fairground barkers, ‘Roll up! Roll up!’, which was also a reference to rolling up a joint. We were always sticking those little things in that we knew our friends would get; veiled references to drugs and to trips. ‘Magical Mystery Tour is waiting to take you away ,’ so that’s a kind of drug, ‘it’s dying to take you away’ so that’s a Tibetan Book of the Dead reference. We put all these words in and if you were just an ordinary person, it’s a nice bus that’s waiting to take you away, but if you’re tripping, it’s dying, it’s the real tour, the real magical mystery tour. We stuck all that stuff in for our ‘in group’ of friends really. ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ was the equivalent of a drug trip and we made the film based on that. ‘That’ll be good, a far-out mystery tour. Nobody quite knows where they’re going. We can take ’em anywhere we want, man!’ Which was the feeling of the period. ‘They can go in the sky. It can take off!’ In fact, in the early script, which was just a few fireside chats more than a script, the bus was going to actually take off and fly up to the magicians in the clouds, which was us all dressed in red magicians’ costumes, and we’d mess around in a little laboratory being silly for a while.

In the studio

The first ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ session took place on 25 April 1967 . The Beatles spent much time rehearsing and improvising the song, with Paul McCartney at the piano suggesting ideas to the others in the group.

Eventually they recorded three takes of the basic rhythm track: two guitars, piano and drums. Take three was the best. After this they raided the Abbey Road sound effects collection, creating a tape loop of the sound of coaches to be added at the mixing stage.

On 26 April McCartney recorded his bass part, and all The Beatles plus Neil Aspinall and Mal Evans played percussion instruments, including tambourine, maracas and cowbell. McCartney, John Lennon , and George Harrison also taped extra vocals.

The following day still more vocals were added. McCartney taped his lead, with backing from Lennon and Harrison.

An overdub of four trumpets was added on 3 May . The session began by McCartney humming notes to the brass players to let them know what he wanted, but he mostly failed to get his intentions across.

In the end the players were sent away while McCartney and George Martin worked out the notation on the piano in Abbey Road’s studio three. One of the trumpeters, Gary Howarth, reportedly became so impatient that he wrote a score himself. According to Philip Jones, a friend of the session musicians, that was the idea The Beatles ended up using.

The recording of ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ was completed on 7 November . During the editing of the film, Lennon had added a spoken introduction: “Roll up, roll up for the Magical Mystery Tour! Step right this way! Hurry, hurry, hurry!” It was decided that this should be added to the record release too.

McCartney recreated Lennon’s spiel, although he left out the “Hurry, hurry, hurry!” section. A tape loop of traffic noise, assembled back on 25 April, was also added. The song was then mixed in stereo and mono.

Latest Comments

Hi all! Does anyone know what mix of this song was used in the ‘Anthology’? I have the original vinyl (Canadian) and the remasters, and the mix in ‘Anthology’ definitely has different panning; in my two versions the electric guitar is on the left with the drums, percussion, etc. In the ‘Anthology’ clip (chapter 7, 23:20-24:06,) the drums appear in both speakers, the percussion and piano remain on the left and the electric guitar is hard-panned to the right with the trumpets. By giving greater exposure to the electric guitar, piano and percussion in this way (the guitar and piano notes being in roughly the same range,) the mix “moves” more than the other one, creating more of a rock song. Does anyone A) notice this difference and B) know where to find this mix in its entirety? Thanks…

i’ve just checked my Anthology and it’s not on there as i thought, but the version of this song in the film is different to the released version, maybe it’s this mix you refer to? as it has been widely bootlegged.

i think the Anthology was the movie version. I myself have 3 versions of the song.

‘Magical Mystery Tour is waiting to take you away,’ so that’s a kind of drug, ‘it’s dying to take you away’ so that’s a Tibetan Book of the Dead reference.’

I love Paul as a musician, but quotes like this are just stupid.

no its not. its really true. with a comment like that we can see , you know nothing about the beatles…

It’s not so stupid… ingesting LSD and other psychedelics produces a state of consciousness paralel to the one the brain experiences when it is dying. Hence the tibetan book of the dead reference.

No you are stupid not him. You clearly know nothing about the drug and the book yet u made a silly clueless comment.

Thank you dude Someone had to say it

Yeh I agree, I feel the fact John is constantly held up as the lyrical genius gets to him, and he feels the need to prove himself (including with his new book!). Such a talented musician, he doesn’t need to prove himself to anyone.

