http://abbeyrd.best.vwh.net/carnival.htm
"Carnival of Light" The history of the Beatles' most mysterious unreleased track
"The now famous Abbey Road studio tour in 1983 and the Anthology series that was finally realized in 1995 has allowed the public at large to hear unreleased Beatles studio material.
But there is an additional unreleased track that was given its world premiere during a two-day event -- when it could have been heard by anyone present -- and has not been heard since. It's the 1967 track, "Carnival of Light," perhaps the Beatles' most significant experiment in the avant-garde.
The track was created for "The Carnival of Light Rave," an event held at the Roundhouse Theater Jan. 28 and Feb. 4, 1967, and promoted by underground designers Binder, Edwards and Vaughan, who had been hired by Paul McCartney to decorate one of his pianos (similar to the decorated piano seen on Paul's '89 tour).
The trio invited Paul to create a track for the event. Although John's avant-garde's work with Yoko is well-known, McCartney had experimented with avant-garde music also, and it was McCartney who instigated the recording session for the track.
It was recorded on Jan. 5, 1967 during a five-hour session that also included vocal overdubs for the then-unreleased "Penny Lane."
According to descriptions of the session from Record Collector magazine and by Mark Lewisohn, the four-track recording begins with track one as basic drums and organ rhythm backing and track two as sound effects and distorted guitar.
Track three consisted of John and Paul screaming like "demented old women", according to one account, with John crying "Barcelona!" while Paul screams, "Are you alright?," with added whistling and water gargling. Track four had more sound effects, tambourine shaking and tape echo. The track ended with Paul shouting, "Can we hear it back now?"
The 13-minute, 48-second track was mixed down to mono and a copy was given to Binder, Edwards and Vaughan. It was used for this one event and hasn't been heard in public since. Those attending reportedly thought it was an excellent piece of '60s avant-garde music, but Beatles producer George Martin felt it was a waste of time.
"This is ridiculous. We've got to get our teeth into something a little more constructive," Martin told Geoff Emerick during the recording session.
They did, and in very short order. The next day, they went back to work on "Penny Lane."
UPDATE: The August '96 issue of MOJO says that Paul McCartney is considering releasing "Carnival of Light" as the sound track to an experimental film he's making using images of the Beatles. The film would be similar to one he made about the Grateful Dead using Linda's photos.
UPDATE, April 2002: The Rockingvicar.com recently put up a short interview with Paul McCartney discussing this unreleased track. We reprint it here in its entirety by kind permission of The Rocking Vicar. Unique rock'n'roll stories emailed free every week. Autosubscribe at
http://www.rockingvicar.com.
Exclusive! Lost Beatle Track Unearthed!Deep-end Beatles obsessives like myself have lost a fair amount of sleep over the years fantasing about the possible existence of Carnival Of Light, the highly legendary "lost" Fabs outtake. Although no-one has ever heard it - it remains intruigingly unbootlegged - the song merits a fairly substantial footnote in Ian Macdonald's stupendous "Revolution In The Head" and was even logged in the Abbey Road session notes as having been taped in Studio 2 on January 5 1967, smack in the middle of several attempts to nail down Penny Lane. But no Beatle, to my knowledge, has ever gone on record to offer any official insight. Until now!
I was interviewing McCartney this week in his London office - where the album collection, incidentally, includes "The Vocal Selections Of Fats Domino" and the musical "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" - and was at that point of the encounter where you're almost being physically dragged out of the door as there's another interviewer waiting in the wings, and I decided to pop the all-important question. And managed to solicit the following for Rocking Vicar who, I rather suspect, are the sole community of individuals on God's earth who might be genuinely interested. Here follows what may well be the first parish world exclusive!
RockingVicar: Just one last question - "Carnival Of Light," does it actually exist?
Paul McCartney: It does exist, yeah. We recorded it in about fifteen minutes. It's very avant garde - as George would say 'avant garde a clue' - and George did not like it 'cos he doesn't like avant garde music .
RV: Who wrote it?
PM: It's officially me. I instigated it. No there's no lyrics, it's avant garde music. You would class it as ... well you wouldn't class it actually, but it would come in the Stockhausen/John Cage bracket ... John Cage would be the nearest . It's very free-form. Yeah man, it's the coolest piece of music since sliced bread!
RV: This is early '67?
PM: I was asked about '67 to do it by Barry Miles - you know, who did my book Many Years From Now - and he asked me to do it for this event at The Roundhouse called Carnival Of Light, so that's how it got its title. And he asked me to write a fifteen to twenty minute piece, and I was into that kind of thing, not on record with The Beatles, but just for that. I went into the studio and said to the guys, Look we've got half an hour before the session officially starts, would you mind terribly if I did this thing?
RV: So this is with the other Beatles?
PM: With the other Beatles. This is a Beatle record. And they all just fell in with the spirit of it and I just said, Would you go on that and would you stay on that and would you be on that and we'll just take twenty minutes to do it in real time? And they all just got into it.
RV: Why don't you release it?
PM: I actually have a project I would like ... I'm involved ... One of the many things I did, I did a thing called The Grateful Dead Photo Film, using Linda's snapshots and making them move, dissolving between them and making them into a film, a short art film, which I showed at festivals and things. And I'm actually in the process - although everything else and its uncle is holding it up - but I've got a Beatles photo film on the go and I would love to use it as part of the soundtrack of that.
RV: There was a rumour it was going to come out on Anthology. What happened with that?
PM: It was up for consideration on The Anthology and George vetoed it. He didn't like it. Maybe its time hadn't come.
Update (3/16/04) Here's a very interesting email we received out of the blue. Just call it "another clue for you all." It was sent by Dudley Edwards:
To put the record straight...
I am the 'Edwards' of Binder Edwards & Vaughan who were responsible for staging 'The Million Volt Light and Sound Rave' otherwise known as the 'Carnival of Light' that you refer to.
The avant-garde track you refer to did not contain a version of 'Penny Lane' but Paul singing 'Fixing a Hole' on the piano. The tape was taken to America by one Ray Anderson (who was brought over from the States to assist us with the light show). I have no knowledge of what happened to it after that.
Paul's electronic experiments were played along with tapes from 'Unit Delta Plus' an offshoot of the BBCs Radiophonic workshop. Regards,
Dudley.
[size=9]Sources: "The Beatles Recording Sessions" by Mark Lewisohn
Record Collector magazine, June '93 issue
"Paul McCartney: From Liverpool to Let It Be" by Howard A. DeWitt[/size]"
from here: http://abbeyrd.best.vwh.net/carnival.htm------------------------------------------------
Carnal Of Light Poster"
Carnival of LightSong by The Beatles
Released Unreleased
Recorded January 5, 1967
Genre Psychedelic Rock/Musique concrete/Experimental music
Length 13:48
Writer(s) Lennon/McCartney
Producer(s) George Martin
"Carnival of Light" is an unreleased experimental piece by The Beatles. It was recorded on January 5, 1967, after the vocal overdubbing sessions for Penny Lane; a single recorded during the sessions for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The track was created for The Million Volt Light and Sound Rave, an event held at the Roundhouse Theatre on January 28 and February 4, 1967. Some people claim that it was around thirteen minutes, and Paul McCartney himself said it was around fifteen minutes (In the book The Complete Beatles Chronicle it's listed has being 13 minutes and 48 seconds).
HistoryThe genesis of the track came in December 1966 from designer David Vaughan (part of the designer trio
Binder, Edwards & Vaughan), who had recently painted a psychedelic design on a piano owned by Paul McCartney. About the same time as he delivered the piano to Paul
Author
Topic: songs we will never hear? (Read 5729 times)