The Beatles Rarity Of The Week
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This week BROW takes a look at the first Beatles 45 of 1968. John Lennon wanted it to be his new tune called Across The Universe but was eventually outvoted. Lady Madonna was recorded on February 3, 1968 just before The Beatles went to India to study transcendental meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The brass overdubs were then added on February 6th. There is an entire brass section of four saxophones on the recording with jazzman Ronnie Scott leading. The song was penned by Paul McCartney who mentioned that it was based largely on an old song called Bad Penny Blues; a minor hit for Humphrey Littleton in 1956 that was also produced by George Martin. The master heard on the official version was take 3 of 5 takes. This one is most likely take 4 or 5 and has some voice-over added to the original recording in spots. It was the last single by The Beatles in America to appear on the Capitol label. Their next single, Hey Jude, would later in the year appear on their new Apple label. The B-side of the Lady Madonna 45 was George Harrison's Indian influenced track The Inner Light and this was the first time one of George's appeared on a Beatles single. While the single topped the charts in the UK, it only reached number 2 on the Record World and Cash Box charts in America and number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100. But, I ask, who cares about these charts anyway? Not me.
The American Lady Madonna 45 picture sleeve, 1968
This week's BROW is proudly brought to you from my collection of 6916 Beatles-related recordings. If you want to make a suggestion for a future Beatles Rarity of the Week, let me hear from you. To help you decide what you'd like to hear you can visit my Beatles collection web site (www.MyBeatlesCollection.com) and hit the "Tracks" button and search my collection, then let me know what you'd like me to feature.
Comments (3)
My condolences to those out there who thought I just might post a rare version of Paul & Michael doing The Girl Is Mine or Say Say Say.
Let 'em stay rare. I was unaware that Across The Universe was considered as a single. While I also love Lady Madonna, I feel that Universe is the stronger song, and has held up better over the last 40 years.
Universe was an ingeniously written song that was never given the attention it deserved and was never recorded well by The Beatles. John's mentioned in several interviews how his guitar isn't even properly tuned on the official version. Madonna was agreed to be the more "commercial" track and that is what they are looking for in singles.