Magical Mystery Tour

• 1. Conception And Genesis

  ›

  Paul McCartney initiated the project in April 1967 with a vision to create an unscripted film capturing a psychedelic theme. He wanted to combine Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters bus ride idea with memories of Liverpudlians holidaying on coach tours. The band began recording music for the soundtrack in late April, but the film idea then lay dormant. Instead, they continued working on songs for the United Artists animated film Yellow Submarine and prepared their appearance on the Our World satellite broadcast on the 25th of June. In late August, while attending a Transcendental Meditation seminar held by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Wales, manager Brian Epstein died of a prescription drug overdose. During a band meeting on the 1st of September, McCartney suggested they proceed with Magical Mystery Tour, which Epstein had approved earlier that year. McCartney was keen to ensure the group had a point of focus after losing their manager. His view clashed with his bandmates' wishes, as George Harrison especially wanted to pursue meditation. Publicist Tony Barrow noted McCartney envisaged the project as opening doors for him personally and establishing a new career phase where he would be the executive producer of their films. John Lennon later complained that the project reflected McCartney's tendency to want to work immediately upon having songs ready.

• 2. Recording Chaos And Techniques

  ›

  The Beatles first recorded the title song at EMI Studios in London between the 25th of April and the 3rd of May. An instrumental jam was recorded on the 9th of May for possible inclusion in the film, although it was never completed. According to historian Mark Lewisohn, the sessions began in earnest on the 5th of September, while filming started on the 11th of September. The two activities became increasingly intertwined during October. Most of the 16th of September session was dedicated to taping a basic track for McCartney's Your Mother Should Know, only for McCartney to then decide to return to the version he had previously discarded from 22, the 23rd of August. These latter sessions marked the Beatles' first recording in close to two months and took place at Chappell Recording Studios in central London since they were unable to book EMI at short notice. Many biographers characterize the group's post-Sgt. Pepper recording sessions of 1967 as aimless and undisciplined. George Martin, the group's producer, chose to distance himself from their work at this time, saying much of the Magical Mystery Tour recording was disorganized chaos. Ken Scott, who became their senior recording engineer during the sessions, recalled that the Beatles had taken over things so much that he was more their right-hand man than George Martin's. Early pre-overdub mixes of some film songs were prepared on the 16th of September before the band performed music sequences during a six-day shoot at RAF West Malling. The recording sessions continued alongside editing of the film footage, which took place in an editing suite in Soho and was mostly overseen by McCartney.

• 3. Songwriting And Musical Analysis

  ›

  Author Mark Hertsgaard highlights I Am the Walrus as the fulfillment of the band's guiding principle during the sessions: to experiment and be different. To satisfy Lennon's request that his voice should sound like it came from the moon, engineers gave him a low-quality microphone to sing into and saturated the signal from the preamp microphone. In addition to the song's string and horn arrangement, Martin wrote a score for sixteen backing vocalists known as the Mike Sammes Singers. Their laughter, exaggerated vocalizing, and other noises evoked the LSD-inspired mood that Lennon sought for the piece. The orchestral arrangement and vocal score were recorded on a separate four-track tape, which Martin and Scott then manually synchronized with the tape containing the band's performance. The track was completed with Lennon overdubbing live radio signals found at random, finally settling on a BBC Third Programme broadcast of Shakespeare's The Tragedy of King Lear. Blue Jay Way features extensive use of three studio techniques employed by the Beatles over 1966, 67: flanging, an audio delay effect; sound-signal rotation via a Leslie speaker; and reversed tapes in the stereo mix only. A recording of the completed track was played backwards and faded in at key points during the performance, creating an effect where backing vocals appear to answer each line of Harrison's lead vocal in the verses. Due to multitracking limits, feeding in reversed sounds was carried out live during the final mixing session. A tape loop of decelerated guitar sounds was used on The Fool on the Hill to create a swooshing bird-like effect towards the end of that song.

• 4. Packaging And Visual Identity

  ›

  The Beatles decided to package the two EPs in a gatefold sleeve with a 24-page booklet as part of the unusual format. The record's cover featured a photo of the band members in animal costumes taken during the shoot for I Am the Walrus. This marked the first time that the band members' faces were not visible on one of their EP or LP releases. The booklet contained song lyrics, photographer John Kelly's color stills from the filming, and color story illustrations in comic strip style by Beatles Book cartoonist Bob Gibson. It was compiled by Barrow with input from McCartney. Film studies academic Bob Neaverson later commented that while it certainly solved the song quota problem, one suspects it was also partly born of the Beatles' pioneering desire to experiment with conventional formats and packaging. When preparing the US release, Capitol enlarged the photos and illustrations to LP size inside a gatefold album sleeve. The cover design was done by John Van Hamersveld, head of Capitol's art department, working from artwork sent from EMI in London. He recalled that Capitol's vice-president of distribution was concerned about how to market a record where the Beatles' faces were hidden behind their costumes since cover portraits had been key to the group's success in the US. Van Hamersveld therefore augmented the underground graphic cover image with a design concept that highlighted the songs. Gould described the LP cover as having the garish symmetry of a movie poster through the combination of the Beatles' animal costumes, the rainbow film logo, and song titles rendered in art-deco lettering amid a border of op-art clouds.

• 5. Commercial Release And Chart Performance

  ›

  Magical Mystery Tour was issued in the UK on the 8th of December, the day after opening their Apple Boutique in central London, and just over two weeks before the film was broadcast by BBC Television. It retailed at the sub-£1 price of 19s 6d. In Britain only, the film was then screened on Boxing Day to an audience estimated at 15 million. It was savaged by reviewers, giving the Beatles their first public and critical failure. As a result, the American broadcaster withdrew its bid for local rights, and the film was not shown there at the time. In its first three weeks on sale in the US, Magical Mystery Tour set a record for highest initial sales of any Capitol LP. It was number 1 on Billboard's Top LPs listings for eight weeks at the start of 1968 and remained in the top 200 until the 8th of February 1969. The EP sold over 500,000 copies in the UK. Walter Everett highlights its chart performance as a significant achievement given that the EP's retail price far exceeded that of singles with which it competed. As an American import, the Capitol album release peaked on Record Retailer LPs chart at number 31 in January 1968. In the US, the album sold 1,936,063 copies by the 31st of December 1967 and 2,373,987 copies by the end of the decade. The EP topped Billboards Top LPs listings for eight weeks and was nominated for Grammy Award for Album of Year in 1969.

• 6. Critical Reception And Legacy

  ›

  Reviewing the EP a month before the film's screening, Nick Logan of NME enthused that the Beatles were stretching pop music to its limits. He continued: The four musician-magicians take us by hand and lead us happily tripping through clouds into sun-speckled glades along Blue Jay Way. Bob Dawbarn of Melody Maker described the EP as six tracks no other pop group could approach for originality combined with popular touch. Among reviews of the American LP, Mike Jahn of Saturday Review hailed Magical Mystery Tour as the Beatles' best work yet, superior to Sgt. Pepper in emotion and depth. Richard Goldstein of The New York Times rued that new songs furthered gap between true rock values and studio effects. Rex Reed of HiFi/Stereo Review wrote scathing critique deriding group's farcical bellowing and confused musical ideas. In his May 1968 column in Esquire, Robert Christgau considered three of new songs disappointing among which The Fool on Hill may be worst song Beatles ever recorded. AllMusic critic Richie Unterberger opines psychedelia is even spacier in parts than on Sgt. Pepper but there's no vague overall conceptual thematic unity to material. Scott Plagenhoef of Pitchfork describes EP-exclusive tracks as low key marvels while album lacks progressive quality from band previous work.