Monday, March 23, 2009

They're Gonna Put Me in the Movies

As I've said before, when the requests for appearances by the Beatles started coming in fast and furious, the boys responded by making short movies to accompany their songs, or what we know as videos. They sent the first of these, for the "Rain"/"Paperback Writer" single, to Ed Sullivan, but I get the sense that eventually they'd just send them anywhere.

They ended up making a lot of these videos, more than most people would assume, especially for songs that were just singles and didn't land on an album. You would think the Beatles Anthology TV show and (especially) DVD would have been a good place to park them, but many of them didn't even end up there. They've just been kind of lost in the ether, or what we know as YouTube.

I find these videos incredibly valuable, especially from the later years, since we never got to see the Beatles perform "Revolution" or "Hello Goodbye" live. It rather astonishes me that they haven't been packaged for sale (if they have, I haven't been able to find them). I've tried to do the next best thing, which is to assemble them all for your enjoyment. This isn't clips from Ed Sullivan or footage from Shea Stadium; these are simply, as best as I can suss out, the Beatles' videos:

Paperback Writer

Paperback Writer (Ed Sullivan version)
Rain
Rain (Ed Sullivan version)
We Can Work It Out
Day Tripper
Strawberry Fields Forever
Help!
Ticket to Ride
Penny Lane
All You Need Is Love
Hello Goodbye
I Am the Walrus
Revolution
Hey Jude
Hey Bulldog (!)
Let It Be
Two of Us
Something


I tried not to include clips from the boys' movies, although certainly many of those scenes work wonderfully as videos. Let me know if I missed anything else.

14 comments:

Gavin said...

Are some of those clips from the MM Tour movie?

Tom Nawrocki said...

Now that you mention it, "I Am the Walrus" may be from the Magical Mystery Tour film, which I have not seen. I don't think "Hello Goodbye" is, though, nor any of the others.

Kinky Paprika said...

I love the "Hello Goodbye" video, with George looking bored to the point of homicidal.

Gavin said...

I've never seen the MMT movie either; I'm sort of curious, but not quite enough.

Marshall said...

I'm not sure if I recall, and I'm certainly too lazy to look, but did you mention in your previous post that besides the muted "shoo be doo wah," you can also see (but not hear) Lennon singing the last word of "you can count me out (in)"?

Because that's part of what scared the living hell out of the middle class with the slow version.

Tom Nawrocki said...

I did not mention that. I'm not scared, either.

Gavin said...

The "Something" video contains footage of Martha ("My Dear")!

Anonymous said...

Wow! Thanks, Tom!

I've never seen that "Ticket To Ride," what a great clip. (John's yawning just makes it more affecting, somehow.)

they did a video for "I Feel Fine" where they're just sitting on the floor eating chocolate. I know because I once paid $15 for a bootleg DVD of this, and have enjoyed watching it many times. The DVD now has a resale value of approximately $1.35, which means it's outperforming my real estate investments.

Gavin said...

Watching "All You Need Is Love," there's a sign reading "Come Back Milly!" at the 3:08 mark.

I wondered what that was about, so I Googled. This guy says it was a message from a member of McCartney's family to his Aunt Milly, who was visiting her son and grandchildren in Australia; the McCartney clan worried she might stay down under for good. Apparently, it worked; she came back home.

Tom Nawrocki said...

I can't find a chocolate-eating "I Feel Fine," but here's one with Ringo on an exercise bike:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGFRDkoNpao

Kip W said...

I was anxious to see Magical Mystery Tour as a teen, and one evening they showed it at a coffee house in my town. Dad drove me down. I soon found the show had sold out and tried to catch Dad driving away. Too late, so I walked up and down the block until the next show.

After all that, it was a bit of a letdown (next time I saw it without so much expectation and rather enjoyed it). Anyway, the best part of the movie is easily found on YouTube: The Bonzo Dog Band singing "Death Cab for Cutie" (with stripper Jan Carson providing extra interest).

Mark Lerner said...

As long as we're talking about Beatles videos, this is a must:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yJ2yWvGnkI

Gavin said...

Odd that "Penny Lane," with Paul vocals, has so many solo shots of John.

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