The Beatles, album "Magical Mystery Tour"

Music movies - Studio Apple Corps - 1967
CD: 26.12.1967

Magical Mystery Tour

1. 02:50 Magical Mystery Tour (John Lennon and Paul McCartney) - 07.11.1967

2. 02:59 The Fool On the Hill (Paul McCartney – John Lennon and Paul McCartney) - 25.10.1967

   JOHN 1980: 'Now that's Paul.
   Another good lyric.
   Shows he's capable of writing complete songs.'

   PAUL circa-1994: ''Fool On The Hill' was mine and I think I was writing about someone like the Maharishi.
   His detractors called him a fool.
   Because of his giggle he wasn't taken too seriously… I was sitting at the piano at my father's house in Liverpool hitting a D6 chord, and I made up 'Fool On The Hill.''

3. 02:15 She Loves You (John Lennon and Paul McCartney) - 05.10.1963

   JOHN 1963: 'We wrote that two days before we recorded it, actually.'

   PAUL 1963: 'John and I wrote it together.
   We were in a van up in Newcastle somewhere, and we'd just gone over to our hotel.
   I originally got an idea of doing one of those answering songs, where a couple of us sing about 'she loves you' …and the other one sort of says the 'yes, yes' bit.
   You know, 'yeah yeah' answering whoever is saying it.
   But we decided that was a crummy idea anyway.
   But we had the idea to write a song called 'She Loves You' then.
   And we just sat up in the hotel bedroom for a few hours and wrote it, you know.'

   JOHN 1963: ''Yeah.' That's sort of the main catch phrase from 'She Loves You.' We'd written the song, and then suddenly realized we needed more… so we added 'yeah, yeah, yeah' and it caught on.'

   JOHN 1980: 'It was written together (with Paul) and I don't remember how.
   I remember it was Paul's idea – instead of singing 'I love you' again, we'd have a third party.
   The 'Woooo' was taken from the Isley Brothers 'Twist And Shout,' which we stuck into everything.'

   PAUL 1982: 'Occasionally, we'd overrule George Martin, like on 'She Loves You,' we end on a sixth chord, a very jazzy sort of thing.
   And he said, 'Oh, you can't do that! A sixth chord? It's too jazzy.'
   We just said, 'No, it's a great hook, we've got to do it.''

   PAUL 1988: 'We rehearsed the end bit of 'She Loves You' and took it to George.
   And he just laughed and said, 'Well, you can't do the end of course… that sixth… it's too like the Andrew Sisters.' We just said, 'Alright, we'll try it without,' and we tried it and it wasn't as good.
   Then he conceded, 'You're right, I guess.' But we were both very flexible.
   We would listen to George's ideas too, because he was a producer and a musician, and he obviously knew what he was talking about.
   There was good to-and-fro.
   We loved that bit, and we rehearsed it alot.
   John and I wrote that in a hotel room, on twin beds during an afternoon off – I mean, God bless their little cotton socks, those boys WORKED! Here I am talking about an afternoon off, and we're sitting there writing! We just loved it so much.
   It wasn't work.'

4. 02:15 Flying (John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Richard Starkey and George Harrison) - 28.09.1967

   PAUL circa-1994: ''Flying' was an instrumental that we needed for (the film) 'Magical Mystery Tour' so in the studio one night I suggested to the guys that we made something up.
   I said, 'We can keep it very, very simple, we can make it a 12-bar blues.
   We need a little bit of a theme and a little bit of a backing.' I wrote the melody, otherwise it's just a 12-bar backing thing.
   It's played on the mellotron, on a trombone setting.
   It's credited to all four (Beatles), which is how you would credit a non-song.'

5. 02:07 All My Loving (Paul McCartney – John Lennon and Paul McCartney) - 30.07.1963

   JOHN 1972: 'This was one of his first biggies.'

   JOHN 1980: ''All My Loving' is Paul, I regret to say.
   Because it's a damn fine piece of work.
   But I play a pretty mean guitar in back.'

   PAUL 1984: 'Yeah, I wrote that one.
   It was the first song I ever wrote where I had the words before the music.
   I wrote the words on a bus on tour, then we got the tune when I arrived there.
   The first time I've ever worked upside down.'

   PAUL 1988: 'I think that was the first song where I wrote the words without the tune.
   I wrote the words on the tour bus during our tour with Roy Orbison.
   We did alot of writing then.'

   PAUL circa-1994: 'It was a good show song.
   It worked well live.'

6. 04:35 I Am the Walrus (John Lennon – John Lennon and Paul McCartney) - 29.09.1967

   PAUL 1967: 'Everyone keeps preaching that the best way is to be 'open' when writing for teenagers.
   Then when we do we get criticized.
   Surely the word 'knickers' can't offend anyone.
   Shakespeare wrote words alot more naughtier than knickers!'

