The Beatles shine a welcome light on their process with Anthology 4
By NICK TAVARES
STATIC and FEEDBACK Editor
“Okay, go on…”
“Take 2!”
It’s certainly not as if the Beatles stepped into a lot of wrong moves over the years. This is a minimal-misstep operation, to be sure. But kicking off their debut album with Paul McCartney’s defiant “One two three four!” and launching the listening audience directly into their world with “I Saw Her Standing There” will always hold its place as one of the greatest debut tracks on a debut album ever. John Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr and McCartney, locked in together at Abbey Road studios, near the beginning the most ridiculous seven-year recording stretch any band could endeavor.
And so it is here, more than 60 years later, that Anthology 4, the Beatles’ most recent entry in their archival outtake series, that the Beatles begin again. This time, the opening count is a little muted, but the band is no less powerful in this live setting. Until it starts to fall apart, explaining why this take wasn’t the one to grace the final Please Please Me album.
The little flub with John and Paul in the second chorus is — I almost want to say adorable. But it’s at the very least, extremely fitting. Here’s this immense force in pop culture, in measure and stature, kind of flubbing a take on the track they’d rehearsed to the Nth degree. And outside of that blip, it’s an absolutely perfect, live take. That’s the Beatles, in and of it all.
Before going any further, we should discuss the structure of this set. More than half of the outtakes here are sourced from previous deluxe editions of their later albums, along with two from their copyright-extending, one-day-only release The Beatles Bootleg Recordings 1963, with this set filled out with outtakes of songs from albums that haven’t gotten the deluxe treatment yet.
This has generated criticism, of course, from diehard collectors who feel the band is short-changing fans by re-releasing outtakes in this package, or perhaps holding back more release-worthy material. I’m skeptical as to how much remains in the vaults after Anthology 4, though. The deluxe edition of the White Album alone had four CDs worth of demos and takes. Collecting the best of those here, along with the best of the outtakes from the other album box sets, allows those tracks to fall back in line with their prior Anthology brethren, and also lets a more casual fan who might not have shelled out for the super deluxe Abbey Road or Let it Be a chance to hear these songs in progress.
So what made the cut from those deluxe sets here? The more notable entries include a take on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” which finds the track between the acoustic demo that appeared on Anthology 3 and the final version that graced the White Album; immediately following that is the greatest Elvis impersonation you will ever hear in Paul McCartney on “(You’re So Square) Baby I Don’t Care.” Lennon working through two versions of that album’s Julia; “Don’t Let Me Down” from the famous rooftop concert as they were completing Let It Be; an early take of “Granny Smith,” a.k.a. “Love You To” from Revolver; and a combination of takes 12 and 13 on “This Boy” that only appeared on the original “Free as a Bird” maxi-CD (and, again, provides plenty of light-hearted moments in its few minutes).
And for you fellow vinyl enthusiasts out there, there’s also the pull of having some of these on this format for the first time. Most of the outtakes from the deluxe editions of Sgt. Pepper and the White Album didn’t see the light of day on an LP, so pulling the best bits from those sets does help round out the story from Anthology 1-3.
If you’re even the slightest-bit aware of their exponential trajectory, it shouldn’t be a surprise that we leap more than halfway through their career before side two has begun. There are comparatively fewer takes from the first four albums, partly a consequence of how thoroughly that period was documented on Anthology 1, and how quickly they worked in the studio before their touring days stopped. So, “Strawberry Fields Forever” appears before it gives way to a side-three opening version of “Baby You’re A Rich Man” that reveals what an incredible live performance exists beneath the final track. And the entire album flows with ease: the way “You Never Give Me Your Money” glides into “Here Comes the Sun” is nothing short of divine.
So, as a listening experience, the final result is a thrill, an alternate timeline through the Beatles career that also plays as almost a speed-run through the original Anthology series. And again, if this is all still offensive somehow, this is a reminder buying Beatles records has yet to be made mandatory by the government.
“‘Ave you heard the octopus one?”
And so goes Ringo, demonstrating the first couple of verses of “Octopus’s Garden,” before stopping short with a quick, “that’s all I’ve got,” and met with immediately laughter from the room. Of course, outside of that lighthearted ribbing, there’s the reality that, not long after, the rest of the band locked down and helped him get the song into shape for its inevitable place on Abbey Road.
There are plenty of funny moments, of course, like when they fall apart on “If I Fell,” a moment that made me laugh in the moment, all too aware of their harmonic perfection on the final track. Or hearing Paul tease John while he’s sorting out a microphone before “This Boy”:
“Don’t be nervous, John—”
“I’m not!”
Hearing the light-hearted moments in between tracks serves the greater purpose of adding depth and humility to the final work. As we saw in the Get Back documentary, it’s incredible how they can goof around one second and immediately snap back into action the next, locked together in perfect rhythm and harmonies on point. That’s demonstrated when Paul does his best Elvis on “Baby I Don’t Care” only to then launch into a devastating take on “Helter Skelter.” Aside from a few vocal flubs which would be ironed out later, it’s marked as “Fab” and the band keeps moving.
We also see the works in progress after the band had done most of their heavy lifting. These elemental breakdowns — including an early “Nowhere Man,” the instrumental backing track of “Hey Bulldog,” the foundation of “She’s Leaving Home” — provide a fascinating insight into how the band constructed songs, and where and how they chose to layer textures. The orchestra from “I Am the Walrus” hovers over Lennon’s ghostly guide vocal. This culminates with the orchestral swell from “Something,” playing as its own powerful classical piece when stripped of the band’s backing track.
Anthology 4 also corrects the original omission of “Now and Then” from its rightful place within the Anthology series, placing it next to the newly cleaned-up versions of “Free As a Bird” and “Real Love” which features Lennon in startling clarity, compared to how buried his voice was in the original 1995 versions. Of course, those two versions were more than acceptable for the past 30 years, but applying Peter Jackson’s MAL software to those original tapes, as had been done on “Now and Then,” brings Lennon back into the room with the then-three surviving Beatles, as close to a true reunion as we can ever expect. He’s so present on “Real Love,” it gives me chills. And, after all that, “Now and Then” bursts through the speakers, all the wrecking ball it was two years earlier, all the more powerful thanks to the context of the five previous sides.
Shortly before its official release, the band threw this early take of “In My Life” into the wild, revealing how the Rubber Soul track sounded before vocals were double tracked and its familiar harpsichord solo was added to the mix. The final version is, of course, superior, which remains the case for every outtake here vs. its fully realized counterpart.
But, of course, the point of this set is to glimpse into the process and the journey of recording these songs and, ultimately, these brilliant albums. In listening to “In My Life,” I could not get past the fact that Lennon wrote this before he would turn 25. That level of depth and thoughtfulness and eloquence at that age is stunning, and certainly moreso to me, while I sit here north of 40. What he and his bandmates were able to do in such short order and in so little time remains a marvel. And all I can do is sit here and listen and listen and let all the sounds provoke all these feelings and images.
So, there it is. I’ve spent the better part of the past three days sitting with these three LPs in all their majesty, running through the sides and mentally connecting them back to their final renditions on the records that have so thoroughly burned their place in my brain. It now takes its place alongside the first three volumes, offering a fuller picture of the alternate routes taken during one of the most stirring musical careers anyone could have ever imagined.
E-mail Nick Tavares at nick@staticandfeedback.com