Paul McCartney Hopes To Release 14-Minute Beatles Track

LONDON — Paul McCartney says it's time an experimental Beatles track saw the light of day.

McCartney says he wants to release "Carnival of Light," a 14-minute experimental track the Fab Four recorded in 1967 but never released.

The band played the recording for an audience just once, at an electronic music festival in London. It reportedly includes distorted guitar, organ sounds, gargling and shouts of "Barcelona!" and "Are you all right?" from McCartney and John Lennon.

McCartney said during a recording session at Abbey Road studios he asked the other members of the band to "just wander round all of the stuff and bang it, shout, play it. It doesn't need to make any sense."

"I like it because it's The Beatles free, going off piste," he told the BBC in a radio interview to be broadcast Thursday. Extracts of the interview were published Sunday in The Observer newspaper.

McCartney said he still had a master tape of the piece and "the time has come for it to get its moment."

McCartney, usually regarded as the most melodically minded Beatle, told the BBC he had a long-standing interest in avant-garde music. He said "Carnival of Light" was inspired by experimental composers John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen.

He said he had wanted to include the track on the Beatles' "Anthology" compilation, but was vetoed by his bandmates.

McCartney would need permission from Ringo Starr and the widows of Lennon and George Harrison to release the track.

Comments

[Larkinvos]

This piece has been unreleased since 1967, FOR A REASON.

[sasson]

Smile was not released for almost the same amount of time, and it definitely was not because it was not good.
1. Yes, I know that the released recording was a new recording
2. And that many of the songs had been released already in some form
3. And that it went unreleased for a completely different reason.

That said, I hope Paul lets this see the light of day.

[RedDogBear]

No one is expecting it to be Hey Jude but for die hard fans it could still be quite interesting. I'm hoping its more like Revolution 9 (freaky but interesting) rather than You know my name (just a throw away good for a laugh). I suspect its more the latter but anything unheard from them will be worth hearing at least once.

[gotgat54]

Tell you what. Don't buy it. FOR THE SAME REASON.

[Billlll]

Wow, what's with you people? This is of the central figures of the Beatles, the group that gave us so much amazing stuff. And what they gave us keeps on evolving nearly 40 years after they broke up. If Paul McCartney says he has 14 minutes of something interesting, I say "Hit play, and let's see." It may be a "stinker" as you say but it may be great. And what have any of YOU generated of lasting value? You're probably the same no-talents who keep saying the Stones should stop touring because they're so old. These are the masters of a musical form, creators of dozens of classic songs. Why do you want them to stop? Why do you want them to go away? I don't. I want them to keep on until they literally can't do it anymore.

[cyberwanderer]

If all proceeds go to charity, release it, I say. Why not?

But if it's being released for profit, it's a sell out. If it wasn't good enough 40 years ago, to release it now seems unfair to John and George.

Who wants their mistakes revealed to the world once they are dead? Hands up...

[unscum]

Yawn, when is this guy going to go away.

[Kenji]

You first.

[grailknight]

Could this be Paul's version of a proto-No.9? Will this contain clues of Paul's "death?"

[SkuddGobang]

The album by John and Yoko called "Two Virgins" sounds like the set up all their gear, pressed "record" on the tape machine, turned off the lights and then walked around in the dark and bumped into things.

I'd wager they sold about a million of those stinkers.

From Paul's description, I'd say Carnival Of Light would be comparable in both historic relevance (high) and enjoyability (non-existent).

[beckpod1]

"Brown Shoes Don't Make It", a Frank Zappa mini opera..(from "Absoutely Free")and the theme is still potent today! Around 1966 pop songs evolved into a longer form..Buffalo Springfield's "Broken Arrow", the Who's "A Quick One",Beatles "A Day In The Life", Jimmy Webb's"McAurthor's Park...and later Jimi Hendrix's "1983". Of course this all lead to the full-blown Who's "Tommy" and "Quadrophenia"..."the Wall" and the concept albums! All of this is lost...we live on disposable hits!
I just hope this Beatle's "Carnival of Light"isn't like..."Revolution #9(only song on the "White Album I won't listen to).
Beatles became the best studio band in the world...and they experimented...that's cool!
A rock album used to be a collection of songs...same as an artist displaying a group of paintings!
Now it's one hit and garbage!!!!

[RobinLandseadel]

Try Beck. No one-hit-wonder he, and quite the experimentalist as well.

[NoSillyName]

Just don't confuse him with JEFF BECK.

[Bitsko]

So what does Ringo think? Weren't the Beatles just Ringo's backing band?

[PlanetK27]

Canuknotusa...
For the period of 1964 to 1971 ... who dominated the music landscape better than the Beatles? Any Canadian bands?

[NoSillyName]

Lighthouse... blah.

Rush.

um....

[RobinLandseadel]

The Kinks did some miraculous things back in the day.

Then there's that Zimmerman dude. But somehow, sometime or another, they all wanted some claim to Karlheinz Stockhausen's music. Weird.

[cyberwanderer]

The Guess Who outsold the Beatles in 1970.

[spiderbucket]

And they have to play fairgrounds now to make a living.

[NoSillyName]

One Hit Wonders.

[Canuknotusa]

In the long run - the beatles will be little more than a footnote in music history.

