On the way to the Magical Mystery Tour premiere party.

We have been on an alphabetical journey with the Beatles, so what better way to start our exploration of the letter M than with a special journey associated with that letter, the double M song “Magical Mystery Tour.” It was originally released on the English EP to accompany the TV movie of the same name, which I really enjoyed but which some people find to be confusing or astonishing or even immature and disappointing.

The idea was based on real coach tours that were a feature of British domestic holidays. When you went to a seaside resort for your family summer holiday, very often in the main high street of that town there would be a coach company advertising tours on a blackboard outside its door. And the tours would be along the lines of a jolly trip out to a nearby castle or a museum or a stately home or something, or even just a park, somewhere you could go and visit. They would advertise these tours, how much they would cost, and you would choose one, take your family, and go on this expedition. But often, in addition to all their stated destinations, the company would list a “mystery tour,” which was pretty much the same as all the other ones except they just didn’t tell you where you were going until you had arrived, so there was a degree of anticipation and excitement.

I don’t think there ever was such a thing before the Beatles as a “magical mystery tour,” but that’s certainly what the Beatles created. The coach tours gave them the idea for the song, I think, and the idea for the TV show was to create a coach tour going to various places in England with a curious group of people. They assembled that strange and mixed group of people, put them all on a coach, and went off and had adventures. Some members of the group were specifically cast, and some ended up there by coincidence or accident. There was an overall aim and concept, but the details were left to take care of themselves. I was not on the journey myself, but the closest thing to a script I ever saw (at Paul’s house a couple of days before they left) consisted of some lists of people and places and ideas and some elaborate diagrams. Given this methodology, it should not have been a surprise that the resulting film was indeed disjointed and juvenile but also (to me) fascinating, experimentally nonlinear, entertaining, and in some ways ahead of its time. It certainly, though, was not what the BBC had been expecting. They were looking for a jolly, kind of comedic, zany yet fab Beatles special for Boxing Day, the day after Christmas. And what they got was this hour of great fun but considerable strangeness, which they found disconcerting. But I thought it was very cool. If you get a chance to see it, see it. I still like it. And of course everyone loved the music in Magical Mystery Tour. There’s no argument about that.

America did not know quite what to do with the film, either. Capitol Records didn’t put the EP out separately but jumbled in the songs with a whole lot of other stuff and made it part of a full-length album. And the movie itself didn’t come out at all until a little while later, when a very dear friend of mine by the name of Nat Weiss, a brilliant man who was the Beatles’ lawyer and Brian Epstein’s friend and lawyer, had the idea of sending the film out on its own, doing college gigs. They would send a guy with a projector and the reels of film out on the road and play it in colleges and put it on in the canteen or whatever room was available, throw up a screen, put out some chairs, and charge admission. And it did very well; the college audience loved it.

There was also a fabulous party in London when they premiered the movie in the UK—an amazing costume party, what in Britain we call a fancy-dress party. Everyone dressed up in extraordinary outfits. I found a picture of the party—I am just in it, visible over Paul’s shoulder, and my father is on the extreme left, as some kind of Chinese mandarin.

I had forgotten until I saw these pictures that Paul had invited the entire Asher family to the event. George and Judy Martin came as the Duke of Edinburgh and Queen Elizabeth, and they looked spectacular. By popular acclaim, they were the best costumed couple.

In reviewing Beatles things from an M-ish perspective, I’d like to turn now to record labels, and one label in particular that we admired above all others. While we loved Stax, and we loved Atlantic, if we had to pick one label where we wanted to own all the records they put out, it was definitely Motown. And one of our favourite Motown records was “Money (That’s What I Want),” which was recorded by Barrett Strong and written by Berry Gordy (Motown’s founder and owner) with the assistance of Janie Bradford, a remarkable woman who has done a great deal of admirable philanthropic work on behalf of songwriters and others. “Money” became a favourite of many people when the Beatles recorded it in 1963. It is an interesting song—it is at heart a simple twelve-bar blues. The Barrett Strong version was played in F, and the Beatles version is a half step lower, in E. But what makes both versions so interesting is a very rock and roll crunchy discord which happens most notably in the eighth bar of every chorus. This happens because one of the key elements of the song is the two-bar piano riff which one can hear very clearly in the intro and which repeats throughout the song. The result of this repetition is that while this lick fits perfectly over the E chord that starts the chorus, by the time we get to the eighth bar and hear it against a B7 chord, the same notes sound pretty weird and interesting—and under different circumstances could well be considered “wrong” notes. The Beatles kept this arrangement idea in their version, and George Martin overdubbed the piano part. It is to his credit that he resisted what must have been his well-educated musician’s instinct to change the lick to fit the chords, recognizing that it is the grind of the discordant repetition that makes the chorus sound so cool.

