The Smiley Smile Message Board

OK, so Carnival of Light and 30 Minute Helter Skelter are still MIA.

Has anybody yet found:
- We Can Work It Out, live from '65
- Sour Milk Sea, with George's guide vocal still on it
- While My Guitar Gently Weeps - the full-band alternate versions
- Etcetera
- The live rehearsals from the Roundhouse in late '68


These are the rarest Beatle tracks I can think of that haven't turned up in public yet, as far as I know.

Anybody know anything?

And are there any superamazing things I've left out?

-Onkstser

She Said demo - Funny and insightful
Bad To Me - sang by Paul and John(way better personally)
I'm In Love - John on piano.
One and One Is Two - Paul on guitar. One of my favorite demos ever.
Catwalk - It's from the Cavern. That is all I really know about it.
Don't Bother Me demo - I can hear the mood on it. I always liked it.
September In The Rain - From the audition that Decca rejected them. I can see why they didn't get it. It wasn't really them.

Those have been around a long time.

I have an .mp3 boot of sour milk with a George vocal...thats super rare????

No, no, what you've got has to be the Esher demo, that's not rare. But George, Paul, Ringo, Eric Clapton and Ian Stewart cut a studio version with whats-his-name. Jackie Lomax. It's thought that George laid down a guide vocal for it, which would basically give you a Beatle track, substituting Clapton for Lennon. Pretty cool, but it's never surfaced.

Details? Are these fact or speculation?

What about that supposedly legendary early '67 track "Carnival Of Light"?

That's the big one for me. More avant garde sound collage than music, but I'd love to hear it. Didn't George veto that from consideration on the "Anthology"? Think so. There was also talk that Macca was going to release it as some kind of accompanying soundtrack to a presentation of Linda's photos, but that was years ago and nothing's happened.

I don't know about live rehearsals at the Roundhouse. That's what they were doing at Twickenham in early '69, trying to work up material for a show. You wouldn't hold rehearsals before you had the material together.

Note to self - read the thread.

 ;D

That "Carnival Of Sound"-thing, has anyone ever heard it? Is it just a bunch of sounds, like Genesis´s "The Waiting Room", or more musically, like "Mrs O´Learys Cow"?

READ THE THREAD!

The point is, no one outside of EMI or Mark Lewisohn has heard it.  It hasn't booted.  It was slated for Anthology 2 but as I hear it axed by George.

1. Sorry
2. Thanks

 ;D  of course.

We haven't heard it, but in "Recording Sessions" George Martin gives quite a bit of detail on what comprised each of the four tracks. If I were home, I'd look it up and post it. Doesn't sound very musical. Lots of bizarre shouting, odd organ chords, random drum beating. Lewisohn says it bares more of a resemblance to "Revolution 9" than anything else. Don't expect a "Pepper outtake." If I remember, though, it's something like 14 minutes long. I think there's little chance, if they do release it, that we'll get the whole thing. But of course, that's what bootlegs are for.

Hey, it was new to me.  >:(

Perhaps the time has come for the Live at The Star Club tapes to be revisited: modern technology would be able to extract more information from them. Don't know if Apple Corps now owns them since winning a lawsuit where George Harrison was a star witness.

The "We Can Work It Out" isn't exactly speculation--it was performed on the UK leg of the end of their '65 tour--strangely, no recordings have ever turned up from that leg.  But I bet they exist.  And that would be the only existing live versions of that song ever.

The Roundhouse stuff:  I recall reading it had been recovered in the 90s and that Paul was also going to use that stuff for another photofilm soundtrack.  The plan in '68 was to possibly do a 10-date tour of White Album material.  Supposedly a few secret rehearsals were recorded at the Roundhouse, and tapes of these are what Paul got ahold of.  But it does sound a little too like the Get Back situation.  Maybe it was an early plan that evolved into Get Back.

Or...

Their stupid publicist was spreading bunko rumors again (not Derek, but his successor that they fired...)

Well, this just ain't true. About three years back, Paul auditioned the track for an English rock journalist, Mark Ellen. Ellen's meticulous description was posted on rockingvicar.com, and I copied and pasted it onto (I believe) the old Smile Shop board (I could be wrong about that). As I remember it, Ellen describes the track as being very much a true Beatles track, with the full group playing together live in the studio, with a bunch of effects added. He was quite strong about it being a listenable, exciting, semi-structured piece of music, and not wildly chaotic experimental noise.

