Monkberry Loon? Delight!

“All these things will happen it time because you just can’t do it all at once. We are preparing these things, there’s work that people have done, but I just don’t want to flood everyone with THE BEATLES’ products”, said Paul McCartney in our recent interview. Did the graceful knight mean then that one of these would be THE BEATLES’ infamous “Carnival Of Light” avant-garde endeavor? It seems Paul has nothing more interesting to do than launch into revisionism. Sporadic gigging? It’s OK with us. Unveiling his part in the “Fireman” project (as if nobody knew Macca was in it!)? Let the big boy play if he wants to! But treading back on The Fabs’ route feels like a faux pas.

Not that we talk something sacrilegious but the legacy is legacy, and those who’s not into bootlegs had a nice peek behind the scenes with the “Anthology” three-volume release. That was a bit unfair, too… what with splicing the broken second and the master takes of “Yes It Is”, thus giving the false impression of the song being still unfinished in the process of recording while there is a complete take 1; and then why there was the tripled vocal track left of “Because” and not stripped down to the original three-part harmony? Unlike McCartney here, Yoko Ono didn’t embellish anything on “The Lennon Anthology”. But all right, that was adding to the legacy not taking from it. Which can’t be said of “Let It Be… Naked”.

Paul has always voiced his displeasure with Phil Spector’s job on the original album, yet why we have to deal with his wish, not the others’ who said it was OK? With George Harrison alive, Macca could hardly get away with this version of ‘Let It Be” – and it was George, by the way, who vetoed the inclusion of “Carnival Of Light” into “Anthology”. If anything, there were two Glyn Johns’ versions of THE BEATLES’ last album, initially titled “Get Back”. But no, it’s Paul McCartney who has to have a last say on everything now. There are some Fabs’ things awaiting re-issue, so why dig something so self-indulgent? Isn’t it Looney tuning, eh?

DME