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Magical Mystery Tour (1967)

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FEATURE: The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour: Will It Ever Get a Remaster and Re-Release?

The beatles’ magical mystery tour.

Will It Ever Get a Remaster and Re-Release?

WHETHER you consider it to be…

  IN THIS PHOTO: John Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney pose for group shot on bus during filming of Magical Mystery Tour / PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images

an album or E.P., The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour is fifty-five on 27th November. It was released on 27th November, 1967 in the U.S. as an album. It was released on 8th December, 1967 in the U.K. as a double E.P. The double E.P. features six tracks, whilst the L.P. has eleven. Many fans consider this to be among the band’s least essential works. It includes the soundtrack to the Magical Mystery Tour film. Maybe not one of the band’s best films, I think that it stands up and is worth a watch anyway! I love Magical Mystery Tour as an album. It followed the mighty Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band . This was a period where The Beatles were truly immersed in psychedelia and the spirit of 1967. The following  year, The Beatles’ eponymous album came out. It was a strange time for the group. A moment of transition. In 1967, in late-August, while The Beatles were attending a Transcendental Meditation seminar held by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Wales, their manager Brian Epstein died of a prescription drug overdose. Paul McCartney initiated the Magical Mystery Tour idea. After they  completed Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in April 1967,  he wanted to create a film that captured a psychedelic theme similar to that represented by author and LSD proponent Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters on the U.S. West Coast. A mix of U.S. West Coast and the bus and coach tours McCartney enjoyed a as a child, recording began in late-April, yet the film idea then lay dormant for a time. Biographers have said how the sessions were aimless and unfocused; The Beatles overly indulging in sound experimentation and exerting greater control over production. Some wonderful songs came out of this period. McCartney wrote three of the soundtrack songs, including The Fool on the Hill . John Lennon and George Harrison contributed I Am the Walrus and Blue Jay Way , respectively. The sessions also produced Hello, Goodbye and Flying .

If some don’t consider Magical Mystery Tour a studio album or a necessary addition to your Beatles collection, it is a fascinating work regardless! Whereas other film-related and adjoined albums like A Hard Day’s Night were successful and lauded, many overlooked 1967’s Magical Mystery Tour . Not included on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band , Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever were on Magical Mystery Tour . So too is All You Need Is Love (the album version includes all of these). It is such a strong collection of songs! I do wonder whether Magical Mystery Tour will get a remaster. There have been Special Edition version of their albums since Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band ’s fiftieth anniversary in 2017. Giles Martin (son of the late Beatles producer George) has covered their studio albums beyond that point. He has now gone back and has done Revolver . I suspect that he will continue to go back, so that Rubber Soul (1965) is his next project. I wonder whether Magical Mystery Tour will languish. There would have been outtakes and demos from the sessions. I’d love to know whether there are earlier versions of I Am the Walrus . Maybe seeing how The Fool on the Hill started life. Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever are classics. Perhaps there are outtakes of those songs? As you have the film too, maybe that can be tied in. As Magical Mystery Tour is fifty next month (in the U.S.), it has been on my mind. Like Yellow Submarine (1969), it is one of those albums that people know about but do not necessarily love.

I want to end up with a couple of features/reviews, and a 2009 review from Pitchfork . A forgotten classic and hugely rewarding album, Magical Mystery Tour deserves new love and a reissue! The Spectrum investigated and told the story of Magical Mystery Tour in their feature from 2017:

“ Paul McCartney based both the film and its title track on memories of surprise trips he took as a child, though there are plenty of references to a different sort of trip in this trumpet-inflected tune. After all, he was in a rock ‘n’ roll band in the 1960s. Paul finds one of the most alluring hooks in the band’s history as his voice takes on a bit of an edge and he sings, “The Magical Mystery Tour is waiting to take you away.”

The bassist’s obsession with stage musicals is evident once again in “The Fool On The Hill,” which took inspiration from his regular tarot readings with a group of Dutch artists and designers called The Fool. But it also symbolizes Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who taught transcendental meditation to The Beatles.

Not only was “Flying” an infrequent instrumental number for The Beatles but it’s also an extremely rare tune where all four band members share the writing credits — even Ringo Starr, whose voice is most prominent among the band’s wordless vocals on the track. While there is singing, there are no lyrics and the primary melody is often carried instead by John Lennon on a Mellotron that sounds like a trombone.

George Harrison wrote “Blue Jay Way” on a street of the same name in Los Angeles. It was composed on an organ in a rented house while waiting on the arrival of some friends who were lost in a dense fog. A variety of studio effects were used to enhance the mystical nature of the tune, including vocals processed through a Leslie cabinet to express a feeling of the fog.

Paul revisits the retro style of “When I’m Sixty-Four” on the bouncy “Your Mother Should Know.” There is no guitar on the song. Instead Paul plays piano and bass, John plays the organ and George plays tambura. Recording began at Chappel Recording Studios and it was there that Epstein visited The Beatles in the studio for the last time before his death four days later.

The soundtrack portion of “Magical Mystery Tour” ends with John’s brilliant “I Am The Walrus,” which was inspired by both literature and drugs. But the strange imagery had a purpose: “John wanted to make fun of pseudointellectuals who interpreted his songs in phony ways,” write Jean-Michel Guesdon and Philippe Margotin in “All The Songs: The Story Behind Every Beatles Release.” Yet he also said it “has enough little bitties going to keep you interested even a hundred year later,” according to The Beatles Anthology.

When it comes to the additional tracks, the only non-stunner is “Baby You’re A Rich Man.” It’s still a strong track and a rare full collaboration between John and Paul, the result of combining two separate pieces — one by each — to create the song. John sang lead and some suspect that Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones may have even joined Paul and George on backing vocals near the end.

The remaining four singles are among the strongest pieces ever recorded by The Beatles, even though John wasn’t a fan of “Hello, Goodbye,” Paul’s exploration of duality, according to Guesdon and Margotin. It may not have been as artistically sound as “I Am The Walrus” but it’s difficult to ignore that addictive melody, including another fantastic Paul hook. And that short but eminently exquisite little snippet of whining electric guitar makes it a Beatles masterpiece.

Nearly 400 million viewers saw the debut of “All You Need Is Love” on June 25, 1967, as part of the first international satellite broadcast, “Our World.” John described his simple lyrics as carrying a universal message while George called the tune “a subtle bit of PR for God,” according to The Beatles Anthology. It became a massive hit and the unofficial anthem for the “Summer of Love.” Today its title has become synonymous with The Beatles and what they represented.

“Strawberry Fields Forever,” according to Guesdon and Margotin, “summed up the essence of The Beatles’ art in four minutes.” The authors say it is “probably the key song in their entire repertoire.” John wrote it while filming scenes for the film “How I Won the War” in Spain and said it’s about how he sees the world in a different way. Like some of John’s other compositions around this time (“Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds,” “A Day In The Life”), “Strawberry Fields” was so forward-looking that it still holds up extremely well 50 years later.

While John had a jewel with “Strawberry Fields Forever,” Paul answered with his own in the form of “Penny Lane.” John’s song celebrated The Beatles’ creatively psychedelic side while Paul’s focused on the band’s knack for pop perfection. Both tunes reflect on elements of their childhood, with “Penny Lane” telling the story of the neighborhood where Paul was raised. The impeccable melody finds Paul again aiming for The Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” from “Pet Sounds.” It has, perhaps, the greatest melody of the band’s entire catalogue ”.

Rolling Stone went very deep with their love and inspection of Magical Mystery Tour . A remarkable work from a band who, in 1967, were at their peak, you need to re-listen to Magical Mystery Tour . A very different album to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band , I love discovering the background and details of Magical Mystery Tour :

“ THE YEAR LEADING up to the release of the Magical Mystery Tour album in November 1967 was turbulent but fantastically fertile for the Beatles – they were working on its songs more or less simultaneously with the ones that ended up on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and the Yellow Submarine soundtrack. With touring no longer a question, they had the luxury of fine-tuning their songs at length in the studio; the same band that had recorded its first album in a single day was now tinkering with individual recordings for weeks on end.