This is sort of a reiteration of what's already been said:

Exclusive! Lost Beatle Track Unearthed!

By Mark Ellen

Deep-end Beatles obsessives like myself have lost a fair amount of sleep over the years fantasing about the possible existence of Carnival Of Light, the highly legendary "lost" Fabs outtake. Although no-one has ever heard it - it remains intruigingly unbootlegged - the song merits a fairly substantial footnote in Ian Macdonald's stupendous "Revolution In The Head" and was even logged in the Abbey Road session notes as having been taped in Studio 2 on January 5 1967, smack in the middle of several attempts to nail down Penny Lane. But no Beatle, to my knowledge, has ever gone on record to offer any official insight. Until now!

I was interviewing McCartney this week in his London office - where the album collection, incidentally, includes "The Vocal Selections Of Fats Domino" and the musical "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" - and was at that point of the encounter where you're almost being physically dragged out of the door as there's another interviewer waiting in the wings, and I decided to pop the all-important question. And managed to solicit the following for Rocking Vicar who, I rather suspect, are the sole community of individuals on God's earth who might be genuinely interested. Here follows what may well be the first parish world exclusive!

RockingVicar: Just one last question - "Carnival Of Light," does it actually exist?

Paul McCartney: It does exist, yeah. We recorded it in about fifteen minutes. It's very avant garde - as George would say 'avant garde a clue' - and George did not like it 'cos he doesn't like avant garde music .

RV: Who wrote it?

PM: It's officially me. I instigated it. No there's no lyrics, it's avant garde music. You would class it as ... well you wouldn't class it actually, but it would come in the Stockhausen/John Cage bracket ... John Cage would be the nearest . It's very free-form. Yeah man, it's the coolest piece of music since sliced bread!

RV: This is early '67?

PM: I was asked about '67 to do it by Barry Miles - you know, who did my book Many Years From Now - and he asked me to do it for this event at The Roundhouse called Carnival Of Light, so that's how it got its title. And he asked me to write a fifteen to twenty minute piece, and I was into that kind of thing, not on record with The Beatles, but just for that. I went into the studio and said to the guys, Look we've got half an hour before the session officially starts, would you mind terribly if I did this thing?

RV: So this is with the other Beatles?

PM: With the other Beatles. This is a Beatle record. And they all just fell in with the spirit of it and I just said, Would you go on that and would you stay on that and would you be on that and we'll just take twenty minutes to do it in real time? And they all just got into it.

RV: Why don't you release it?

PM: I actually have a project I would like ... I'm involved ... One of the many things I did, I did a thing called The Grateful Dead Photo Film, using Linda's snapshots and making them move, dissolving between them and making them into a film, a short art film, which I showed at festivals and things. And I'm actually in the process - although everything else and its uncle is holding it up - but I've got a Beatles photo film on the go and I would love to use it as part of the soundtrack of that.

RV: There was a rumour it was going to come out on Anthology. What happened with that?

PM: It was up for consideration on The Anthology and George vetoed it. He didn't like it. Maybe its time hadn't come.

There were rumours years ago about tracks with names such as "Pink Litmus Paper Spirit" and "Colliding Circles" which appear to have been lost (or may just be rumours and nothing else); there was an excellent piece of lysergic whimsy that came out called "The Candle Burns" AKA "Peace Of Mind" that sounds very Lennonesque and very '67......................

What about Watching Rainbows?

"Watching Rainbows" should be on one of the "Get Back" CD boots (have it on an LP of the same name)........
Could be ripe for a decent cover version..............................................

Candle Burns was proven to not be The Beatles a while back.
Watching Rainbows is pretty godawful, worthless except for the fact that it turned into Come Together.

"Pink Litmus Paper Shirt," "Colliding Circles," "Deckchair" and "Left Is Right (And Right Is Wrong)" are long rumored Beatle titles that, it turns out, never existed. A teenage music journalsit named Martin Lewis (later a legitimate Beatle authority) was doing an article on Beatle rarities for UK music mag "Disc And Music Echo" in 1971 and he simply made these up to spruce up his article. In 1999 he finally came clean, saying he never thought the article would spark such a long lasting legend around these titles.

