Secret Beatles Songs #2

Some of you might remember a post I wrote about rare andhard-to-find Beatles songs.  I say this because I wrote the post last week.  Here’s more tunes to play out of YouTube because you’re sick of iTunes.

1968: The Beatles launched their own record label, Apple Records, featuring their own new releases, plus albums and singles from Welsh songstress Mary Hopkin and Liverpudlian Jackie Lomax.  Both of them required instrumental backing and producing/writing guidance.  In Lomax’s case, his first disk was “Sour Milk Sea,” a rocking George Harrison tune written in India and featuring a band of George, Nicky Hopkins, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and Eric Clapton.  Not bad, except the tune got lost in the shuffle when it was released the same day as mega-hits “Hey Jude” and Hopkin’s “Those Were the Days.”  The Beatles recorded an acoustic demo of “Sour Milk Sea” for possible inclusion on the White Album, and an enterprising music-lover with too much time on his hands (trust me, it’s a him) has combined George Harrison’s demo vocal with the rocking backing track from Lomax’s single.  Find it on YouTube!

1969: Every Christmas from 1963-69, the Beatles would put out a flexi disc (those wobbly, plastic things you’d see in magazines), with best wishes, some off-key singing, etc. By 1968, they couldn’t be bothered to trot down to the studio and put things together, so DJ Kenny Everett visited each group member, rolled tape, then edited it all together. Paul’s contribution in 1969 was a Christmas song, which an enterprising YouTuber (Sum Yun Gi?) has edited together. It’s catchy, too.

1970: Mary Hopkin’s first single to miss the British Top 10, “Que Sera Sera” was produced by Paul McCartney and apparently features just him, Ringo Starr and (supposedly) George Harrison.  The track sounds like it could have easily slotted on “Abbey Road” with more overdubs.  Hopkin fever-CATCH IT!

1970: “It Don’t Come Easy” said everyone alive then.  War raged overseas, and gas had soared to 36 cents per gallon.  Apollo 13 nearly met with disaster.  Heather Graham was born, which almost balances the Beatles breaking up.  Anyhow, Ringo Starr had a big hit with his first single, “It Don’t Come Easy,” which the label said he wrote.  Labels don’t lie, but in this case, I wonder… a demo emerged about 15 years ago, which features the recording of this tune that we all know, except with George Harrison singing!  It’s otherwise identical to the released version (although there are more prominent “Hare Krishna” backing vocals, and a few measures were edited out here and there for a better flow on the released version).  Published reports and foggy memories say the band consists of Ringo, George and (possibly) Eric Clapton, Stephen Stills, Klaus Voorman and Tom Evans and Pete Ham of Badfinger.