Yeah, I feel that way too. It’s the same as with “Got To Get You Into My Life”, which I don’t really believe was a love-letter to pot, despite Paul’s claims. Paul, to me, seems to feel the need to prove his edginess and counteract any suggestion that he’s a lightweight – like it’s not enough to be a brilliant musician and songwriter

Agreed, 100%. A real shame Paul made these retrospective comments…or felt he needed to. Lyrically, the songs don’t even fit the story he put out. ‘Got to get you into my life’ is the classic example…it’s a great uptempo love song and that’s it.

I disagree completely… just read the lyrics of the first verse! Even John posited that Got To Get You Into My Life was about LSD, so if anything Paul is retreating and making himself less edgy by saying it was pot. I think it’s telling when people conclude deceitful motives when none are apparent… sometimes you see what you want to see.

You are correct. It’s about acid, but Paul has downplayed that to say it’s an ode to weed, which is fine. Whoever said it’s just a love song is clueless.

I Think Paul knows what He wrote his songs about than us. Even Lennon said Got To Get You Into My Life was a drug song.

The rest of the song is good, but oh God just that coda in the end is sooo magical… incredible really. 😮

That’s always been my favorite part of the song, the haunting piano coda!

Who wrote/played that coda? It has a very emotional effect on me

Paul played the piano at the end there, I believe

Isn’t it, though? Amazing little thing. Beautiful

It really is, sounds like something that The Doors might do :] But what’s most impressive to me is drumming and this part, kind of 8 when Paul sings: “You got everything you need…”. It’s really good.

That piano coda sure sounds like Mike Garson. Listen to the piano solo in Aladdin Sane.

Paul gave John significant credit for helping to write this “Paul” song – one of the few examples where he does that.

Love Me Do, Paperback Writer, What You’re Doing, Here There And Everywhere, Good Day Sunshine, Penny Lane — even When I’m 64 could also be mentioned, but you’re right; there aren’t *that* many…songs that Paul seems to give John more credit than John himself seemed to feel he deserved.

John, it has to be said, did take *a lot* of credit. Was he right to? Possibly, but slightly more would be pushing it a bit, and I guess the same goes for Paul.

I am one of the rare people who actually likes this song better than SGT. Pepper. You gotta love the raw, heavy guitar on Pepper but there is just something about MMT, especially on the remasters. Also, its obvious that the beatles (other than Paul, and maybe Ringo) quit on there potential on some of their later songs. Too bad because MMT could have really been a masterpiece. I love Johns chorus at the end. His voice tone really cuts into me and I absolutely love the second part where he says “…dying to take you away…” Just think how much better this song could have been if he and George werent so distracted by this point.

Is that really John singing the last two “The Magical Mystery Tour is … “? I always thought so.

I agree, Nolan. Just think about how much better the entire MMT ALBUM would have been if John and George had been at least a LITTLE more enthusiastic. I imagine these recording sessions being dominated by Paul (partly out of necessity), while John and George yawned and constantly glanced at their watches. If they had been more “into it,” the whole album would have ended up more, uh… “magical.” Of course, Paul probably DID come off like an overbearing alpha dog, so the distaction of the rest of the group is not surprising.

Frankly the only “magic” in the soundtrack portion of MMT for me is John’s “I Am The Walrus” and George’s “Blue Jay Way”. I am grateful for the contributions of the “distracted” ones. As for the 1967 singles portion of MMT, John’s contributions of “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “All You Need Is Love” (plus his half of “Baby, You’re A Rich Man”) are outstanding to say the least.

I agree with you, Joseph Brush. I think “Strawberry Fields Forever” and especially “All You Need Is Love” are the great songs. But I don’t like Blue Jay Way.

well Fool on the Hill and Your Mother Should Know, not to mention the previously-released Hello Goodbye, are all very typical Paul songs with great sing-along qualities and each has a bit of weirdness to keep it in line with the whole concept of the film/album. Add the singles and it’s really a great, great album. I don’t know if it’s fair to single out the John and George compositions and simply write off Paul’s efforts on this one.

I have to say that “Walrus” and “Strawberry Field” are phenomenal compositions by John and George Martin with the rest of the band doing their thing to back them up flawlessly. I just give Paul the slight overall edge in his contributions. He represents the frontman for me…Looking at all the beatles post work including Paul’s, it doesn’t even matter. Without all 4 of them together with the chemistry they had in relationship to one another, inspiring and demanding eachothers A+ game no matter what was going on, we wouldn’t even be having ongoing conversations like this 40 years later. Granted there are exceptions and if I ever get bored enough with their compact and complete catalogue, I would get a kick in naming the top 50 or 100 worst beatles songs. Paul would dominate that list as well but he also takes the cake in many of my all time favorite beatles songs. That’s why I love Paul’s work the most. He could afford produce some real clunkers because he could always make up for it ten times over with masterpiece after masterpiece. Hearing the remastered mono recording of MMT is really like experiencing this song for the first time for me. Comparing it to the 87’s is simply put an absolute disaster vs and absolute work of art. I always liked this song as a young boy. But I never loved it like the seemingly hundreds of other fantastic Beatles songs I got to experience over and over growing up.