If Sgt. Pepper was a blueprint for the Beatles’ new utopianism – a culture of vivid sensory experience, for which they could be the entertainers and court jesters – the Magical Mystery Tour project was an attempt to literally take that idea into the world. Paul McCartney’s concept was that the Beatles would drive around the British countryside with their friends, film the result and shape that into a movie over which they would have total creative control. But like a lot of Sixties attempts to turn utopian theory into practice, the movie fell on its nose: The Beatles simply weren’t filmmakers.

“You gotta do everything with a point or an aim, but we tried this one without anything – with no point and no aim,” McCartney admitted the day after it premiered. The Magical Mystery Tour soundtrack, on the other hand, did what the movie was supposed to do – despite being a grab bag of the group’s 1967 singles and songs recorded specifically for the film, it holds together surprisingly well as an addendum to Pepper, giving us an image of the psychedelic Beatles refining their enhanced perceptions into individual pop songs so potent that they changed the whole landscape of music.

The songs that would end up on Magical Mystery Tour began taking shape in late 1966, well before McCartney was struck by his cinematic vision. From November 24th, 1966, to mid-January 1967, the Beatles worked extensively on a pair of new songs, intended for what would become Sgt. Pepper: John Lennon’s “Strawberry Fields Forever” and McCartney’s “Penny Lane,” both reminiscences of the Liverpool of their childhood. By the end of January, though, EMI was demanding a new Beatles single – there hadn’t been one since “Yellow Submarine” the previous August, an impossibly long gap in those days. George Martin wasn’t happy about pulling “Penny Lane” and “”Strawberry Fields Forever” off the album-in-progress, but there wasn’t much else in the can. Released on February 17th, the single was a worldwide hit, and a statement of purpose for the rest of the Beatles’ recordings that year: reflective, druggy, a little nostalgic, and more inventively orchestrated and arranged than anything else around.

That spring, with Sgt. Pepper all but complete, McCartney visited California, hanging out with members of the Beach Boys and the Mamas and the Papas. Along the way, he got the idea for an hour-long movie that would document a free-form bus trip, a sort of British equivalent of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters’ adventures in their bus, Further. McCartney drew a diagram of how the Magical Mystery Tour film would be structured, and wrote a theme song for it, which the Beatles recorded over a series of sessions in late April and early May.

The next song they tackled was Lennon’s “Baby, You’re a Rich Man,” a scathing portrait of a social arriviste that may or may not have been intended as a jab at manager Brian Epstein. Relations between the Beatles and Epstein had become slightly strained. When he turned up in the studio to announce that he’d booked them to debut a new song on the first-ever live global-satellite-transmitted TV special, Our World, they were nonplussed – he hadn’t asked them first if they were interested. Lennon agreed to come up with a song for the show, then promptly forgot about it; when he was reminded that the show was a couple of weeks away, as engineer Geoff Emerick recalled later, Lennon groaned, “Oh, God, is it that close? Well, then, I suppose I’d better write something.”

Our World aired on June 25th, 1967, three weeks and change after Sgt. Pepper had been released. The song Lennon had grudgingly slapped together to fulfill his obligation was another triumph: “All You Need Is Love,” the signature anthem of the Summer of Love. The Beatles performed it live on the air (with the help of a prerecorded backing track), accompanied by an enormous crowd of their cohorts, including Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, on whose “We Love You” Lennon and McCartney had sung a month earlier. When “All You Need Is Love” was rush-released as a single, the flip side was “Baby, You’re a Rich Man.”

That’s about all they managed to do together over the month and a half following the Our World broadcast. Their relative lack of productivity wasn’t a sign of the internal unrest that would soon surface; they were still very much a unit, and did everything by consensus. “If three of us wanted to make a film, for instance, and the fourth didn’t think it was a good idea, we’d forget about it,” McCartney said at the time. In late July, Lennon, George Harrison and McCartney traveled to Greece with the idea of buying an island and building a commune and a recording studio there.

The reason for the artistic slowdown was simple: It was a beautiful summer – there were parties to go to and drugs to take, and Ringo Starr’s wife, Maureen, was very pregnant. Among those parties was a big bash at Epstein’s house; he’d asked the band to arrive early so they could discuss something important. But, as Harrison later recalled, “Everybody was just wacko. We were in our psychedelic motorcars with our permed hair, and we were permanently stoned … so we never had the meeting.”

The bandmates did do a little work, convening in late August to run through McCartney’s old-timey number “Your Mother Should Know.” They also had an audience with the Transcendental Meditation guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who would become a hugely mportant figure in their lives over the next year.

On August 27th, Brian Epstein was found dead of an accidental prescription-drug overdose. The Beatles had been drifting away from him for a while – his management contract with them was close to expiring, and it wasn’t clear whether they were going to renew it – but he’d directed the band’s business for close to six years, and had helped to transform the Beatles from a scruffy beat combo to an all-conquering cultural force.

“We loved him, and he was one of us,” Lennon said at the time. Epstein really had been a crucial part of their organization – the person whose business acumen gave them the freedom to concentrate on their music. The Beatles’ creative chemistry thrived on their differences as artists, but it was their business problems that would ultimately tear them apart a few years later. As Harrison later put it, “We didn’t know anything about our personal business and finances; he had taken care of everything, and it was chaos after that.”

A few days after Epstein’s death, the Beatles had reconvened to continue with Magical Mystery Tour, and not to look for a new manager. Between September 5th and 8th, they laid down three particularly tripped-out songs: Harrison’s blurry “Blue Jay Way” (inspired by his early-August trip to Los Angeles); the instrumental jam “Flying,” which was co-credited to all four Beatles; and most famously Lennon’s “I Am the Walrus,” a free-associative vision produced under the influence of Lucy in the sky with diamonds. “The first line was written on one acid trip one weekend, the second line on another acid trip the next weekend, and it was filled in after I met Yoko,” Lennon later said.

All three tracks were intended for the movie, which started principal photography the next week, without a script or anything more than a few stoned concepts. From September 11th to 15th, the psychedelic bus drove around the West Country, occasionally stopping to shoot whatever seemed like a good idea at the time. The Beatles ducked into EMI’s studios on the evening of the 16th to rerecord “Your Mother Should Know,” which they’d begun work on days before Epstein’s death; the next week, they shot more material for Magical Mystery Tour, including the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band at a strip club, performing a song called “Death Cab for Cutie” (the song would later give rise to the rock band of the same name). As first-time directors, the Beatles figured it would probably take a week or so to edit their 10 hours of footage down to something usable.

It eventually took 11 weeks. The problem was partly that everyone had their own ideas about what should and shouldn’t be in the movie, and partly that they’d neglected to get some important material on film and had to go back to shoot it. Still, the band made it down to Abbey Road for a handful of sessions between September 25th and October 25th, completing the spacey trio of songs it had started in early September, and recording McCartney’s “The Fool on the Hill” and “Hello Goodbye” (the latter released on November 24th backed with “I Am the Walrus”).

The Magical Mystery Tour movie was finally broadcast on BBC television on December 26th, 1967, and became the first Beatles project to be an outright flop. (It didn’t help that the BBC aired it in black-and-white rather than color.) The reviews were savage. “They thought we were stepping out of our roles, you know,” Lennon groused a few months later. “They like to keep us in the cardboard suits they designed for us. Whatever image they have for themselves, they’re disappointed if we don’t fulfill that. And we never do, so there’s always a lot of disappointment.”

As an LP, Magical Mystery Tour was an unqualified triumph, sitting atop the American charts for eight weeks and eventually going sextuple-platinum. It extended and refined the Beatles’ version of psychedelia: a vision of the world that was essentially colorful, reflective and loving, but encompassed bad trips as well as good ones ”.