Only those who haven't got a clue would care about this story.

[sasson]

You are kidding, right. Name one other band that was both the best at what they did and the most popular and generally the most unique?

[Navy26Yrs]

Canuexplain yourself? Individual opinion of the fab four are too numerous two count. But yours of course is a small piece of the pi. Keep listnun though. You may eventually come 'round yetty.

[pizzmoe]

Could you possibly write a more clueless comment?

[RobinLandseadel]

Led Zep, and their time is gonna come. . .

But the Beatles were toppermost of the poppermost.

[ChimpNchief]

People like yourself are not qualified to comment on musical topics. Some semblance of intelligence is required and you don't have any. The Beatles will be remembered long after you're gone.

[NoSillyName]

Bullsh*t, they were groundbreaking at the time. Where were you in '64?

[ChimpNchief]

Probably wasn't born till 84'. Would explain the stupidity.

[brooklyncitizen]

Silly post.

[RobinLandseadel]

Uh. . .

I have a clue. I've recorded famous conductors, world-renowned Divas, great pianists and chamber musicians, world class specialists in Early and Avante Garde music. And by and large they love the Beatles. Seriously. And "Carnival of Light" is a big deal. To these people. Really.

[Prefabfan]

The story stinks, something is false about it. Beatles playing at an electronic muxic festival?? NEVER Happened. There may be such a cut, but they never played it live. It is most likely noise like "What's the New Mary Jane" or the mellotron music "Jesse's Dream" from Magical MT, still unreleased. I have over ten hours of unreleased JGP&Ringo,and have never heard this musical unicorn. I have heard rumors of it, but the deceased person who outed their unrelelased catalogue would have outed this cut. Just like the live Hamburg "new cuts" that never surfaced, but turned out to be old cuts not sung by the Beatles, this will either never pan out or will turn out to be something unlistenable, ala the 16 minute Helter Skelter.

[BushBites]

It doesn't say they played the song at the festival.

It says they played the "recording" at the festival.

[MalMNN]

McCartney was commisioned to write an electonic piece for a festival at the Roundabout Theatre and asked his bandmates on Jan 5, 1967 for help, Carnival of Light is the result.

http://www.musicnewsnet.com/2008/11/paul-mccartney-prepared-to-release-experimantal-beatles-tune.html

[RobinLandseadel]

"The most emotionally wrenching piece of musique concrete I've ever heard is The Beatles's Revolution 9 in "The White Album;' a brilliant collage of orchestras, voices, sound effects, backwards tapes, and that infamous disembodied voice repeating "number nine" over and over (+CapitoI46443, 2CO). It's an unsettling kaleidoscope of the heightened emotions of 1968, a direct stylistic descendant of Orpheus, that no contemporary music fan should miss. . ."

From: the "Third Ear, The Essential Listening Companion-Classical Music" a collection of reviews of classical music on record. The section on electronic music is the biggest and best I've seen in any publication of this type. I've heard a lot of 'musique concrete' and the reviewer is right. I'd love to hear McCartney's musical thoughts on the subject.

[WillG60]

The Beatles as a band and as men were and are contradictions. The new Lennon biography,
most of which I imagine is true, people grab and eat up for the gossip and condemn Lennon.
His way with women was worthy of condemnation, but we can't take people from the past and
impose present-day standards on them. That removes their lives from context and great men
as I once wrote in an award-winning essay on Thomas Jefferson are more contradictory than
most others and in the very areas we would expect better of them. As for "Carnival of Light" --
let's have a listen! Give it a chance (sounds familiar). Who knows how good or bad it may be
though I'll take the worst of the Beatles over the best of many other artists.

[filo]

The long and winding song ??

[stardot]

Wow. Memories of a bygone time...

Zappa and the Mothers of Invention released an awesome album called "Freak Out" which I owned when it was new, and haven't heard of in a lifetime since.

It had songs like "The Return of The Son Of Monster Magnet", "Help, I'm a Rock" and my favorite of the bunch, "Suzy Creamcheese". In the lyrics it asked the question "Suzy? Suzy Creamcheese? What's got into you?"

I have a pretty good collection of Zappa vinyl to this day, and haven't ever found "Freak Out" again.

I seem to recall we originally got it by joining the "Columbia Record Club" for the 5 free albums or whatever the deal was.

[metropixie]

Freak Out is available on CD and has been for many years. http://zappa.com has a wealth of information.

[sasson]

It was the first Zappa album I ever had, but it doesn't compare to WE're only in it for the money.

[jotunloki]

Suzy Creamcheese was/is one of my favorite Mothers songs.

[filo]

Call any vegetable.....and the chances are goooood ....

[NoSillyName]

I still have mine.

[BushBites]

I used to think that rock bands were very avant garde when they did stuff like that.

Then I learned that Jazz Muscians were doing it in the 50s and some classical composers were doing it even before that.

It's like Lou Reed said about his Metal Machine Music album. Everybody in the rock world was shocked by it, but he was influenced by Ornette Coleman, who was doing something similar years before, so it didn't seem weird to him at all.

[susiesorority]

Speaking of LR and Ornette Coleman any Sirius subscribers out there wondering where his show went ??