Well I'd hate to think it could be much odder than "You Know My Name, Look Up The Number."

Or maybe "What a Shame, Mary Jane."

I am SO going to play this backwards, as soon as I can get my mitts on it.

/Paul isn't dead, he's merely enjoying a nice kip.

I guess the real question is whether Michael Jackson will allow it to be released.

Revolution 9? Turn me on dead man!

tea is a helluva drug.

It's about time. I've been hearing stuff about this recording for over a decade.

Although it was performed at an electronic music festival that year, the audience were unaware it was a Beatles track and the band later shelved it, feeling it was too adventurous. George Harrison had called such experimentation "avant-garde a clue", McCartney said.


Took me far longer than it should have to get this one. And it is genius.

I look forward next year to the CD release of recorded phone messages left by and for John Lennon.

Who am I kidding. As a hardcore Beatles completist I'll get Carnival of Light in every format in which they release it.

rickythepenguin: Although it was performed at an electronic music festival that year, the audience were unaware it was a Beatles track and the band later shelved it, feeling it was too adventurous. George Harrison had called such experimentation "avant-garde a clue", McCartney said.


Took me far longer than it should have to get this one. And it is genius.

OK I give up.

Watchman: I look forward next year to the CD release of recorded phone messages left by and for John Lennon.


i've heard that joke before; denis leary?

"so the, uh, the uh, the uh, BEATLES, ok, ok, huh? Well, 75% of them, at least, ok, did a NEW song, ok, and *nervous drag on cigarette* it was a tape of John Lennon, ok, that they PLAYED ALONG TO? So, uh, ok, the next song is, ok, gonna be "sorry, we aren't home right now, please leave a message on our new fancy high-tech 1980 electronic telephone answering machine, ok?"

if you say "avant garde a clue" in your best beatles voice, it might just sound like "haven't got a clue"

rickythepenguin: i've heard that joke before; denis leary?

I thought I made it up. But I've been wrong in the past. I was just trying to think what other possible recordings of John might exist.

As an aside, I had no problem with the "other 3" singing along to a track laid down by the 4^th for Free as a Bird and Real Love. If I didn't consider those to be canonical Beatle songs I'd also have to remove a healthy portion of their other work, as well. Heck, nearly all of the White Album.

/I know, I know. "The Beatles"

Does it have an army of digeridoos?

Would be tickled Pink



Was recording at Abbey Road at the same time

I take exception to the headline. Nothing's gonna beat "You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)". Not even Revolution 9, whose weirdness was undermined by the fact that it's absolutely terrible.

"avant-garde a clue" made me laugh out loud.

I wonder if it's as weird as the 68 and 69 Christmas recordings.

There's an interview (audio) of McCartney out there where he says there's a hundred songs written and lost by he and John. A Hundred songs...imagine that!

Reminds me of Tolkien saying that the LoTR stories were always there, he just plucked them out of the ether.

I think of that and it gives me renewed hope for things.

Where is the 27-minute version of Helter Skelter? I'm more interested in that than the Carnival of Light.

Torc: Where is the 27-minute version of Helter Skelter? I'm more interested in that than the Carnival of Light.

SO much of this... I heard about this, but does it really exist?

I've got a 'friend of a friend' connection to the guy who's (now) in charge of the archives at abbey road. He's heard all of these legendary unreleased tracks... and won't talk about them.

Only thing I ever got out of the connection was some Syd Barrett alternate takes that then 'mysteriously' ended up on a vinyl bootleg about a year later.

'What's the new Mary Jane' is way weirder surely than anything unreleased...

Procedural Texture: I guess the real question is whether Michael Jackson will allow it to be released.

Jackson owned the songwriting publishing, not the original masters for the Beatles recordings. They're owned by EMI and controlled by the Beatles (well, two Beatles and two estates).

Few folks ever really do enjoy avant garde music. There are plenty of posers who claim to like it, but you know they're just trying to be hip.

Saw Fred Frith do a show at the Knitting Factory. It was all just clicks and scapes, so I split. It was something to behold the black-clad brigade pretending to groove to it.

After Paul got on the lysergic bus, he wanted to hear everything. What a strange mix- a pop writer whose works are at once orderly and concise, but also bold and adventurous.

This isn't going to be "Free As A Bird" all over again is it? The childhood scouser in me was ashamed. That song sucked.

If the song wasn't worthy of being on a Beatles record forty years ago, I don't know why Paul would ever want it released... unless Apple/Epic has a newly remastered Beatles hits package to sell along with the single of course.

Dwight_Yeast: Jackson owned the songwriting publishing, not the original masters

I was just using the opportunity to bring it up.
I think I told you: I'm a lover, not a fighter.

Glenechocreek: Few folks ever really do enjoy avant garde music. There are plenty of posers who claim to like it, but you know they're just trying to be hip.

Yeah, could you please try not to project your intellectual inadequacies on other people?

Torc: Glenechocreek: Few folks ever really do enjoy avant garde music. There are plenty of posers who claim to like it, but you know they're just trying to be hip.

Yeah, could you please try not to project your intellectual inadequacies on other people?