I will finish off with Pitchfork ’s review. The only U.S. release to become part of The Beatles’ cannon, the combination of singles and a soundtrack E.P. is masterful! Almost fifty-five years later, Magical Mystery Tour is a delight that everyone needs to behold:

“ Of the three singles, the undisputed highlight is "Strawberry Fields Forever"/ "Penny Lane", John Lennon and Paul McCartney's tributes to their hometown, Liverpool. Slyly surreal, assisted by studio experimentation but not in debt to it, full of brass, harmonium, and strings, unmistakably English-- when critics call eccentric or baroque UK pop bands "Beatlesesque," this is the closest there is to a root for that adjective. There is no definitive Beatles sound, of course, but with a band that now functions as much as a common, multi-generational language as a group of musicians, it's no surprise that songs rooted in childhood-- the one experience most likely to seem shared and have common touchpoints-- are among their most universally beloved.

The rest of the singles collected here are no less familiar: Lennon's "All You Need Is Love" was initially completed up for an international TV special on BBC1-- its basic message was meant to translate to any language. Harrison's guitar solo, producer George Martin's strings, and the parade of intertextual musical references that start and close the piece elevate it above hippie hymn. Its flipside, "Baby You're a Rich Man", is less successful, a second-rate take on John Lennon's money-isn't-everything theme from the considerably stronger "And Your Bird Can Sing". It's the one lesser moment on an otherwise massively rewarding compilation.

Much better from Lennon is "I Am the Walrus", crafted for the Magical Mystery Tour film and EP but also released as a double-sided single with McCartney's "Hello Goodbye". One of Lennon's signature songs, "Walrus" channels the singer's longtime fascinations with Lewis Carroll, puns and turns of phrase, and non sequiturs. "Hello Goodbye" echoes the same contradictory logic found in the verses of "All You Need Is Love", a vague sense of disorientation that still does little to balance its relentlessly upbeat tone. McCartney excelled at selling simplistic lyrics that risk seeming cloying, though, and he again does here-- plus, the kaleidoscopic, carnival-ride melody and interplay between lead and backing vocals ensure it's a much better record than it is a song.

In almost every instance on those singles, the Beatles are either whimsical or borderline simplistic, releasing songs that don't seem sophisticated or heavy or monumental (even though most of them are). In that sense, they're all like "All You Need Is Love" or childhood memories or Lewis Carroll-- easy to love, fit for all ages, rich in multi-textual details, deceptively trippy (see Paul's "Penny Lane" in particular, with images of it raining despite blue skies, or the songs here that revel in contradictions-- "Hello Goodbye"'s title, the verses in "All You Need Is Love"). More than any other place in the band's catalogue, this is where the group seems to crack open a unique world, and for many young kids then and since this was their introduction to music as imagination, or adventure. The rest of the Magical Mystery Tour LP is the opposite of the middle four tracks on the EP-- songs so universal that, like "Yellow Submarine", they are practically implanted in your brain from birth. Seemingly innocent, completely soaked through with humor and fantasy, Magical Mystery Tour slots in my mind almost closer to the original Willy Wonka or The Wizard of Oz as it does other Beatles records or even other music-- timeless entertainment crafted with a childlike curiosity and appeal but filled with wit and wonder.

On the whole, Magical Mystery Tour is quietly one of the most rewarding listens in the Beatles' career. True, it doesn't represent some sort of forward momentum or clear new idea-- largely in part because it wasn't conceived as an album. The accompanying pieces on the EP are anomalies in the Beatles oeuvre but they aren't statements per se, or indications that the group is in any sort of transition. But if there was ever a moment in the Beatles' lifetime that listeners would have been happy to have the group just settle in and release songs as soon as possible, it was just before and after the then-interminable 10-month gap between the Revolver and *Sgt. Pepper'*s. Without that context, the results could seem slight-- a sort-of canonized version of Past Masters perhaps-- but whether it's an album, a collection of separate pieces, or whatnot matters little when the music itself is so incredible ”.

I do hope Giles Martin approaches Magical Mystery Tour at some point. If not a true studio album, it is deserving of a new release in the same way as Yellow Submarine is. After he goes back and does the studio albums (I assume 1964’s A Hard Day’s Night might be the last in the run?), going back and doing Magical Mystery Tour would be wise. At the very least, there needs to be something done! Fifty-five on 27th November, I hope there is some love and fond remembrance of this wonderful Beatles release. From the first line of the title track, you definitely want to go…

ON their magical mystery tour!

Sam Liddicott

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30 June 2024

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10.0 |   Pitchfork

On the whole, Magical Mystery Tour is quietly one of the most rewarding listens in the Beatles' career. True, it doesn't represent some sort of forward momentum or clear new idea-- largely in part because it wasn't conceived as an album Read Review

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...the extended album also ropes in Strawberry Fields Forever, Penny Lane and All You Need Is Love Read Review

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Magical mystery tour.

Release date: 27 November 1967

"It was like we were in another phase of our career you know we'd done all the live stuff and that was marvellous, now we were into being more artists. We got more freedom to be artists." PAUL

"If you think it was good, keep it, if you don't, scrap it." JOHN

"You have success with something that might have seemed like a far out idea, people had said wow this is great and so when we'd come back again George would be really quite keen to try, what other ideas have you got?" GEORGE

"And now we are going to play a track from Magical Mystery Tour which is one of my favourite albums because it was so weird I Am The Walrus, one of my favourite tracks because I did it of course but also cos it's one of those that has enough little bitties going to keep you interested even a hundred years later." JOHN

"The Beatles songs had started to sound more individual from Revolver onwards or even before then." GEORGE MARTIN

The Beatles devised, wrote and directed a television film called Magical Mystery Tour which was broadcast on BBC Television at Christmas, 1967

Even before Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, had hit the shops, the idea of the programme had been born and work had commenced on the title track.

It was decided that the soundtrack for the programme would be released on two seven inch discs which would be packaged with a booklet in a gatefold sleeve. The booklet contained stills from the show along with a comic strip telling the story. A lyric sheet was also stapled into the centrespread of the booklet. The EP was a runaway success and reached no. 2 in the UK singles chart, held off the top spot by their own single... "Hello, Goodbye".

In the US, the double-EP format was not considered viable so instead, Capitol Records created an album by placing the six songs from the EP on side one of an album and drawing side two from the titles that had appeared on singles in 1967. These titles were "Strawberry Fields Forever", "Penny Lane", "All You Need Is Love" - their anthem that had been broadcast around the world via Satellite in June. "Baby, You're A Rich Man" and their current single, "Hello, Goodbye". The US release made # 1 in early January 1968 and stayed there for eight weeks. Its initial chart run lasted 59 weeks.

1967 had certainly been a year of great achievement but it was also tinged with sadness. Brian Epstein, The Beatles' manager since 1961 passed away on 27th August, 1967 at the age of 32.

The US configuration for Magical Mystery Tour was later adopted by many other countries (including the UK in 1976). When the Beatles catalogue was first issued on Compact Disc in 1987, Magical Mystery Tour joined the core list of titles.

If they aren't already planning so, the Beatles should start planning their next full-length film immediately. After watching a rough cut of their 'Magical Mystery Tour', which BBC viewers can see on Boxing Day. I am convinced they are extremely capable of writing and directing a major movie for release on one of the major cinema circuits. The film sequences for the musical numbers are extremely clever. For 'Blue Jay Way' George is seen sitting cross-legged in a sweating mist which materialises into a variety of shapes and patterns. It's a pity that most TV viewers will be able to see it only in black and white. 'I Am The Walrus' has four of them togged up in animal costumes switching at times to them bobbing across the screen as egg-men. A special word of praise for Ringo, who more than the others comes over very, very funnily. But praise to all of them for making a most entertaining film. I only wish they would now put out a sequel made up from the parts they left on the cutting-room floor. NME July 20, 1967

• The Beatles’ albums in order – complete list!

