Alternate Beatles Singles of the 90's

The 90's culminated in the release and production of the Beatles Anthology, which compiled numerous previously bootlegged production and studio material, previously never officially released, into 3 CD's*. However there's much more bootleg material that's never seen official release.

As part of Anthology, the remaining "Threetles" took unfinished recordings made by John Lennon, and set about finishing them as a group and releasing them as singles. Two were released, being "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love". No single was released for Anthology 3.

Given that there's numerous materials that were never finished and could have been worked on in a similar way, what are some of the unfinished songs by members of the Beatles which could have been completed and released in similar fashion?


*which seem to cost a bloody arm and a leg when I go to buy them, but no matter.
 

Thande

Donor
The 90's culminated in the release and production of the Beatles Anthology, which compiled numerous previously bootlegged production and studio material, previously never officially released, into 3 CD's*.

Strictly speaking it's three double CD sets so 6 CDs.

I'm not sure if it's because the original Lennon recording was of higher quality or improvements in the studio technique, but Real Love is a far superior cobbling-together than the better-known Free As A Bird, so perhaps any subsequent adaptations would continue to rise in sound quality.
 
The technical and digital capabilities at the time the anthology project was undertaken (1993 - 96) for cleaning up and enhancing the original Lennon demo tapes were in their infancy, although these were a marked improvement over previous analogue methods which basically applied a high pass frequency filter to cancel out noise and then some dabbling and tweaking of the EQ to give alittle solidity to the vocal, if at the expense of the bass frequencies.

Real Love is an oddity as the remaining Beatles chose to speed up the original tape by a semi-tone (~12%) to allow a snappier beat but this evidently gave Lennon a chipmunk-esque tone and subsequent fan efforts have restored the original pitch and frankly, once you hear it in the intended key, you never wanna hear the official release again.

The honest opinion was and still is 'well done lads but it's time to leave it alone'. George Harrison was uncomfortable working on the third of four intended songs named 'Grow Old With Me' and the project was shelved. To this day, I find the whole idea unsettling as Lennon intended these songs as his own, regardless of the presumption of validity that having the 'Threetles' working on them to completion would bring. 'Grow Old With Me' is so clearly a solo Lennon track and I really can't imagine he'd have had much joy in finding out the battling former members of a band he was in when he just a lad had went off and added some lurching and sterile backing to his very personal and moving songs.

But... for sake of the timeline, the ability to clean up and enhance the demos would be significantly better in the modern era and I'd envision a remaster of the mid-90's tracks IF the remaining Beatles had went ahead and completed another two songs.

I've worked on the original demos myself and I had them in pretty good shape. If only I had access to the 'Threetles' instrumention tracks, they might've turned out alright.

If John Lennon had lived, there would be no anthology though as he was already planning a similar project to coincide with a few live performances of a reunited Beatles and I presume maybe a few new tracks. At least it would give him an excuse to swat down McCartney's more... obtuse 80's efforts.
 
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They could have released the previously unreleased Carnival of Light, which I believe all four Beatles were on. The only problem is that I hear Carnival of Light is Revolution 9 2.0. :p
 
They could have released the previously unreleased Carnival of Light, which I believe all four Beatles were on. The only problem is that I hear Carnival of Light is Revolution 9 2.0. :p

Yes, from what I've read, it's suppossed to be the most fucked up song the Beatles ever recorded. I think I read Paul was going to release it a few years ago, but I'm not sure if he did.
 
The problem is of course, in an alternate timeline, The Beatles release a far more comprehensive boxset of their recordings and everyone moans about the inclusion of so many similar takes and half-baked song ideas.

Carnival of Light would be a highlight of how 'out there' yet scattered the band members were becoming.
 
The problem is of course, in an alternate timeline, The Beatles release a far more comprehensive boxset of their recordings and everyone moans about the inclusion of so many similar takes and half-baked song ideas.

Carnival of Light would be a highlight of how 'out there' yet scattered the band members were becoming.

I think the market anthology targeted would love a comprehensive box set. That's why bootlegs of the Beatles are extremely prominent and were an industry in and of themselves before the internet....and even after the internet.

Take this fan project which, like anthology, finishes Beatle (group and solo career) songs:
http://www.youtube.com/user/gaius476

Or this, which rather extensively takes similar products and cleans them up:
http://www.youtube.com/user/faydajova

A lot of stuff which is not crap.
 
Thank the maker that they would relentlessly pursue take after take to nail the perfect version, some of these alternate takes and versions are bloody awful.
 

Thande

Donor
There are some bits in the earlier takes of Eight Days a Week and A Hard Day's Night, to name two, that I wish had survived to the final versions.
 
A popular song which was worked on for the third Anthology, but abandoned, was "Now and Then" (also known as "I Don't Want to Lose You" or "Miss You"). It was abandoned as it required too much work. There's actually been a few fan attempts to finish it off which can be found on youtube.

There's a few others I knew once I can't recall now.
 
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