I also love John’s impassioned vocal, and of course the lyrics have perhaps never been more apposite than they are today. Even if it is true that officially money cannot buy you love, it is abundantly clear that it can get you pretty much everything else. Maybe when all the global billionaires have their secret meetings on their giant yachts, they sing this song together after dinner—now that’s a conspiracy theory I could get into!

Thinking about Motown brings us to another favourite band of the Beatles, also on Motown and also with an M: the Miracles, led by the great singer and songwriter Smokey Robinson. The Beatles covered one of their songs, making a really cool record of “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me.” It is an unusual song because the harmonies are all in fourths, which have an exciting, plangent, and sometimes almost ominous flavour to them. The Beatles copied Smokey Robinson’s harmonies exactly, and they totally nailed it.

Now the M’s really begin to multiply. After “Money” on Motown, and the Miracles on Motown, I’d like to jump forward in time to a triple M, “Mean Mr. Mustard.” And it’s really a quadruple M, because if you think about it, “Mean Mr. Mustard” is part of a medley on side two of the Abbey Road album, which begins with “Sun King” and ends with “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window.” (I know that some people think of the medley extending all the way to “The End,” but I tend to think of Abbey Road as having two separate medleys, one starting with “Sun King” and the other with “Golden Slumbers.”)

Another M song, just a single M this time, is one of the best Paul McCartney ever wrote: “Michelle.” A remarkable song. Part of it, of course, is in French, and there has been a lot written about where the French came from. Paul is on record as saying that, at parties, he occasionally used to pretend to be able to speak French just to appear cool—and even perhaps played a phrase or two of what became the “Michelle” melody, suggesting that it might be French. As Paul put it, “We all wanted to be Sacha Distel”—he was right about that, and I shall tell you why. It was not so much because Monsieur Distel was cool and handsome, a fine guitarist, and a good singer—it was because he was, at the time, the live-in boyfriend of Brigitte Bardot, with whom we were all hopelessly in love. I maintain to this day that the BB of that era was the most physically attractive woman I have ever seen. I think the Beatles finally did meet her in person (I never had the pleasure) after one of their Olympia shows. So, this may account for at least some of Paul’s interest in the French language. But he did not actually speak it, so when he decided to write some cool French lyrics, he needed help. He went first to Jan Vaughan, the wife of a friend, who spoke fluent French, and she made suggestions and translated some phrases for him initially. I also remember Paul conferring with my mother, who spoke very good French, having been educated at the Lycée Français in London. I recall my mother telling me that Paul had consulted her on some French he was using in a song, and it must have been this song because it is the only Beatles song which includes any French words. So, I think my mother had a hand in helping him with the correct French grammar or pronunciation or something like that.

It was a joint effort in several respects. The bridge was John Lennon’s idea, inspired by a Nina Simone song that he loved so much, “I Put a Spell on You.” That’s where the “I love you, I love you, I love you” thing came from. On the recording, Paul does some really excellent finger picking on the guitar, a very different style from the usual rhythm guitar parts that the Beatles played.

Staying with Paul on the acoustic guitar, another excellent M song is “Mother Nature’s Son.” Apparently, this song was inspired by the Nat King Cole song “Nature Boy,” which I would never have guessed. They are both excellent songs yet not very similar at all. Paul’s was written mostly in Liverpool, though its inspiration came from a lecture given by the Maharishi about nature—a lecture which also inspired a John Lennon song called “Child of Nature” which morphed years later into “Jealous Guy”! Paul’s recording of “Mother Nature’s Son” also belongs on a very short list of Beatles tracks on which only a single Beatle is in fact playing or singing.

Now from the comfort of “Mother Nature’s Son,” which is soft and very pleasurable to listen to, we move to another extreme with John Lennon’s song “Mother.” A very different kettle of fish altogether.

Back in the late ’60s and ’70s, a new kind of psychotherapy became fashionable, called primal scream therapy. The psychologist Arthur Janov wrote a very popular book explaining his theories, and he became the psychotherapist du jour for that brief period. His therapy consisted of the patient lying there and thinking of things that made him really angry and then screaming. I chose not to do that. But John thought it would be cool and went through this therapy at Janov’s institute in Los Angeles in April 1970, where he spent a certain amount of time reflecting on his relationship with his mother, who didn’t raise him herself (he was brought up by his aunt Mimi) and who died when John was just seventeen years old.

During his therapy, he recorded several demo versions of this song, some on guitar and some on piano. He then returned to London and recorded it at EMI Studios, with Klaus Voormann on bass and Ringo Starr on drums. The song ends with some really heartbreaking scary screaming.