Magical Mystery Tour

Released as a six-song double EP in the United Kingdom and an 11-song album in the US and elsewhere, Magical Mystery Tour was the soundtrack to the television film of the same name, which was first broadcast by the BBC on 26 December 1967 .

In the wake of the death of Brian Epstein on 27 August 1967 , The Beatles found themselves suddenly without direction. Whereas since 1962 they had been carefully guided by their manager, at the peak of their career they were unused to making their own business decisions or having absolute autonomy over their future.

On 1 September 1967 , five days after Epstein’s body was discovered in his London home, The Beatles met at Paul McCartney ’s house at 7 Cavendish Avenue in St John’s Wood, London. The previous day an announcement had been issued stating that the band would continue to be managed by NEMS Enterprises – now under the guidance of Epstein’s brother Clive – until further notice.

During the 1 September meeting The Beatles agreed to continue with Magical Mystery Tour , a project begun in April shortly after the completion of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band . Crucially, this was a time when McCartney began steering many of the group’s decisions, encouraging them to continue during a period in which they might easily have collapsed amid a lack of direction.

I was still under a false impression. I still felt every now and then that Brian would come in and say, ‘It’s time to record,’ or, ‘Time to do this.’ And Paul started doing that: ‘Now we’re going to make a movie. Now we’re going to make a record.’ And he assumed that if he didn’t call us, nobody would ever make a record. Paul would say, well, now he felt like it – and suddenly I’d have to whip out twenty songs. He’d come in with about twenty good songs and say, ‘We’re recording.’ And I suddenly had to write a fucking stack of songs.

McCartney’s concept for Magical Mystery Tour was to produce a television special about a group of ordinary people taking a mystery trip on a coach. The film would take in various locations in England and France, and would be mostly improvised and take advantage of the encounters they had on the road.

Magical Mystery Tour was Paul’s idea. It was a good way to work. Paul had a great piece of paper – just a blank piece of white paper with a circle on it. The plan was: ‘We start here – and we’ve got to do something here…’ We filled it in as we went along. We rented a bus and off we went. There was some planning: John would always want a midget or two around, and we had to get an aircraft hangar to put the set in. We’d do the music, of course. They were the finest videos, and it was a lot of fun. To get the actors we looked through the actors’ directory, Spotlight: ‘Oh, we need someone like this, and someone like that.’ We needed a large lady to play my auntie. So we found a large lady.

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Absolutely underrated in so many ways.

Problem is… it’s not really an album. Just a collection of songs already recorded

But isn’t that what the definition of an album is? A collection of songs already recorded?

Kind of hard to make an album if none of the songs have been recorded already.

The idea is that if you for example compare it to Sgt. Peppers, there is no feeling of a “string” guiding you through the album. MMT seems very convoluted to me. Side 1 & 2 seem to me like they are from different albums and mindsets. In almost every album theres a definite feel of “This is their idea of music at this point”. This doesn’t happen for me in Magical Mystery Tour.

best beatle album a collection of hits Such a master piece, along with revolver, rubber soul, sgt pepper, and white album

and help. and a hard days night and well all beatle music.

The only Capitol release that improved upon a British release. (Or even equalled it, for that matter, since the UK “Pepper” was ever-so slightly better than the US version, which excluded the inner-groove gibberish and for-dogs-only tone.)

Yep, I agree that Capitol finally did the Beatles right by adding all those wonderful 1967 singles. For once they didn’t butcher the EP, (like all the previous LP’s) they just added to it. But I also really love the EP for what it is. Never saw it growing up in Canada until I finally got my own UK EP import.

How can you not love MMT? It gives me a warm, magical, mysterious feeling just thinking about it. The only downer is Blue Jay Way which is tough to get all the way through. They should have put “It’s All Too Much” on this instead of Yellow Submarine. Then it would be spotless!

Yellow Submarine isn’t on Magical Mystery Tour. Did you mean Blue Jay Way?

I think he means they shoud have put the song It’s All Too Much on the album MMT istead of the album Yellow Submarine.

I agree with you about MMT being a supreme beatles album , but i dont agree about blue jay way … when you consider how hari wrote it , he was took out to a friends house in (america i think) by whoever and the friend was not at home so george waited at the house entrance while (whoever) went to look for the friend or a phone …. it was getting towards dusk a little dark and george being on his own in the unfamiliar surroundings of a foreign country got a little scared and the lane/road was called Blue Jay Way and the song was born…. you might say written with the help of fear !!!

Blue Jay Way was not meant to be a Top 40 hit. It was first & foremost a vehicle to tell us the story of Paul’s death, and its video was likewise a vehicle to show you quick flashes of his corpse, his damaged face after the accident, and even his displaced jawbone flying around. These grisly images are presented against a busy background of people dancing & darting across the scene, so you must freeze frames to see them. But they are all there to tell the story as The Beatles intended.

Pure bullocks. George told the story many times as to what this song is about. You simply haven’t a clue I’m afraid.

Just another fool on the hill.

Is it the EP you’re referring to? Blue Jay Way although lengthy is a significant Harrison piece, instrumentation-wise, which I find quite soothing when listened to. You don’t have a complete MMT experience without this song.

Blue Jay Way may be the only song on all of The Beatles albums that I skip every single time.

I love all the Beatle albums, but between this one and Beatles for sale, they are my least favorite.I find it suprising that John Lennon said it was his favorite.I heard that in the Anthology DVD and I assumed it was from an interview at the time of MMT’s release but on here it says from a Rolling Stone 1974 interview.I am the Walrus is definetly one of Lennons best works, but the album as a whole just doesnt stand up there for me.It’s still a great record, just not one of their better ones in my opinion.

In the states, MMT was a Christmas release, 6 months after Sgt. P. It was seen as the next Beatles album, when in fact it was an extension of Sgt. P. That the White Album was in fact the next Beatles album has been lost on the American public’s consciousness.

One has to wonder what might have happened if they didn’t feel the need or succumb to the pressure to churn out album after album in the wake of Brian’s death. The massive White Album, then 5 months later convening for Get BAck/Let It Be… then Abbey Road right after. Bands today could never maintain the pace of recording/movies/business pressures as did the Beatles. Perhaps, if… they might have… oh well. There are a lot of “perhaps’ ” in the history of the Beatles.

Yeah, it’s UNCANNY (and terribly stupid on their part) that less than ONE MONTH AND A HALF after releasing the White Album, these crazy workaholics should convene again for the drudgery of more recording AND filming. Even without the alleged “tensions” attending the recording of The Beatles, any four human beings should have been exhausted after such strenuous work. Why not wait at least until spring/early summer to resume work, have a good rest of writing/rehearsing/recording (and putting up with each other!), and then “get back” with renewed energy? I’m sure The Beatles wouldn’t have split up if they had respected themselves a little bit more. They seemed to have gotten caught up into a masochistic groove: what sense does it make to play LIVE in the middle of the winter on a windswept rooftop in London!!!? That, despite all the odds, that performance should have been SO good is yet another proof of how great The Beatles were, but they simply seem to have stretched human nature too far…. What a waste!

The band had a very work a day attitude to what they did. Essentially they saw being recording artists the same way as being a Teacher,Nurse,Engineer, Postman or any other job. You went to work everyday and had some days off for weekends or holidays. Paul particularly had this attitude. Although their hours of work were unusual they were more like shift workers working a backshift.

It continued after they split up as well. After recording TWO Albums in 1969, they immediately dived into solo singles and albums.

Ringo releasing 2 albums in 1970, Paul 1 in 1970 and 2 in 1971, George a triple album in 1970, John releasing albums in 1970 and 1971.

The Beatles got it right. They split up while they were a YOUNG band & will always be remembered as such……Unlike the rolling stones.