“I am the Walrus” is certainly a fantastic song, but the most magical moment on MMT is the title song’s coda melting into “Fool on the Hill.”

I always liked the Walrus , Strawberry Fields and A Day in the Life. Lennon’s backing vocals make certain songs sound quite awesome. See how they run? It couldn’t get no worse? She’s leaving home ,bye,bye. I too felt the impact The Beatles made in the 60’s. They definitely had a different sound than their contemporaries. Obviously they were better together than apart. MMT was an interesting album. Capital records made a good decision by putting 1967’s singles on one side. Baby You’re a Rich Man is underrated. I agree with you regarding the mono mixes.

Dying is the ultimate Magical Mystery experience.

Love this song. It is just so fast paced and catchy.Basically a McCartney song. I also love the EP , film and album of the same name.

And the bassline, all the way through. One of Macca’s absolute best performances

Great title track for film, E.P. and album. Very 1967, would have been a hit if released as a single.

favorite song of all time, especially love John’s slow verse

Needless to say, I did ‘roll-up’ for the Magical Mystery Tour.

Which Beatle is the one giving the “Roll up” introduction at the beginning of the song? Does anyone out there know?

It was John in the film, but Paul on the record. Paul’s version was recorded on 7 November 1967 .

On the Cheap Trick cover of this song, on the bridge section I can clearly hear two voices overlapping, one is saying “Mystery Tour”, the other “Taking aTrip”. It’s harder to disentangle on the Beatles’ version, but is that what is happening? It actually sounds like Mystery Trip, but I think Cheap Trick have done us all a favour ?

Wow! I clearly hear “taking a trip” at slightly less volume than “mystery tour”. For years I’ve wondered what that garbled sounding second vocal was singing and now I know. Thanks!

It always sounded like ” a mystery trip” to me. (shrug).

There is no lead guitar in this song. Just two rhythm guitar parts.

Hello everyone! Can anyone explain why Magical Mystery Tour (song) is not treated as a Beatles hit, since the double EP with this recording as the title track entered the singles chart and shot to number 2. After all, this is an achievement equal to the success of the singles Please Please Me, SFF/PL or Let It Be. Moreover, like the single Please Please Me, in top music weekly newspaper Melody Maker, it reached number 1 for one week (January 13, 1968).

Even though the Magical Mystery Tour EP got to number 2 in the UK singles chart it is considered an EP and not a 45 stand alone single and therefore it does not qualify as a hit single.

Thanks for your reply, I know all of what you wrote, but my question still doesn’t have a clear, convincing answer. It is obvious that MMT was a double EP from a formal or technical point of view, but in terms of musical competition, i.e. classification on the charts, it was undoubtedly treated as a single. Thus, the title track should be considered another huge hit by The Beatles.

I understand what you say and ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ is a very well known song but as I said previously it was not a single. It was a Double EP. EP’s would often climb into the singles chart as all the early Beatles EPs did. ‘Long Tall Sally’ EP from 1964 is another example. It got to No.1 in the singles charts but is not considered a huge hit in the UK. The ‘All My Loving’ EP from 1964 also reached No.1 but ‘All My Loving’ is not considered a single. The fact that they wrote ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ makes no difference. All EPs were considered as singles in as much as they got into the singles chart in the UK and they all had single chart placings. ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ gets plenty of airplay on radio. I don’t think it gets treated any differently apart from the fact that it was not a single so is therefore not included on Beatles single compilations. See Here for more info. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_play?wprov=sfti1

Sheldon, thank you kindly. The matter is clear to me now.