"Watching Rainbows" would seem to have never been properly finished by the Fabs..

I love "Piece Of Mind (The Candle Burns)." I hadn't heard that it was proven to be false, what have you heard? I know most Beatle scholars don't believe it's an authentic Beatle recording, but some do. The guy who originated the tape swears it's legit, I forget the story on how he got it, maybe I can find the article, but he says it's from '67 and he got it from somebody connected with the band in '69. He also says it was labelled "Piece" rather than "Peace." I'd love it to be true, it's such a cool littlel trippy song. The other side of the coin is that there's a story going around saying that it's indeed a fake, and that the guys who did it were actually intending to pass it off as Syd Barrett outtake.

About Mark Ellen and Carnival of Light - I'm confused. I think I remember a piece he wrote after this, after he'd heard it. I do remember the interview quoted above, but I'm pretty certain Mark Ellen got to hear the track, and described it later.

I've written to rockingvicar to check. I probably need to check my meds.

Just got this back from the Man Himself:

"Tim, you're not hallucinating completely. McCartney told me all about its existence in 2001 and how it was recorded bu I still haven't heard it. It clearly does exist though and was only off Anthology because George Harrison didn't like it. "

So yeah ... those meds ... (and George effing Harrison, god rest his soul ...)

Another interesting thing about that '65 tour and "We Can Work It Out." It was their last UK go-round, only 11 shows in December, just as "Rubber Soul" was released. In addition to WCWIO, McCartney did "Yesterday" accompanying himself on organ, rather than acoustic guitar. That would be pretty interesting to hear as well.

Is it wrong that when I read Paul saying George didn't like it, I thought of George Martin and not Harrison? I guess that's where my head is at in regards to The Beatles.

A couple of interesting links about  Beatles out-fakes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outfakes
http://www.beatlelinks.net/forums/archive/index.php/t-3711.html
http://www.beatlelinks.net/forums/archive/index.php/t-3659.html
and most interesting of all, a story of The Candle Burns/Piece/peace of Mind:
http://www.komputamuso.blogspot.com/

Aaaargh. The link to download the song is dead.

(http://www.bootlegzone.com/beatleg/discs/scans/cbm3670.jpg)
20x4 wasn't the first appearance, it came out in '75 on CBM.

Here's a link to the song, it's the clearest version I've got:

http://s57.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3RUSJDS7EZ2BJ0YXLK81W1Q701

Thanks!

First impressions: a nagging, haunting little melody, with lovely psychedelic feel and touches. Really very nice. But I don't think it sounds like the Beatles singing - there's a little too much fey English upper-class e-nun-ci-ation, and no hint of real scouse in there. It's fascinating, and definitely Beatley, but my money's on it being not Beatles!

I don't quite think Piece of Mind is the Fabs, but really, it comes very close.  To me, it sounds like it could be one of the Esher demos, though I seriously doubt they would put enough work into it to speed up the tape like that.  It still makes me wonder who it is.  (Maybe the All-Night Radio/Beachwood Sparks gang as teenagers?)

Or...maybe the Beatles were listening to "She's Goin' Bald" and decided to take a stab at pitch-control...

Have You Heard The Word sounds more like the Beatles, and we know that turned out to be the Bee Gees.

Oh hey, a grail or two I forgot to add in, because of dubious circumstances:

- the slow Roy Orbison styled version of "Please Please Me", which reportedly has been erased.
- the 78-shellac recording of 'Fever' with Walter Eymond on lead vocal

The reason I mention these things anyway is because the craziest, most unlikely stuff HAS turned up--namely, things like the tape of the Woolton Church Fete--which I would NEVER have even guessed would have existed!

Some day, more stuff will likely turn up.  Who knows what!

What about more stuff recorded during the Indian sojourn (along the lines of "Happy birthday Mike Love" and "Spiritual Regeneration")?

There's about 15 minutes of acoustic singalong jams that were filmed and recorded for a newscast. That stuff's been around for a while.