It is very simple why they did so much work in November 1966 to August 1969 in the studio. They were not touring and could spend the time recording as much material as they could release.

I live in the US and close to 40 years ago read that the White Album was meant as a follow-up to Sgt. Pepper’s, with the stark cover and relative simplicity of the songs countering the extravagance and complexity of Pepper.

well, bear in mind that side 2 was mostly songs that had gotten lots of radio play during the year before, so even in the U.S. it was clear to me, as an 11 year old, that it included a lot of re-packaged material. Compared to my experience of the White Album which was like getting this amazing toy chest, every single song was unfamiliar, the whole thing had a vibe, and what a treat to discover them all from scratch. And there was an obvious difference between the fun but ultimately kind of commercial comic book in MMT and the much more interesting packaging of the White Album and Sgt Pepper. Kind of the same thing with Let It Be…when I got THAT for Christmas it was exciting to have a new bit of Beatles product and i gleaned pleasure from various tracks. But every single thing about it signaled that it wasn’t a major work in the canon. Starting with the banal packaging.

I concur wholeheartedly. The albums’ and singles’ releasing frequency was imo also a bad business decision altogether on part of the parts involved. It sort of unnecessarily saturated the Fab4 market, with the exception of the hardcore fans worldwide.

Not at all. Their creativity had multiplied and they wanted to keep the box open as they weren’t planning any tours; MMT was to be broadcast in MondoVison, exploring a new format it turned out to be more than an interlude, quite magically. Meanwhile the affiliated record companies had been releasing as much as possible already, clearly Apple was created to keep them letting it get so out of control, as well as an outlet for whatever the Beatles would fancy.

This album has its similarities to the white album not pepper think about it The Fool On The Hill and Mother Natures Son or Flying and Wild Honey Pie, Strawberry Fields Forever and Glass Onion, Baby Your A Rich Man and Happiness Is A Warm Gun!!

strawberry fields forever was originally wrote for pepper penny lane also but the big wigs moneymen who all but owned the Beatles were impatient pepper took so long to make that they demanded a release so EMI released SFF/PL so it does have similarities to pepper. the information can be found in the “complete abbey road recordings” which was put out by EMI/HAMLIN.

I saw ‘MMT’, the color version, in a small ‘art’ theatre in my city in early 1968…I was quite intrigued as it had a dreamlike and slightly ‘down’ air about it, quite different from ‘HDN’ & ‘Help’.

I can only imagine what the UK Boxing Day audience who saw the black & white version thought.

Very ‘surrealistic’ and way ahead of later MTV rubbish.

MMT was not distributed in North America until late 1968-early 1969 in small theatres with Eric Anderson doing a short concert as well as introducing the movie.

The MMT movie best moment is definettly Jonh serving sppaghetti to the big lady! That’s so genius!. I like the album very very much! Except for “Hello Goodbye”(I hate it, but fits the purposes of the movie/album I guess), all the songs are great and fit within The Beatles best work!

Outstanding album; really better than other higher-profile albums like SPLHCB.

This has to be said: MMT is NOT a Beatles album. It is an American COMPILATION of Beatles music. Nothing to do with them apart from that. Since its entry to the “official canon” the attitude seems to have grown that it should be considered as if one of the UK albums that they put so much thought and effort into. Comparing it to those albums is just wrong. I love the album. It is one the great COMPILATION albums – but to see how the group wanted the music on it presented at the time, look to the UK double-ep (which is a fantastic package) and the relevant singles. However much I love it as an album, one of my big disappointments is that it made the original CD reissue series in the ’80s. That gave the impression there were 13 albums instead of 12. What would Mark have done? I would have had “Past Masters” live up to its job description – to collect ALL recordings not featured on the 12 albums they recorded and released as they envisioned them. You could then have a “Past Masters” that made sense, instead of having a big 1967-shaped hole at its centre. And if anyone’s wondering, it would easily fit. “Past Masters” is about 94 minutes, MMT 36, giving a “Past Masters” that would be around 130 minutes. Volume/Disc 1: 1962-66, Volume/Disc 2: 1967-70 (think I’ve heard that split somewhere before). A later release of MMT could have been done later, as has happened with other Capitol albums. Don’t get me wrong though, I don’t dislike the album or anything, I just dislike it’s elevated status alongside the 12 albums they did record. I dread the day when I come across a comment telling me that The Beatles never recorded a better album than “1”!

It’s a nice idea. However, having MMT incorporated into Past Masters may have meant we didn’t get the MMT artwork – the booklet is really worth having. Personally I’m glad they kept it as a standalone release, but it’s all personal preference. I do think there’s quite a big hole in PM because MMT hoovered up all the amazing 1967 singles.

True it’s technically not a Beatles album although I believe Parlophone did decide to start pressing copies of it in the U.K. at some point like it was a Beatles album. It’s a great companion album to Sgt. Pepper since those two albums basically give you 99% of their 67 output.

I totally agree, it was an EP and should have gone down in history as an EP. When they released the new 2014 mono LP set, they should included the EP and put the remaining singles Past Masters.

No I think they got it right releasing it as an album when it came time to standardise the albums throughout the world as there was packaging especially for it, and for once Capitol got it right in putting all the 1967 singles on the second side, It would have left Past/Mono Masters as lop sided from 1965 onwards with the 11 songs that are on the album.

However i do agree that they could release Magical Mystery Tour as a stand alone Double EP in both stereo and mono, and maybe release it as a twelve inch singles as well in stereo and mono. So you could have four options in which to buy it.

It’s an album. It exists today as an album because that’s what it is. So, in other words: The Beatles were wrong and Capitol was right. They knew it was an album, and it is!

Another detail to clarify who wore which animal suit…look for the wristwatch.

I got this album in June 1980. It is great that the songs on the British EP and the1967 singles and Bsides could be included on one album. It compliments Sgt Pepper in that regard. I Am The Walrus is one of my favorite songs of all time and a great example of John Lennons offbeat genius. And for that matter The Fool On The Hill is one of McCartneys finest. And then you have other masterpieces like All You Need Is Love, Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever on side two. Thats not to forget Baby Youre A Rich Man.

Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane belong on Sgt Pepper, but as usual EMI couldn’t wait and needed a single before Pepper was finished. and the Beatles didn’t put their singles on albums to that point.The iconic album would have been truly awesome with.their best two songs of 1967

Agreed, what I have done is make my own albums, So Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane are on my version of Pepper, likewise I added Rain to Revolver and removed Yellow Submarine.

I’ve done the same. Magical Mystery Tour and Yellow Submarine get spliced together as the great psychedelic afterbirth that follows Sergeant P. My version runs: Magical Mystery Tour, Baby You’re a Rich Man, Only a Northern Song, Hello Goodbye, All You Need Is Love, Flying, Your Mother Should Know, The Inner Light, Hey Bulldog, Blue Jay Way, All Together Now, I Am the Walrus, The Fool on the Hill and It’s All Too Much. I was inspired by the great article “Playing God” by Todd Burns and have similarly chopped and changed all the albums to include singles from each period. I’ve only just noticed that You Know My Name (LUTN) is missing. That might go last. I’m interested in hearing about other versions or improvements!

Havent seen the mmt movie, but excluding hello goodbye, & blue jay way its great back to back

I have the original 1967 MMT EMI in mint condition, can some one tell me the value of this record? Thanks!

Check around a little bit but I have seen a quote of up to $750 on moneymusic.com

If we allow that MMT is indeed a Beatles album, then it clearly is in their very top-most in the canon. It has at least 5 of what would be considered universally accepted of the top 25 Beatles songs of all time. SFF, AYNIL, IATW, PL, and FOTH

The first Beatle album I ever owned at the age of 13 and for that it will also have a nostalgic place in my heart.

