℗ 1995 The Copyright in this compilation is owned by Apple Corps Ltd./EMI Records Ltd.
© 1995 Apple Corps Ltd. Under exclusive license to EMI Records Ltd.
Manufactured by Capitol Records, Inc.
Printed in the U.S.A.
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Unauthorized Duplication is a Violation of Applicable Laws.
Duration : 0:8:50
Another one of George’s best songs, and one of my favourite in the entire Beatles catalogue. Happy Valentine’s Day!
“Something” is a song released by The Beatles in 1969. It was featured on the album Abbey Road, and was also the first song written by George Harrison to appear on the A-side of a Beatles single. It was one of the first Beatles singles to contain tracks already available on a long playing (LP) album, with both “Something” and “Come Together” having appeared on Abbey Road. “Something” was the only Harrison composition to top the American charts while he was in The Beatles.
John Lennon and Paul McCartney—the two principal songwriting members of the band—both praised “Something” as among the best songs Harrison had written. As well as critical acclaim, the single achieved commercial success, topping the Billboard charts in the United States, and entering the top 10 in the United Kingdom. The song has been covered by over 150 artists including Elvis Presley, Shirley Bassey, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, James Brown, Radiohead, Julio Iglesias, Smokey Robinson and Joe Cocker, and is the second-most covered Beatles song after “Yesterday”.
During the 1968 recording sessions for The Beatles (also referred to as the White Album), Harrison began working on a song that eventually became known as “Something”. The song’s first lyrics (”Something in the way she moves/Attracts me like no other lover”) were adapted from an unrelated song by fellow Apple artist James Taylor called “Something In The Way She Moves” and used as filler while the melody was being developed.
Harrison later said that “I had a break while Paul was doing some overdubbing so I went into an empty studio and began to write. That’s really all there is to it, except the middle took some time to sort out. It didn’t go on the White Album because we’d already finished all the tracks.” A demo recording of the song by Harrison from this period appears on the Beatles Anthology 3 collection, released in 1996.
Many believe that Harrison’s inspiration for “Something” was his wife at the time, Pattie Boyd. Boyd also claimed that inspiration in her 2007 autobiography, Wonderful Tonight, where she wrote: “He told me, in a matter-of-fact way, that he had written it for me.”
However, Harrison has cited other sources of inspiration to the contrary. In a 1996 interview he responded to the question of whether the song was about Pattie: “Well no, I didn’t [write it about her]. I just wrote it, and then somebody put together a video. And what they did was they went out and got some footage of me and Pattie, Paul and Linda, Ringo and Maureen, it was at that time, and John and Yoko and they just made up a little video to go with it. So then, everybody presumed I wrote it about Pattie, but actually, when I wrote it, I was thinking of Ray Charles.”
The original intention had been for Harrison to offer the song to Jackie Lomax, as had been done with the previous Harrison composition, “Sour Milk Sea.” When this fell through, the song was given to Joe Cocker (who had previously covered The Beatles’ “With a Little Help from My Friends”); his version came out two months before that of The Beatles. During the Get Back recording sessions for what eventually became Let It Be, Harrison considered using “Something,” but eventually decided against it due to his fear that insufficient care would be taken in its recording; his earlier suggestion of “Old Brown Shoe” had not gone down well with the band. It was only during the recording sessions for Abbey Road that The Beatles began seriously working on “Something.”
The lead vocalist for “Something” was George Harrison. The song runs at a speed of about sixty-six beats per minute and is in common time throughout. The melody begins in the key of C major. It continues in this key throughout the intro and the first two verses, until the eight-measure-long bridge, which is in the key of A major. After the bridge, the melody returns to C Major for the guitar solo, the third verse, and the outro. Although The Beatles had initially attempted an edgier acoustic version of the song, this was dropped along with the counter-melody. A demo of the acoustic version with the counter-melody included was later released as part of Anthology 3. On the final release, the counter-melody was replaced by an instrumental break, and the song was given a softer tone with the introduction of a string arrangement by George Martin, The Beatles’ producer.
