Anthology 2 - Content

Content

Anthology 2 features outtakes, rarities, and alternative performances from the 1965 sessions for Help! to sessions just prior to their trip to India in February 1968. It starts off with the second new Beatles track, "Real Love", as with "Free as a Bird" again based on a demo made by John Lennon and given to Paul McCartney by Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono. The three surviving Beatles added guitars, bass, drums, percussion, and backing vocals, but unlike with the previous song, did not re-work either lyric or music. "Real Love" remained solely credited to Lennon, becoming the only Beatle song to have Lennon by himself in the writing credit.

Disc one contains three unreleased compositions, one being an instrumental entitled "12-Bar Original" recorded for Rubber Soul but subsequently unused. Two other songs recorded for Help!, "If You've Got Trouble" and "That Means a Lot", were abandoned and never returned to again by the band. The former was originally slated to be the usual vocal spot for Ringo Starr on Help!, and the latter was eventually given to singer P.J. Proby. The version of "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby" from the group's famed August 1965 show at Shea Stadium but left off the documentary appears here for the first time. "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" and "I'm Looking Through You" appear in early versions before they were remade in the forms known from their release on Rubber Soul.

Disc two contains work-in-progress versions of tracks from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Magical Mystery Tour. "Your Mother Should Know" also appears in an early version different from the known release, and tracks one and 15 are demo recordings respectively by Lennon and McCartney. The take of "Strawberry Fields Forever" that made up the first minute of the released record appears in its entirety on track three. Although recorded or started during this period, "Only a Northern Song", "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)" and "Across the Universe" would not see release until years later, in 1969 and 1970.

One track that remains officially unreleased from this time, "Carnival of Light", was vetoed off this set by George Harrison.

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