Update (11/30/08)

Update (11/23/08)

This 1:17 excerpt of experimental music was transferred to cd in 1998 by my father who was an in-house recording engineer for over 25 years in the music industry. It came from a reel to reel tape only marked 'Beatles Sound Mix#2 CL' and this is the only music on the tape. Everything else on the reel tape is either people talking, not the Beatles, or silence. He always assumed that this was a piece of their music because of the timing in which he had been given it. My father was invited to visit Abbey Road Studios in late 1967 and was in London doing assistant engineering for a few months after that but didn't ever get to work with the Beatles. He did meet George Harrison briefly one day and said he was very friendly and interested in what his thoughts were on the comparison between British and American recording techniques. This reel to reel tape was one of the souvenirs that he brought back from his stay in London. I guess you can decide if it's actually part of what is called 'Carnival of Light' that is in the news now. You can hear talking and weird sounds on it, but I'm no expert on how to tell exactly everything that is going on in this short excerpt. I've watched the Carnival of Light videos on youtube and this one doesn't sound like any of them, but like I said, I'm not an expert on this. If anyone has information on it, please share. I hope you enjoy it.

(Thanks to Tanis Bourne for sending the clip.)

Update (11/21/08)

Comment on “Carnival of Light:” Of course it should be released. What’s the controversy? George Harrison didn’t care for it? Well, back in the ‘60’s, John Lennon pronounced George’s songs “daft,” and sometimes did not play on them. Yet they were released. Harrison’s “Electronic Sound” album is every bit as experimental as “Carnival of Light,” and nowhere near as interesting.

Will releasing “Light” diminish The Beatles’ legacy? Right. Releasing that earlier version of “Huckleberry Finn” found in an attic a few years ago sure destroyed Mark Twain’s reputation, didn’t it? Releasing the “Devil’s Trill” prelude of Chopin---a short, fairly insane, dissonant outburst probably written during a high fever---has forever tarnished all the works of Chopin, right? The sad thing about “Carnival of Light” (lovely title!) is that it has become so legendary, and now so controversial. It was just a goof. A chaotic free-form improv to illustrate a psychedelic show, done with madcap spirit. In short: it was fun.

And it is also sad that Paul McCartney is using it to once again trumpet how he was the first Beatle to take an interest in the avant garde, not John. Well, so what. It’s not so unusual to take an interest in avant garde music. Millions have done it. Yoko beat Paul to that punch, and John Cage beat Yoko, and Varese beat them all. Who’s on first! For McCartney to endlessly drop Stockhausen’s name as a means of touting his sophistication is just embarrassing. The world is well aware of the wonderful, varied musical abilities and achievements of McCartney. If “Carnival of Light” is released, it will, of course, fetch massive publicity and rivers of serious reviews---which is too bad, considering it is not a serious piece of music (no matter how Paul colors it.) It should have been a no-brainer to put the thing out with no great fanfare long ago, perhaps on some special Beatles occasion, as a lark.

Yet it is true that the track does have historical interest outside of it being a Beatles work from the sixties, as it really was a sort of precursor to Lennon’s “Revolution # 9” sound collage, to the extent that bits of “Light” show up in “Num-bah Ni-eeen.” (How ironic, then, that McCartney was luke-warm to “Rev. 9” when Lennon enthusiastically played it for him during the “white album” sessions.)

Yes, “Light” should be released, but not strictly as a piece of music. Better to issue it according to its original purpose, which was to illustrate another work. In other words, McCartney and “The Beatles” should commission someone to produce an animated film as free form as the music to accompany the release. “Fantasia” it, in other words, a la the film’s abstract opening sequence, set to Bach’s “Tocatta and Fugue” in D-minor.

Update (11/20/08)

Jeff Jacomowitz posted this comment to the Guardian's commentary on the track:

From America, I think every Beatle person will want to hear what Carnival of Light is all about. We heard Revolution 9 and other obscurities from our favorite Fab group, why not Carnival? On the point of "Let It Be...Naked", I would say that was one of the smartest things Macca has done ever. I loved the Naked album because it is truly Beatles. All of the Anthology material was beyond excellent, especially "Free As A Bird" and "Real Love". I would have liked the Threetles to have put out "Grow Old With Me"....it was fitting, especially in the 90s.

So, there is nothing that will ever change the great legacy of The Beatles, Carnival or no Carnival. I feel that fans all over the world should be able to hear Carnival and purchase/download it, whatever and Ringo, Yoko and Olivia should ease back.

Finally, with all of the experimental music George did in his career, I was a little surprised he didn't want it to go out and John, I would bet my last dollar or pound, and say he especially would have wanted the people to hear Carnival. But, Paul can't do it without the blessing of everyone else.

Update (11/19/08)

Update (11/18/08)

Midway through the recording of "Penny Lane," we spent the better part of an evening creating a tape of sound effects, under Paul's direction, for a live "happening" called the Carnival of Light. It was a bit of nonsense, really, but everyone had fun doing it. Whenever The Beatles tried something really outrageous, George Martin would roll his eyes and mutter a clipped "Oh my God" under his breath. Looking back, I guess that everyone was tripping his brains out that night, but we didn't know it then. When John started shouting "Barcelona" repeatedly in one of his Goon-like voices, Phil and I were doubled over in laughter. That line, and other bits and pieces from that night's sessions, were later used in the sound pastiche "Revolution 9" on the White Album.

