Goodbye - McCartney’s demo enhanced

In 2000, John Weber and John Camatelfoo (both guys hail from a Beatles fan forum) took me up on a project to augment unreleased Beatles demos.  They decided to enhance Paul Mccartney’s 1968 demo ‘Goodbye’.  This was a song that Paul gave away to Mary Hopkins.

I loved the results - though as John Weber acknowledged, the drums could have been better.  And with the resources and time, real horns would have been nice.  It’s still exceptional work.  John Camatelfoo’s Beatlesque harmonies are legendary. And he doesn’t fail to disappoint on this track.  In all my years, I’ve never heard better sounding fab four type backing harmonies.  It’s as if John and George are backing Paul on this track.

And thanks Robert (allabest) for putting together this excellent video.

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Here Today - My Favourite McCartney Song

Well *maybe* my favourite.

I have always loved the rare personal lyrics from Paul in this 1982 track. It was written in the aftermath of John’s passing. Read more

The Beatles, 5 Great Unreleased Songs

With the successful Anthology project wetting the musical taste buds of fab four fans across the world, we got to wondering what else is left in the vaults at Abbey Road. And here are some of our favorites. Read more

The Beagles

The name’s Shep and I’m a collie from Ireland. You may have heard of me.

When I was young pup, me and my mates Jessie, Rosco, Paws and Piddles, would all hang around my back yard waiting for the highlight of our day, the arrival of the postman. This went on for some considerable time. Then one day I asked myself ’surely there must be more to life than this’ Read more

Beatles, Eleanor Rigby

The actual genesis of the song existed as ‘Miss Daisy Hawkins’, which Paul invented at the piano one evening. He further worked on the composition, apparently inventing the entire melody, and had the idea of a lonely woman whose only participation in a wedding would be to pick up the rice after it was over, i.e. a janitress. One story attributes the Read more

A Day in the Life

It appears to me that “A Day In The Life” would be a perfect candidate for cross-generational appeal. It’s about a topic that seems to touch just about every disaffected soul, no matter what their age. And it’s less important what the historical references are than how the singer/ protagonist responds *to* them. John’s ironic ennui sculpts Read more

Two of us

Paul had pretty definite ideas about this one…and far be it from me to contradict him. After all, the man knows for whom, presumably, he writes a song. And Paul was adamant that “Two Of Us” was for Linda Eastman, his then-recent girlfriend, soon-to-be wife. That’s what he told journalist Ray Coleman. But Paul had one remarkable gift Read more