Simon Leng said the song’s theme is doubt and uncertainty. Richie Unterberger of Allmusic described it as “an unabashedly straightforward and sentimental love song” at a time “when most of the Beatles’ songs were dealing with non-romantic topics or presenting cryptic and allusive lyrics even when they were writing about love”.
-From Wikipedia
Duration : 0:3:2
this is a video of pictures of the greatest band ever to one of their songs, “Glass Onion” from the White Album, but this is a different version from the Anthology. :]
Duration : 0:2:1
Demo version of ‘Happiness Is A Warm Gun’, the John Lennon song from The Beatles’ album ‘The Beatles’ AKA ‘The White Album’ From ‘Anthology 3′.
Duration : 0:2:15
The Beatles – Your Mother Should Know – Rare Anthology
Duration : 0:3:2
“Something” is a song released by The Beatles in 1969. It was featured on the album Abbey Road, and was also the first song written by George Harrison to appear on the A-side of a Beatles single. It was one of the first Beatles singles to contain tracks already available on a long playing (LP) album, with both “Something” and “Come Together” having appeared on Abbey Road. “Something” was the only Harrison composition to top the American charts while he was in The Beatles.
John Lennon and Paul McCartney—the two principal songwriting members of the band—both praised “Something” as among the best songs Harrison had written. As well as critical acclaim, the single achieved commercial success, topping the Billboard charts in the United States, and entering the top 10 in the United Kingdom. The song’s success continued after the breakup of The Beatles, when it was covered by over 150 artists including Elvis Presley, Shirley Bassey, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, James Brown, Julio Iglesias, Smokey Robinson and Joe Cocker becoming the second-most covered Beatles song after “Yesterday”.
Writing
During the 1968 recording sessions for The Beatles (also referred to as the White Album), Harrison began working on a song that eventually became known as “Something”. The song’s first lyrics (”Something in the way she moves/Attracts me like no other lover”) were adapted from an unrelated song by fellow Apple artist James Taylor called “Something In The Way She Moves” and used as filler while the melody was being developed.
Harrison later said that “I had a break while Paul was doing some overdubbing so I went into an empty studio and began to write. That’s really all there is to it, except the middle took some time to sort out. It didn’t go on the White Album because we’d already finished all the tracks.” A demo recording of the song by Harrison from this period appears on the Beatles Anthology 3 collection, released in 1996.
Many believe that Harrison’s inspiration for “Something” was his wife at the time, Pattie Boyd. Boyd also claimed that inspiration in her 2007 autobiography, Wonderful Tonight, where she wrote: “He told me, in a matter-of-fact way, that he had written it for me.”
However, Harrison has cited other sources of inspiration to the contrary. In a 1996 interview he responded to the question of whether the song was about Pattie: “Well no, I didn’t [write it about her]. I just wrote it, and then somebody put together a video. And what they did was they went out and got some footage of me and Pattie, Paul and Linda, Ringo and Maureen, it was at that time, and John and Yoko and they just made up a little video to go with it. So then, everybody presumed I wrote it about Pattie, but actually, when I wrote it, I was thinking of Ray Charles.”
The original intention had been for Harrison to offer the song to Jackie Lomax, as had been done with the previous Harrison composition, “Sour Milk Sea.” When this fell through, the song was given to Joe Cocker (who had previously covered The Beatles’ “With a Little Help from My Friends”); his version came out two months before that of The Beatles. During the Get Back recording sessions for what eventually became Let It Be, Harrison considered using “Something,” but eventually decided against it due to his fear that insufficient care would be taken in its recording; his earlier suggestion of “Old Brown Shoe” had not gone down well with the band. It was only during the recording sessions for Abbey Road that The Beatles began seriously working on “Something.”
Duration : 0:3:1
“The Long and Winding Road” is a ballad written by Paul McCartney (credited to Lennon/McCartney) that originally appeared on The Beatles album Let It Be.It became The Beatles last number-one song in the United States on 23 May 1970,and was the last single released by the quartet. “The Long and Winding Road” was listed with “For You Blue” as a double-sided hit when the single hit number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 1970.