E.C.: You also mention "Carnival of Light" in your book. Was any of this used in Paul’s “Liverpool Sound Collage”? You also mention that parts of it were used in “Revolution 9”? Do you remember which parts? Do you think it was a good choice to leave it off of the Anthology? I mean, if you have John’s “What’s the New Mary Jane” dribble, why not some experimental Beatles?

Geoff: I’m not familiar with the “Liverpool Sound Collage,” so I don’t know if any of it was used there. The bits from the Carnival of Light session that were used in Revolution 9, as I recall, were of John saying the word “Barcelona,” and some other random sound effects. It was really just noise and cacophony, not a proper song.

ML: In very early 1967, when you were doing "Penny Lane, you made a 14-minute, very bizarre recording of effects and noises for a "Carnival of Light" at the Roundhouse. Like "Revolution #9," but in 1966 rather than in 1968. You seemed to be the leader of that. Do you remember it?

PM: Yes, I was interested in that. I'm now becoming re-interested, in fact. There were millions of threads that we put down in the '60s that I never picked up again. George's Indian stuff and all of that. It was really just pushing frontiers, that's all we were doing. Everyone else was pushing frontiers, too, but perhaps we didn't necessarily like what, say, Berio was doing. There was only one Stockhausen song I liked actually! We used to get it in all interviews "Love Stockhausen!" There was only one "Gesang der junglinge (The Song of the Young)" - that was the only one I ever liked! I thought most of his other stuff was too fruity.

"The way I see it, I lived a very urbane life in London, I eventually got my own house there. So I had the metropolis at my fingertips with all this incredible stuff going on, the '60s, and John used to come in from Weybridge in his coloured outfits and we'd meet up. And I'd tell him what I'd been doing. "Last night I saw a Bertolucci film and I went down thet Open Space, they're doing a new play there" or "I had dinner with Jagger last night" and it was "My God! I'm jealous, man." Because I was doing a lot of avant-garde stuff -- it turned out later to be avant-garde. I though it was just "being different." Making little home movies, showing them to people like Antonini. It was very exciting, very creative. I do remember John coming in with his big chauffeur and Rolls-Royce and saying, "God, man, I really envy you." He was starting to feel like he was getting middle-aged and that he was out of it."

"The Beatles had never made a recording quite like this before, although they were certainly to repeat the exercise again, culminating in 'Revolution 9' on the 1968 double-album The Beatles. This day's attempt lasted 13' 48", the longest uninterrupted Beatles recording to date, and it was the combination of a basic track and numerous overdubs. Track one of the tape was full of distorted, hypnotic drum and organ sounds; track two had a distorted lead guitar; track three had the sounds of a church organ, various effects the gargling with water was one) and voices; track four featured various indescribable sound effects with heaps of tape echo and manic tambourine.

But of all the frightening sounds it was the voices on track three which really set the scene, John and Paul screaming dementedly and bawling aloud random phrases like "Are you alright?" and "Barcelona!"

Paul terminated the proceedings after almost 14 minutes with one final shout up to the control room: "Can we hear it back now?" They did just that, a rough mono remix was made and Paul took away the tape to hand over to the 'Carnival of Light' organisers, doubtless pleased that the Beatles had produced for them such an avant garde recording. Geoff Emerick recalls this most unusual session. "When they had finished George Martin said to me 'This is ridiculous, we've got to get our teeth into something a little more constructive'." Twenty years on, George had obviously driven the session entirely from his mind, for when reminded of the sounds on the tape and asked whether he could recall it, he replied "No, and it sounds like I don't want to either!"

Update (11/17/08)

On a BBC 4 radio show, Front Row, to air this week, McCartney told host John Wilson, "It does exist," he still has a master tape of the song and says "the time has come for it to get its moment."

"I like it because it's the Beatles free, going off piste," he says.

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).

McCartney described how "Carnival" was developed in the recording studio. "We were set up in the studio and would just go in every day and record. I said to the guys, 'This is a bit indulgent but would you mind giving me 10 minutes? I've been asked to do this thing. All I want you to do is just wander round all of the stuff and bang it, shout, play it. It doesn't need to make any sense. Hit a drum, wander to the piano, hit a few notes ... and then we put a bit of echo on it. It's very free.' "

McCartney said it was inspired by the works of composers John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen. 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.

"Carnival" was considered and rejected for release on "The Beatles Anthology," he says. 'We were listening to everything we'd ever recorded. I said it would be great to put this on because it would show we were working with really avant-garde stuff ... But it was vetoed. The guys didn't like the idea, like 'this is rubbish'." George Harrison, he said, dismissed this type of experimentation with his typical humor by saying "avant-garde a clue".

(Comment: We know, of course, that this is another vanity project and the most obvious yet. Really, though, what will this accomplish, Paul? Put out the Hollywood Bowl CD, the 27-minute "Helter Skelter" or almost anything else before this!)

John Wilson's interview with Paul McCartney can be heard on Front Row on BBC Radio 4 on Thursday. Here's the show's home page. The show will be available there after the broadcast in streaming audio and possibly as a podcast.