It is fabulous. Just brilliant. Frankly, it should be seen for what it is, very serious music. Because “Strawberry Fields Forever” is so good, I really think that this is the best album of all, well, I suppose, along with “Sgt. Pepper”. “I Am the Walrus” and “Fool on the Hill’ are so good that I find myself playing this more than any other of their albums. Yes, I prefer the old vinyl one though I also have the CD and I believe the EP somewhere as well. If it is serious music you want, and not necessarily pop entertainment, then this one really stands out. Forget about the costumes, the movie, the inside information, and just focus on the 11 songs. I have no problem with any of the songs that people who have commented on dislike. It’s all great. The album version stated here to not be released was everywhere in the U. K., yes, everywhere as soon as 1968 and all through the 70’s. Import? That’s silly, since it’s their album. The cover maybe, perhaps, but certainly not the music. It’s a bit like saying an American printing of a Shakespeare play is American when the play isn’t. As for the reason I find this to be their best, well it certainly has nothing to do with the film. I’ve never seen it and that’s all right. It’s all about the brilliant music herein. Cheers!

Yeah but my question is, where are the costumes and masks today? Were they donated or does the current Beatle members have it?

A lot of you guys doesn’t have a clue about MMT. The US album was fully supported by The Beatles. Before 1967 they couldn’t do anything about Capitol’s releases, but by renewing their contract with EMI, one of their demands was that they could control releases overseas. If the Beatles had put their foot down before Capitol, the US album would not have happend. They did not.

The whole movie was a rent party. The bus, the sets, actors, costumes; all rented.Only the music was bought and paid for…by the fans. And we (Americans) didn’t even get to see the movie.

Nigel – the movie did play here in the states but probably in sporadic and random theaters. I saw it somewhere in Connecticut in the 70’s.

I was totally nuts about “I Am The Walrus” when it came out and it’s still a favorite. But beyond that I feel that the other songs from the movie (Side “A” of the US album) are collectively about the weakest material the Beatles ever put out. It feels to me as though they wanted to keep the innovation and magic of Sergeant Pepper going but were just trying too hard. Also I wonder if Brian Epstein’s death and resulting lack of “grown up” direction didn’t contribute to the muddle.

Instead of “Magical Mystery Tour” I refer to this album as “Whoa! Way Too Much Acid!”.

Did anyone know that in magical mystery tour Paul is wherein a flashers coat during the song fool on the hill and you can actually see for a fleeting moment his junk.

This was thought to be as one could not tell due to the quality of the VHS tapes .Now its on Blu ray and DVDone can tell that this information is wrong.

Really like the sound of this album. Sounds a bit like Pepper in style, without all the psychedelic organs that makes Pepper sound a bit dated. Only song I’m not a huge fan of is “Blue Jay Way” which to me, drones on a bit too long.

this, in my opinion, is the only US release that was better than the UK version! Strawberry Fields Forever, Penny Lane and I am the Walrus all on the same album!

For most of us Americans under 60, this is an album. It starts with MMT and ends with All You Need is Love. I discovered this album as an 11 year old and didnt learn until my mid 20’s that I had the compiled American release. I decided to keep my original thoughts to it. Its the MMT album! They all evoke a 1967 feel to it; psychadelia (dark & positive), wit, nostalgia, & love. It feels like a concept album (all 11 songs). Lets not put this in the same category as the Hey Jude compilation Album that includes songs from years past. Whenever i have been asked if Pepper was the best Beatles album, i often jokingly respond that its not even the best album of ’67. I love MMT.

But the point i want to remind people of are the small magical pieces between songs. They are enjoyable little treats. You could make the point that this pattern continues on side 2 with the short snippets after Hello Goodbye & Strawberry Fields Forever. That is another reason why the two sides hold nicely together.

I’m in my 70s now and I guess that’s why it’s not an album to me, just mainly a collection of songs. The fact is that by the fall of 1967 we had heard the non-film songs lots on the radio and they were completely familiar when MMT was released. The film songs (except “I Am The Walrus”) did not seem in the same league musically with the singles and therefore the whole effort seemed like a weird mashing together of unrelated elements, very much the opposite of the Beatles’ normal way of doing things. Of course I bought the album though! But when I had first heard that the Beatles would follow up Sgt. Pepper with something called “Magical Mystery Tour,” just the name conjured images of an even deeper dive into psychedelia and therefore MMT was rather a flat disappointment in that regard.

The reason John said, “The Walrus was Paul” was not because Paul was in the Walrus costume. It was because he had a mo-ped accident and grew a moustache to hide the scar. The others said he looked like a walrus, but also grew moustaches in solidarity.

No one has mentioned that US Capitol, in making MMT a full album, copied UK Parlophone’s method for their earlier soundtrack LP’s, with all the movie songs on Side 1 and all the non-movie songs from the same time-frame on Side 2.

That is interesting, but seeing as side one was the same as the British release, this could be a coincidence? But there’s equal chance it was deliberate.

In my opinion, “Magical Mystery Tour” was The Beatles at the zenith of their psychedelic phase and some of the sessions happened to coincide with the Summer of Love. John and George went into their keyboardist mode during the sessions for MMT and both of them began to write keyboard-led songs during this period, so it clearly gave them a fantastic opportunity to develop their own keyboard techniques – George went into the organ and John clearly developed a fondness for pianos, mellotrons and organs – but neither fully abandoned playing their guitars altogether. Conversely, Paul’s bass never took a back seat to guitars or keyboards, since he was easily able to overdub it whenever he needed to or if he wished to rerecord them for the final mixes. Here’s a bit of trivia: in the video for “All You Need is Love”, the mystery drummer using brushes on Ringo’s hi-hats is Keith Moon. During the psychedelic period, John, Paul and George repainted their Gibson J-160E, Rickenbacker bass and Fender Stratocaster (nicknamed Rocky) respectively in psychedelic finish and Ringo used a red front head on the bass drum of his Ludwig drum kit. So yes, it is very interesting to know what instruments were used during these creative recording sessions.

What’s not to love about this LP. The only Capitol LP that outperforms the EP.

Great write up Joe. Always enjoy your site. Truly the best Beatles Forum out there!

That’s true for a number of reasons: a) Capitol compromised by merely expanding the EP into album format by including all six tracks from the EP on side one and filling out side 2 with their singles from 1967 (“Hello Goodbye”, “Strawberry Fields Forever”, “Penny Lane”, “Baby You’re a Rich Man” and “All You Need is Love”) on side two, so this was clearly some compensation over the omission of “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Penny Lane” from “Sgt. Pepper”. b) The album was a popular import into the UK and it eventually got a British release in 1976. c) It was the officially adopted CD version in 1987 and 2009 plus it got remastered for vinyl in 2012.

I have always considered the “Magical Mystery Tour” LP a special case and the exception to the rule among the pre-Sgt. Pepper Capitol releases that The Beatles clearly disliked.

Perhaps the running order for the album version of “Magical Mystery Tour” had some influence on Simon and Garfunkel finalizing the running order for their 1968 album “Bookends”, as side one on that album was a song cycle (not a concept album, per se) and side 2 had the duo’s 1966-1967 singles and songs written by Paul Simon for the film “The Graduate”, most notably “Mrs. Robinson”.

Hairsplitting aside as to it’s official album status -this is my favorite Beatles album. There’s at least 5 masterpieces on it. It has the band at their psychedelic peak . Blue Jay Way is the only weak track but that’s made up for by the increasing fondness I have for Baby You’re a Rich Man. 5/5

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The Meaning Behind “Magical Mystery Tour” by The Beatles and the Subtext Running Just Beneath the Surface

by Jim Beviglia February 27, 2024, 8:00 am

Four individual movies about the four Beatles due in 2027? Sounds like a fascinating project, just like the one the Fab Four embarked on when they made the film Magical Mystery Tour in 1967. Although the film served as fodder for critics, the title track delivered a jolt of psychedelic energy and still stands as one of The Beatles ‘ most strikingly original singles.