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Turn Me On, Dead Man

“Paul Is Dead” Clues on Magical Mystery Tour

The Beatles’ movie Magical Mystery Tour, originally broadcast on the BBC in 1967, opens with the line, “When a man buys a ticket for a Magical Mystery Tour he knows what to expect. We guarantee him the trip of a lifetime.” Perhaps the Beatles presumed that those who were “turned on” would understand what was going on, but the film was a poorly conceived and hard to follow. More than anything, this film showed that the Beatles were struggling to find their direction in their first major project after the death of their manager, Brian Epstein. Still, the record that accompanied the film, also called Magical Mystery Tour (1967), had plenty of good music to keep fans happy. With all of the nonsense and surreal imagery it was understandable that fans would be looking for clues about Paul McCartney’s rumored death and replacement by a lookalike on this album, particularly when the title song announced, “the magical mystery tour is dying to take you away”. Magical Mystery Tour was packaged as double 7″ EP in the UK with a 24-page booklet that mixes cartoon images of the Beatles with stills from the film. In the United States, however, Capitol packaged the songs from the film with non-LP singles for a full LP. The 24-page booklet was resized accordingly, making the “Paul is dead” clues larger and more numerous on the American release. In Strawberry Fields Forever #51 , Joel Glazier is quick to point out that the cartoon image of Paul on the inside cover establishes a theme that runs throughout the booklet: that Paul is often portrayed differently from the rest of the Beatles and in ways that hint at something dark. The image inside the cover shows the Beatles dressed as wizards, but only Paul’s wizard hat features black flowers.

Joel Glazier draws attention to a strange image appears in the booklet of Magical Mystery Tour . On the left is the image as it appears in the booklet, but on the right is the image rotated 90 degrees clockwise and blurred slightly.

With a little imagination you can see a skull in this picture. It occupies the left side of the picture, with the beret of the person seated at the table forming the eye and the hair of the woman seated next to him the mouth. Once you’ve accepted that this is a skull, it’s easy to see the damage to the top of the head. This grisly image suggests the damage to Paul’s head as a result of his car crash. The puzzling thing about this picture is that, unlike the other images in the booklet, this one does not appear in the movie.

One of the best known “Paul is dead” audio clues comes at the end of “Strawberry Fields Forever”. As the song is fading out for the second time, John apparently says “I buried Paul.”

This “clue” is more apparent when the record is played at 45 rpm (using the terms of outdated technology, of course), as John’s voice sounds as if it has been slowed down. Actually, John was saying “cranberry sauce,” which is much more apparent on the “take 7 and edit piece” version of the song that appeared on Anthology II .

Paul explained “That’s John’s humor. John would say something totally out of sync, like ‘cranberry sauce.’ If you don’t realize that John’s apt to say something like ‘cranberry sauce’ when he feels like it, then you start to hear a funny little word there, and you think aha!”

Another interesting audio clue on Magical Mystery Tour is in the opening verse of “Blue Jay Way”. Andru Reeve reports that the “ghostly background vocalizations” are as follows:

There’s a fog upon LA (“…Paul…”) And my friends have lost their way (“…died…”) We’ll be over soon they said (“…Paul is buried…”)

Perhaps the richest source of “Paul is dead” clues on Magical Mystery Tour is “ I Am the Walrus ” but that’s for a later post .

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16 thoughts on “ “paul is dead” clues on magical mystery tour ”.

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I still offer the above clues. Mostly for those that remember the hoax/rumor by page turning through the original LP. BTW the audio towards the very end of Strawberry Fields, “I buried Paul” was also corrected or re interpreted as “I’m very bored” but the source eludes me. .

I’m sure John is saying “I’m very poor”.

I’m sure John is saying “BOLLOCKS!!!”.

I’ve listened to the original version in high quality years ago, and in this one he definitely said “I buried Paul”. Maybe we’ll have to questioned the authenticity of the antologies. in fact, this song is the first recorded after Paul’s death and quite clearly refers to it. “Strawberry fields” is supposed to be the name of his semetary, and “forever” relates to an everlasting rest. When John sings “nothing is real”, there is a close-up on Faul’s head. There is also a close-up on his mustache (“it was a fake mustache”). At the beginning, the Beatles walk backwards, maybe telling us how to listen the song. Then, we see Paul’s eye inside Ringo’s beret. George wears a black hood, reminiscent of the walrus. Also the last word of each verse’s beginning is very telling (“down” = moarning, “eyes closed” = dead, ‘tree’ = three (beatles).

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the symbolism is not an accident.Beatles were big buds with jimmy saville(notorious pedophile and occult figure).they are seennusing the same hand signals as alister crowley as well.creepy .

mihssimmihssimmihssimnamdaedasiluaP

You’ve forgotten the “!” at the beginning, as the last “miss him!” is clearly accentuated, and in fact very crrepy to hear.

Fool on the Hill, is the first of my songs the Beatles plagiarized. I wrote Fool on the Hill in 1963. Other songs I wrote that the Beatles plagiarized are Yesterday, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Lovely Rita Metermaid, Michelle, Ob la di Ob la da, Birthday, Imagine, Rocky Racoon, Bungalo Bill and more.

Neat. Hit the crack rock a little harder next time–I think you might have missed a song or two.

lmao yea right

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