I know John had some issues that made him angry, but whether he got them out of his system using primal scream therapy—that I don’t know. But it certainly sounds very convincing. The weird, spooky church bell chimes at the beginning, by the way, were added after the initial recording. John apparently had the idea after watching a horror movie on television that employed a similar effect. And they recorded some church bells and slowed them down in a successful effort to make them spooky.

So now let’s move on from a scary approach to one’s mother—almost a kind of a psycho approach to a mother in that song—to a much more comfortable view of a mother in the song “Your Mother Should Know.” Though in my experience it is usually better if your mother doesn’t know, in this instance the Beatles made a contrary decision.

“Your Mother Should Know,” of course, is also from Magical Mystery Tour—the EP and the film. That is one of the only times I think we saw the Beatles do choreographed dance moves, as they came down the stairs in those fabulous white suits. In fact, white tie and tails from top to toe. Pretty amazing look, and they got their dance steps totally right.

I think Paul wrote that song on the harmonium he kept in his house in Cavendish Avenue. The harmonium is an instrument of which Paul and I are both very fond, and we have both used it on records. It is a small organ with a regular keyboard and a free reed for every note, activated by air pumped through the reeds by foot pedals which operate the bellows. I was always impressed when I noticed that the pedals on my old harmonium were labelled “patented mouse-proof pedals” (apparently mice like to crawl in and eat holes in the paper bellows), and the patented system must have worked because I am happy to say that I never had mouse holes in my bellows. The sound created by the reeds can be altered using various stops which physically divert, diminish, or open up the sound. A beautiful and delicate instrument. And I know Paul used the harmonium on “Your Mother Should Know”—you can hear it. A reassuring and jolly song.

Now, we can’t consider our discussion of the letter M complete without what may well be George Harrison’s most famous song as a solo artist, “My Sweet Lord.” A really great record, a beautiful production, and a fine song, from the brilliant All Things Must Pass album. One cannot ignore the legal issues raised by the copyright holders of “He’s So Fine,” the giant Chiffons hit written by Ronald Mack—it was a huge No. 1 record which we all knew by heart, and there is no doubt that having that call and response melody stuck in his head may have inadvertently influenced George’s writing. But in the final analysis George’s is the better song for sure. In the overall sense, I think the vibe and majesty of the Edwin Hawkins Singers’ record “Oh Happy Day” was a more conscious and relevant influence, as George was trying to write an uplifting and all-encompassing hymn and a hit pop song at the same time, and he succeeded magnificently.

I’d like to conclude our time with the letter M by exploring three great Beatles M songs. The first is a Paul McCartney song with an excellent Paul vocal, “Martha My Dear.” I think everyone knows by now that Martha was not a woman Paul was in love with; it was a dog he was in love with. I knew Martha. She was a large, floppy, charming English sheepdog. I can picture her now. She was a very pleasant dog, and I remember her hanging out at Paul’s house on Cavendish Avenue, and Paul was extremely fond of her. I seem to recall that Martha actually accompanied us on our later trip up north to record the Black Dyke Mills Band and our visit to the town of Harrold on the way home—but that is a story for another time.

To complement that cool Paul vocal, there’s an M song with an amazing John Lennon vocal, “Mr. Moonlight.” It was written by Roy Lee Johnson and first recorded by Piano Red (as Dr. Feelgood and the Interns) and had become kind of an insider’s favourite among British bands; the Hollies and the Merseybeats recorded it as well. It’s not one of the greatest Beatles tracks, but they never made a bad record, and this one is totally saved by the declaratory strength and passion of John’s vocal.

Finally, I come to a song that both John and Paul sing on, but I hope you don’t take this to heart. The song is called “Misery,” and I don’t mean to end this chapter on a downer. An early song, written on the road while the Beatles were opening for Helen Shapiro and then completed at home in Liverpool. They originally hoped that Helen might record it herself—John and Paul’s songwriting ambitions were just as emphatic as their ambitions as a band—but her producer, Norrie Paramor (of Cliff Richard fame), decided it was too gloomy. The song was covered by an actor/singer named Kenny Lynch, who was also a friend of the Beatles (and on the same tour with them and Helen, as you can see in the poster here)—a really nice guy but it’s not a great record. So, the version we remember today is the Beatles’ own version. A simple record in its way, but that is what makes it so right. Rock solid Ringo, without a single fill; tough, masterful, and perfect duet vocals from Paul and John; George adding a key rhythm part but being the quiet Beatle and not even taking a solo; and elegant and restrained piano ornamentation from George Martin. Everything we love about the band!