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What does this song mean? What exactly is a “Magical Mystery Tour”? And why was the film that contained it one of the few artistic endeavors by The Beatles met with less than universal acclaim? Let’s take a look at the origin and meaning of this classic.

“Tour” of Duty

It’s a common misconception that The Beatles made the Magical Mystery Tour film because they insisted on pressing on with some project following the death of their manager Brian Epstein . In truth, the “Magical Mystery Tour” song sessions took place months before Epstein’s death in September 1967, and filming for the movie was already underway when he died.

In any case, Paul McCartney did indeed push for the band to continue a busy pace in 1967, perhaps to stave off the lethargy that might have accompanied their lack of touring. Hence, the sessions for “Magical Mystery Tour” took place just days after the group had put a bow on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band . McCartney explained in the Barry Miles’ book Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now what inspired the song:

“John and I remembered mystery tours, and we always thought this was a fascinating idea: getting on a bus and not knowing where you were going. Rather romantic and slightly surreal! All these old dears with the blue rinses going off to mysterious places. Generally there’s a crate of ale in the boot of the coach and you sing lots of songs. It’s a charabanc trip. So we took that idea and used it as a basis for a song and the film.”

John Lennon and McCartney wrote the song from that basic idea. The recording manages to sound both refreshingly old-fashioned, thanks to the bright, shiny brass, and eerily forward-looking, courtesy of the somewhat unsettling coda. It was yet another example of The Beatles’ ability to meld different music styles, all while keeping things undeniably catchy. The group released the song as a single in the United Kingdom to precede the film’s release, and it went to No. 2 in the British charts.

As for the film, The Beatles created a surreal pastiche that felt less like a coherent film and more like a collection of skits. Its avant-garde silliness isn’t all that unlike what Monty Python would do in the coming years. But at the time, viewers and critics were baffled. The Fab Four had to endure some of the first negative reviews of their career. The music, which included beauties like the title track, “The Fool on the Hill,” and “I Am the Walrus,” proved that they were certainly on top of their game in that department.

The Meaning of “Magical Mystery Tour”

Taken at face value, “Magical Mystery Tour” does indeed refer to a bus trip. But there’s a subtext running just below the surface that isn’t too hard to realize. The year 1967, when the song was released, stood out as a time in history when drug experimentation was running rampant through the culture. The Beatles had already used a few of their songs to promote psychedelia, including when they sang, I’d love to turn you on at the end of “A Day in the Life” to close out Sgt. Pepper’s .

That idea seems to be working its way through “Magical Mystery Tour.” McCartney, who sings the lead vocal, takes on the role of a barker trying to get crowds of people to join the traveling circus: Roll up for the magical mystery tour / Step right this way . You can certainly take it literally if you wish. But the idea of a mystery trip that’s going to take you away certainly could refer to tripping on acid or some other recreational drug.

Perhaps that’s why the movie failed. It attempted to put definitive visuals on a mind-altering journey. But it couldn’t quite capture the flights of fancy conjured by the song “Magical Mystery Tour,” which gives you the perfect soundtrack for the movie in your mind.

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Magical Mystery Tour Songs Ranked

Magical Mystery Tour  is a record by the English rock band the Beatles that was released as a double EP in the United Kingdom and an LP in the United States. It includes the soundtrack to the 1967 television film of the same name. The EP was issued in the UK on 8 December 1967 on the Parlophone label, while the Capitol Records LP release in the US occurred on 27 November and featured an additional five songs that were originally released as singles that year. In 1976, Parlophone released the eleven-track LP in the UK. Despite widespread media criticism of the Magical Mystery Tour film, the soundtrack was a critical and commercial success. In the UK, it topped the EPs chart compiled by Record Retailer and peaked at number 2 on the magazine’s singles chart (later the UK Singles Chart) behind “Hello, Goodbye”. The album topped Billboard’s Top LPs listings for eight weeks and was nominated for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1969. With the international standardization of the Beatles’ catalogue in 1987,  Magical Mystery Tour  became the only Capitol-generated LP to supersede the band’s intended format and form part of their core catalogue. Here are all of Magical Mystery Tour songs ranked.

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“I hate to put this track last, it’s a great instrumental adding new instrumentation gradually with really interesting psychedelic effects but if I have to compare with other tracks it doesn’t have same compositional quality as the other ones. I still think it’s underrated though”

10. Your Mother Should Know

“I know what some of you are saying, I understand but the melody is so goddamn awesome that it would be a disservice to put it so low. The organ is so ominous and joyful at the same time. That Bass line is awesome. Pretty underrated. This song just makes me so happy, I can’t explain it”

9. Magical Mystery Tour

“Perfect start to the album with great vocals from the whole group, McCartney shines with his bass fills in this one. This has always been a personal favourite of mine because of the structure and tempo changes”

8. Blue Jay Way

“Creepy and nightmare inducing is the best way to describe this Beatles track. I didn’t like this song initially due to the song strenuous repetition but it has grown on me. There is a flanger effect which really gives the track a serious punch especially on the drums”

See more:  The Beatles Albums Ranked

7. Baby You’re a Rich Man

“Great sing a long song with a crazy Clavioline instrumental. This song just proves how tight The Beatles were as a band with the pounding drums and the melodic bass being particular highlights”

6. The Fool On the Hill

“Great social commentary with a tasteful brass arrangement and one of Paul’s best vocal performances, whats not to love? This is the most elegantly structured song on the album, pure genius.”

5. Hello Goodbye

“Gorgeous pop song by Paul and is quite well performed as well. Ringo’s drums fills are dynamite, another reason why he is one of the best drummers. Oh and don’t forget Pauls bass arpeggios, oh and what about George’s guitar riff. I could go on but it speaks for itself”

4. All You Need Is Love

“An anthem for the hippie generation and for good reason this songs message is timeless. The string and horn arrangements are just beautiful. I feel guilty putting it this low but there is a lot of competition”

See more:  The Beatles Songs Ranked

3. Penny Lane

“That key change is the entire reason why this song is awesome. It would be good enough for the lyrics, melody or horns but that key change makes this track a home run. Awesome stuff”

2. I Am the Walrus

“Nonsense lyrics and dense production make for one of the most captivating Beatles tracks. Every member is on their A game and the psychedelic effects are the cherry on top. Its like a fucked up version of Alice in Wonderland”

1. Strawberry Fields Forever

“This must of been so bizarre when it came out in 1967. Beautiful, haunting, daring is only a few words to describe this track. Ringo’s syncopation and fills are so good on this track. Lennon said there were two songs that were from the heart. This one and Help!”

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Stereo Box / In Mono

Best New Reissue

1 of 2 Stereo Box Dots EMI Dots 2009

By Mark Richardson

September 7, 2009

In 1987, the Beatles' albums appeared on compact disc for the first time. Considering how much music had already found its way to CD, the Beatles were very late, so the digital rollout was a big deal. The new issues came out in batches and the excitement steadily built, peaking when Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band came out on June 1, 1987, the 20th anniversary of its original release ("It was 20 years ago today..." was perhaps the greatest record marketing hook of all time.) In the 22 years since, plenty of bands have had their catalogues reissued a few times over (some with ridiculous frequency-- looking at you, Bowie and Costello), either to take advantage of improvements in technology or to repackage the records to sell them again to existing fans. But those 1987 CD versions have been it as far as the original Beatles albums. They've done some special projects-- Let It Be...Naked , two volumes of The Capitol Albums , collecting American versions of their records, the remix album Love -- but if, two months ago, you wanted to buy a copy of A Hard Day's Night , you'd be getting the 1987 remaster, done with 1987 technology, complete with a flimsy, bare-bones CD insert in a jewel case.

