The Beatles – Magical Mystery Tour (1967)

More charity shop purchases continue for the next few, and this one continues my gradual acceptance that the Beatles might have had some impact on modern popular music.

This album wasn't officially released at the time in UK, the soundtrack to the Magical Mystery Tour being released in UK as a double 45 rpm EP.

In the USA, however, it was released as an album, with one side being the Magical Mystery Tour, and the second collecting together the 1967 Beatles' singles. This is the 1987 CD release of the album version, so let's have a listen.

Firstly, the soundtrack songs, Magical Mystery Tour acting as the overture in much the same way that Sgt Pepper did, followed by The Fool On The Hill, a lovely McCartney song, which to me sounds crudely arranged, especially the recorder solo. In fact, arrangement and recording of great songs feels lacking on this album as a whole. I've never been a fan of letting the orchestra in to the pop / rock song, so much of the Beatles' catalogue suffers in my ears from this.

Of course, what this (and Sgt Pepper) reminds us is that the Beatles did grow up in the era of musicals and show tunes, where such orchestration was the norm.

Flying is a throwaway instrumental (the first writing credit to all four Beatles) and Harrison's Blue Jay Way is interesting and psychedelic without being his finest moment. But to close this, we've got another McCartney music hall tune, Your Mother Should Know, pleasant enough and Lennon's psychedelic masterpiece I Am The Walrus, still replete with the playground chants which were still popular when I attended Dovedale Rd Primary School 20 years later (Yellowbelly custard, green snot pie, all served up with a dead dog's eye).

The second side compiles the 1967 singles, and what a year it was for the Fab Four. Kicking off with, possibly my favourite Beatles' song, the utterly joyous Hello Goodbye - watch this version of it by the Cure, with James McCartney on keyboards, and try not to smile, I dare you! Strawberry Fields Forever follows, not one of my favourites but the other side of it, Penny Lane means quite a lot to me. At the time we lived in a road off Penny Lane, and I crossed it every day to go to the aforementioned Dovedale Rd Primary School. My mum took me for haircuts at Bioletti's, the barber mentioned in the song. It seemed surreal that this ordinary suburban street where the sweet shop and chip shop were, was suddenly the subject of a number one hit song by the biggest group in the world. And it's still great! Baby You're A Rich Man, is next, a sold enough tune, originally released as B side to the final song, the glorious Lennon manifesto of the summer of love, All You Need Is Love.

I mentioned that I found the mix of this CD version a little disappointing, expecting as I was, a much brighter sound, but I suspect that's more about 1960s technology than any flaw in the CD release. That apart, it's a fine album, showing both the showbiz musicals side of the Beatles, as well as their nose for a great hit single.

Link to full album

4* - a great mix of soundtrack and hit singles