I like my share of avant garde. Mr. Eno, a piece or two by Terry Riley, Neubauten, early Pere Ubu, etc. Others do, too. I just think that a lot of folks who gravitate to anything "avant garde" are doing so for social and not esthetic reasons.

Galaxy of Prawns: I take exception to the headline. Nothing's gonna beat "You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)". Not even Revolution 9, whose weirdness was undermined by the fact that it's absolutely terrible.

I don't know how you can call Revolution 9 terrible. It's not even a song, just something to freak people out while they're on acid trips.

You know, there is a reason why 'unreleased' stuff is, erm, unreleased. I'm a Beatles fanatic, but most of the vault stuff (Anthology, et al) is just terrible to listen to. Just because an artist is great doesn't mean that several turds weren't laid along the way. There's a reason this stuff ends up on the cutting room floor, so to speak.

/full disclosure - has not heard the song

Confabulat: Well I'd hate to think it could be much odder than "You Know My Name, Look Up The Number."

I farking LOVE the first half of that song, though.

Confabulat: Or maybe "What a Shame, Mary Jane."

If it's stranger than that I will be flabbergasted. Really.

i'm pretty sure i saw "you know my name (look up the number)" as a b-side to a 45rpm Beatles single in my fav. record shop about a year or two ago. I listened to it. It was neat. but it was like $10 so i didn't get it. [i thought "pfffft! Ten dollars for a single? bah!". crazy Macca and Lennon...
is it true that McCartney didn't want "revolution Number 9" on "the white album", and that John and Yoko wrote it, instead of "McCartney/Lennon" as it states on the label?
it's weird, cuz i thought that McCartney was slightly more into the experimental stuff [in 66/67/68 anyway] then John was....
i could be wrong tho lol

if they could release the 27 minute "helter skelter" and 14 min. carnival of light on vinyl that would be cool.
[ie. 20 mins of "H.S." on side A, the next 7 minutes of it, and "Carnival" on side B]
or hell.... them both on cd would be cool too.

you know what would've been really mean?
if they had spliced or mashed snippets of both those songs into that crazy mash up compilation album called 'Love' that was recently released.

tinfins: Galaxy of Prawns: I take exception to the headline. Nothing's gonna beat "You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)". Not even Revolution 9, whose weirdness was undermined by the fact that it's absolutely terrible.

I don't know how you can call Revolution 9 terrible. It's not even a song, just something to freak people out while they're on acid trips.

Nevermind, just looked it up. Apparently Lennon thought Revolution 9 was the music of the future...

I like You Know My Name. Paul's lounge-lizard part is great.

John saw the phrase on a phone book, and it went from there.

Glen etc..
Can You say Fred Frith three times fast? I can not.

Third_Uncle_Eno: i'm pretty sure i saw "you know my name (look up the number)" as a b-side to a 45rpm Beatles single in my fav. record shop about a year or two ago. I listened to it. It was neat. but it was like $10 so i didn't get it. [i thought "pfffft! Ten dollars for a single? bah!". crazy Macca and Lennon...
is it true that McCartney didn't want "revolution Number 9" on "the white album", and that John and Yoko wrote it, instead of "McCartney/Lennon" as it states on the label?
it's weird, cuz i thought that McCartney was slightly more into the experimental stuff [in 66/67/68 anyway] then John was....
i could be wrong tho lol

"You Know My Name" was the B-side to "Let it Be". It was a final fark you from Lennon to McCartney (they had a deal that if one of them got the A0side of a single, the other got to pick the B-side).

As to the Lennon/McCartney writing credit, that had to do with the way their publishing company was set up. After 1964 or so, they each wrote separately, but they both got credit.

"Give Piece a Chance" is credited to both of them, even though Macca had nothing to do with it.

Having been a huge Beatles fan -- and I still am -- I have hundreds of releases by the band on vinyl. One of them, 20x4, has what is purported to be a portion of the track. It is only about a minute long, sounds as if it is a multi-generation source, and is strange to say the least.
Questions were raised as far back as the 80's as to its authenticity, and the party line was that it was not the work of the Beatles.
If they were disowning it back then, it does not bode well for it now.
And despite the fact that Paul is generally considered to be a writer of treacly pop, he has released a number of albums with experimental, electronic and avant-garde stuff under the moniker The Fireman, and on releases called Liverpool Sound Collage and Twin Freaks. It was also the genesis of his McCartney II album (and additional tracks from that album have also seen underground release over the years, too).

Yeah, just like Sister Ray said.

rickythepenguin: Although it was performed at an electronic music festival that year, the audience were unaware it was a Beatles track and the band later shelved it, feeling it was too adventurous. George Harrison had called such experimentation "avant-garde a clue", McCartney said.


Took me far longer than it should have to get this one. And it is genius.

I read the article a few hours ago, didn't get it until coming back to the comments. Nothing like a joke with a long fuse...

DRTFA - would that be the one where Yoko does her ping pong ball trick with a litter of baby porcupines?

Weirder than "John and Yoko" off "The Wedding Album?"

Unpossible.

Is it like Wonderwall?