This week, Capitol/EMI rectifies the situation. The entire Beatles catalogue has been remastered and the CDs are coming out in new editions. It is perhaps ironic that this is happening as interest in the compact disc format is on the wane, but once again Beatles fans are excited. Are they worth buying again? Over the next three days, we're going to be reviewing all of the Beatles reissues, including the Beatles Rock Band game also coming out this week. But in addition to discussing the music and the records, we wanted to take a moment here to lay out some general thoughts on the sets, with further details relegated to the proper reviews.

First, the configurations. All 12 original albums, from Please Please Me to Let It Be , have been remastered and are being issued in stereo (these are the same tracklistings as have been on CD since the 80s, including the American version of Magical Mystery Tour ). In addition, the two Past Masters CDs, which collect singles and tracks that didn't appear on the original albums, have been combined into one 2xCD set. The first four albums are appearing in stereo on CD for the first time. The packaging for all stereo CDs includes the original artwork and liner notes, along with new recording notes and a historical essay. Rather than jewel boxes, the stereo CDs are packaged in sharp-looking and durable foldout cardboard packaging. Each CD contains a short documentary in QuickTime format on the making of the album (these are said to be limited to this initial reissue).

The packaging in general is very well done; the albums feel like they were put together with care and great attention to detail. You hold one in your hand, and it feels important. I've never been a fan of the plastic jewel box, and it's wonderful that they've done away with them here. CDs slide into a little pocket, so there are no spindles to break. The liner notes are succinct and informative, they favor the factual over the hyperbolic, and they cover what should be covered. The documentaries are well done but about what you would expect: four minutes long or so, narrated with interviews with the Beatles and George Martin culled from the Anthology project, with archival photos and film footage. They're certainly nothing revelatory, but a nice intro to the world of the album for anyone unfamiliar with the details. All in all, they did the packages right.

In addition to the individual CDs, the reissues are available in two box set configurations. The Stereo Box collects the stereo versions of all the albums and adds a DVD gathering all the short documentaries in one place. In Mono -- limited, but it's not exactly clear yet how limited-- is more of a specialty item. It presents mono mixes of albums (which are available only in the box set, not for sale individually) from P**lease Please Me up through The Beatles (aka the White Album). Yellow Submarine , Abbey Road , and Let It Be were never mixed for mono, and are not included, but the set does include a 2xCD set called The Mono Masters with mono mixes of most of the singles included on Past Masters (a few of the later ones were never mixed for mono). Each record included with In Mono appears in a mini-LP replica package, accurate all the way down to the original printing on the inner sleeves (yep, you can slide the CDs in them if you want). Two discs, Help! and Rubber Soul , also contain the original stereo mixes on the same disc as the mono mixes (the 1987 CD issues were newly remixed for stereo). The original inserts included with the LPs-- the individual portraits in The Beatles , the cut-outs in Sgt. Pepper's -- are included as well. There are no CD booklets in In Mono ; rather, the set contains a separate booklet of liner notes, covering the Mono Masters set in detail, and explaining the differences between the stereo and mono mixes of the proper albums. There are also no mini-documentaries.

Why mono? Two reasons. First, pop music in stereo was still a novelty through most of the 60s. Radio was dominated by single-channel AM, and the young people who bought LPs were far more likely to have a mono record player as a sound source. Given their audience and the technology of the time, for much of the Beatles' run, the band themselves considered the mono mix as the "real" version of the record and devoted more of their attention to it. Mono mixes were prepared first with the involvement of the band, and in some cases, George Martin and EMI engineers completed stereo remixes of the albums later, after the group had left the studio. So mono, first off, presumably hews closer to the intentions of the Beatles themselves. It's what the Beatles had in mind, their vision of the records.

Secondly, since the mono and stereo mixing sessions happened at different times, there are differences between the two versions, not just in the balance of the sound but also in the actual content. Different takes were sometimes used for punching in overdubs, or an alternate vocal take might make its way into the mix. Sometimes tracks were edited differently, and would be shorter or longer, and in some cases the tape ran at a slightly different speed, changing the pitch slightly. Some of the differences are subtle, and some are not. The mono version of "Helter Skelter", to take one example, is a minute shorter, as the "false" ending fadeout is presented as the track's true ending (and it thus omits the closing scream of "I got blisters on my fingers!") The significance of these differences will depend on the level of one's Beatles fandom; of course, those shelling out for the In Mono box will likely enjoy poring over the details.

Comparing stereo and mono versions also offers an opportunity to think about changes in the technology of music listening. In the 60s, far fewer people listened to music on headphones. Music was meant to be heard through the air-- over the radio, in a car, on a jukebox, in a living room. And mono mixes were not designed with headphone listening in mind. It's been pointed out that mono records heard through headphones can sound like they are coming from a single point in the middle of your head, which can feel strange. I find that as the decade wore on and stereo mixes became more sophisticated, the Beatles' albums become less interesting on headphones when they are in mono-- the swirling pans of psychedelic material like "I Am the Walrus" or "Revolution 9" moving around are missed. From roughly Revolver forward, if I'm listening on headphones, I generally prefer the stereo mixes. Over a sound system, though, the mono mixes throughout the catalogue sound absolutely wonderful. The first four albums, however, with their extreme stereo separation, sound much better in mono in my opinion, regardless of the playback source.

In any case, the sound of these remasters, mono or stereo, is exceptional. I've always felt that the sound quality of the original 1987 remasters was slightly underrated. The CD issues were well received at the time and were considered state of the art, but as the years wore on and the label never did anything to improve them, resentment set in and people began to focus on their flaws. Fair enough. But whatever you think of the 1987 remasters, these new versions are a marked improvement. In terms of clarity and detail, they are consistently impressive. But they're also successful for showing restraint.

In the last few years, there's been a lot of talk about the "loudness war"-- the tendency to over-compress and master albums too "hot," so that dynamic range is squashed and peak-level sounds are pushed to the point of clipping. Fortunately, that has not happened here. These CD versions are definitely louder across the board, but there's still plenty of breathing room, so that the dynamic sound-- and these records were nothing if not dynamic-- hits the way they should. Interestingly, the mono mixes are uniformly a bit quieter than the stereo mixes, tending to fall somewhere between the original stereo master and the new one. To get geeky here for a moment, a few diagrams, so that you can see the increases in volume with the new set. The key when looking at waveforms is to take note of whether the peak sounds (which come closest to the volume ceiling inherent in digital audio) maintain the same relationship to the quieter sounds. I'm not an engineer, but the loudest sounds:quietest sounds ratio looks to me to be intact.

"Tomorrow Never Knows" [1987 Remaster]

"Tomorrow Never Knows" [2009 Remaster]

"Tomorrow Never Knows" [Mono]

"While My Guitar Gently Weeps" [1987 Remaster]

"While My Guitar Gently Weeps" [2009 Remaster]

"While My Guitar Gently Weeps" [Mono]

"I Want You (She's So Heavy)" [1987 Remaster]

"I Want You (She's So Heavy)" [2009 Remaster]

Listening to the new masters, the differences in sound quality generally manifest in three ways: songs have more "punch," with Paul McCartney's bass (an absolute wonder throughout) and Ringo's drums hitting with more force; the separation is better, so that instruments and (especially) layered vocals have more definition-- when the Beatles are harmonizing, you can more easily pick out the different vocalists, and the voices have more presence; and finally, the sound in general seems just a touch brighter, with various sound effects, cymbals taps, and so on, ringing with more clarity. The differences to my ears are not quite night and day, but they are certainly there, and they are noticeable. And it's satisfying to have these albums, absolutely some of the best-engineered records in the history of pop music, sounding as good as they can.

And now, onto the music. Note that, rather than doing so for individual records, we're designating the Beatles sets as a whole as "Best New Reissues".

Please Please Me

With the Beatles

A Hard Day's Night

Beatles for Sale

Rubber Soul

*Sgt. Pepper'* s Lonely Hearts Club Band

* Magical Mystery Tour *

The Beatles Rock Band

The Beatles

Yellow Submarine

* Past Masters *

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