While the released version of the song was very successful,the post-production modifications to the song by producer Phil Spector angered McCartney to the point that when he made his case in court for breaking up The Beatles as a legal entity,McCartney cited the treatment of “The Long and Winding Road” as one of six reasons for doing so.McCartney originally wrote the song at his farm in Scotland,and was inspired by the growing tension among The Beatles.McCartney said later:I just sat down at my piano in Scotland,started playing and came up with that song,imagining it was going to be done by someone like Ray Charles.I have always found inspiration in the calm beauty of Scotland and again it proved the place where I found inspiration.
McCartney recorded a quick demo version of the song,with Beatles engineer Alan Brown assisting,in September 1968,during the recording sessions for The White Album.
The song takes the form of a piano-based ballad,with conventional chord changes.The song’s home key is in E-flat major but also uses relative minor,the key of C minor.Lyrically,it is a sad and melancholic song,with an evocation of an as-yet unrequited,though apparently inevitable,love.
The “long and winding road” of the song was claimed to have been inspired by the B842,a thirty-one mile (50 km) winding road in Scotland,running along the east coast of Kintyre into Campbeltown,and part of the eighty-two mile (133 km) drive from Lochgilphead.In an interview in 1994, McCartney described the lyric more obliquely:It’s rather a sad song.I like writing sad songs,it’s a good bag to get into because you can actually acknowledge some deeper feelings of your own and put them in it.It’s a good vehicle,it saves having to go to a psychiatrist.
The opening theme is repeated throughout,the song lacks a traditional chorus,and the melody and lyrics are ambiguous about the opening stanza’s position in the song.It is unclear whether the song has just begun,is in the verse,or is in the bridge.
The Beatles recorded “The Long and Winding Road” on 26 and 31 January 1969,the day after the group’s legendary final performance on the roof of their Apple headquarters,with McCartney on piano,Lennon on bass guitar,George Harrison on guitar,Ringo Starr on drums, and Billy Preston on Hammond organ.This was during a series of sessions for an album project then known as Get Back.Lennon,who played bass only occasionally, made several mistakes on the recording.
In May 1969,Glyn Johns,who had been asked to mix the Get Back album by The Beatles,selected the 26 January recording as the best version of the song.The Beatles had recorded a master version as part of the Apple studio performance on 31 January,which had different lyrics and structure,but was not released.Bootlegs of the recording sessions of that day,and the film,show the band recording numerous takes of the song in a concerted effort to create a master.For both the 1969 and 1970 versions of the Get Back album,Glyn Johns used the 26 January mix as released on the Anthology 3 album in 1996.When the project was handed over to Phil Spector he also chose the 26 January recording.In the spring of 1970,John Lennon and The Beatles manager,Allen Klein,turned over the recordings to Phil Spector with the hope of salvaging an album,which was then titled,Let It Be.Spector made various changes to the songs,but his most dramatic embellishments would occur on 1 April 1970,when he turned his attention to “The Long and Winding Road”.At Abbey Road Studios,he recorded the orchestral and choir accompaniment for the song.The only member of The Beatles present was Ringo Starr.Spector succeeded in remixing “The Long and Winding Road”,using 18 violins,
four violas,four cellos,three trumpets,three trombones,two guitars,and a choir of 14 women.The orchestra was scored and conducted by Richard Hewson,who would later work with McCartney on his album,Thrillington.This lush orchestral treatment was in direct contrast to The Beatles stated intentions for a “real” recording when they began work on Get Back.
Duration : 0:3:37
The Beatles “Good Morning Good Morning” from Anthology 2 on vinyl LP, as released in March 1996 on Apple Records, same time as the CD.
Duration : 0:2:43
This wonderful version of the song “Because” its in the anthology III from The BeaTles records in Apple Corp.
Duration : 0:2:23
Ive found two recording of Ray Charles songs by The Beatles
1. I got a woman – From the “Live at BBC album”
2. Hallelujah i love her so – From Anthology Disc 1
Duration : 0:4:3