   JOHN 1967: 'We chose the word (knickers) because it is a lovely expressive word.
   It rolls off the tongue.
   It could 'mean' anything.'

   GEORGE 1967: 'People don't understand.
   In John's song, 'I Am The Walrus' he says: 'I am he as you are he as you are me.' People look for all sorts of hidden meanings.
   It's serious, but it's also not serious.
   It's true, but it's also a joke.'

   JOHN 1968: 'We write lyrics, and I write lyrics that you don't realize what they mean till after.
   Especially some of the better songs or some of the more flowing ones, like 'Walrus.' The whole first verse was written without any knowledge.
   With 'I Am the Walrus,' I had 'I am he as you are he as we are all together.' I had just these two lines on the typewriter, and then about two weeks later I ran through and wrote another two lines and then, when I saw something, after about four lines, I just knocked the rest of it off.
   Then I had the whole verse or verse and a half and then sang it.
   I had this idea of doing a song that was a police siren, but it didn't work in the end (sings like a siren) 'I-am-he-as-you-are-he-as…' You couldn't really sing the police siren.'

   JOHN 1980: 'The first line was written on one acid trip one weekend.
   The second line was written on the next acid trip the next weekend, and it was filled in after I met Yoko.
   Part of it was putting down Hare Krishna.
   All these people were going on about Hare Krishna, Allen Ginsberg in particular.
   The reference to 'Element'ry penguin' is the elementary, naive attitude of going around chanting, 'Hare Krishna,' or putting all your faith in any one idol.
   I was writing obscurely, a la Dylan, in those days.
   It's from 'The Walrus and the Carpenter.' 'Alice in Wonderland.' To me, it was a beautiful poem.
   It never dawned on me that Lewis Carroll was commenting on the capitalist and social system.
   I never went into that bit about what he really meant, like people are doing with the Beatles' work.
   Later, I went back and looked at it and realized that the walrus was the bad guy in the story and the carpenter was the good guy.
   I thought, Oh, shit, I picked the wrong guy.
   I should have said, 'I am the carpenter.' But that wouldn't have been the same, would it? (singing) 'I am the carpenter…''

7. Jessie’s Dream

8. 03:55 Blue Jay Way (George Harrison) - 06.10.1967

   GEORGE 1968: 'Derek Taylor got held up.
   He rang to say he'd be late.
   I told him on the phone that the house was in Blue Jay Way.
   And he said he could find it okay… he could always ask a cop.
   So I waited and waited.
   I felt really nackered with the flight, but I didn't want to go to sleep until he came.
   There was a fog and it got later and later.
   To keep myself awake, just as a joke to pass the time while I waited, I wrote a song about waiting for him in Blue Jay Way.
   There was a little Hammond organ in the corner of this house which I hadn't noticed until then… so I messed around on it and the song came.'

9. 02:56:00 Death Cab for Cutie (Vivian Stanshall and Neil Innes) - 01.10.1967

10. 02:28 Your Mother Should Know (Paul McCartney – John Lennon and Paul McCartney) - 29.09.1967

    PAUL circa-1994: 'I dreamed up 'Your Mother Should Know' as a production number… I've always hated generation gaps.
    I always feel sorry for a parent or a child that doesn't understand each other.
    A mother not being understood by her child is particularly sad because the mother went through pain to have that child, and so there is this incredible bond of motherly love, like an animal bond between them.
    But because we mess things up so readily they have one argument and hate each other for the rest of their lives.
    So I was advocating peace between the generations.
    In 'Your Mother Should Know' I was basically trying to say your mother might know more than you think she does.
    Give her credit.'

11. Magical Mystery Tour (John Lennon and Paul McCartney)

12. 03:28 Hello, Goodbye (Paul McCartney – John Lennon and Paul McCartney) - 02.11.1967

    JOHN 1980: 'That's another McCartney.
    An attempt to write a single.
    It wasn't a great piece.
    The best bit was at the end, which we all ad-libbed in the studio, where I played the piano.
    Like 'Ticket To Ride,' where we just threw something in at the end.'

    PAUL circa-1994: ''Hello Goodbye' was one of my songs.
    There are Geminian influences here I think – the twins.
    It's such a deep theme of the universe, duality – man woman, black white, high low, right wrong, up down, hello goodbye – that it was a very easy song to write.
    It's just a song of duality, with me advocating the more positive.
    You say goodbye, I say hello.
    You say stop, I say go.
    I was advocating the more positive side of the duality, and I still do to this day.'