SONGBOOK
MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR (FILM SOUNDTRACK)
They lost the plot with their dopey TV film, but 1967 was still their zenith as songwriters. For once, the U.S. release went better than the British original . . . The result was simply the best set of Beatles tunes so far on a single disc.
– Paul Du Noyer, Blender
This is The Beatles out there in front and the rest of us in their wake.
– Nick Logan, NME
TRACK LIST
Side 1:
Magical Mystery Tour (Lennon-McCartney)
The Fool On The Hill (Lennon-McCartney)
Flying (Lennon-McCartney-Harrison-Starkey)
Blue Jay Way (Harrison)
Your Mother Should Know (Lennon-McCartney)
I Am The Walrus (Lennon-McCartney)
Side 2:
Hello, Goodbye (Lennon-McCartney)
Strawberry Fields Forever (Lennon-McCartney)
Baby, You’re A Rich Man (Lennon-McCartney)
All You Need Is Love (Lennon-McCartney)
EP
Released: 8 December 1967 (Parlophone)
Highest chart position: 2
Weeks in chart: 12
FAB FACT
The Beatles started recording the songs for Magical Mystery Tour only four days after they finished Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Paul got the idea for the film after he visited Jane Asher in the US. He came across Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters on their psychedelic painted bus and thought The Beatles could come up with their own version.
FAB FACT
Magical Mystery Tour was first released as a double EP in the UK, with the tracklist made up of the songs included in the film. It was kept off the number one spot by the single ‘Hello, Goodbye’. It was Capitol in the US that added the 1967 singles and released it as a full album. The full album was released in the UK for the first time in 1976, though the US import appeared in the UK Top forty in early 1968.
FAB FACT
Brian Epstein’s last visit to a recording session was while The Beatles were recording ‘Your Mother Should Know’ in Chappell Studios, London.
Magical Mystery Tour contains the only song credited to Lennon-McCartney-Harrison-Starkey. ‘Flying’ is an instrumental (the original title was ‘Aerial Tour Instrumental’), and it was used in the film over scenes of cloudy Arctic landscapes taken from Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove outtakes.