Beatles Archives - Ramblin' with Roger

Beatles songs not on US Capitol albums

adding songs to the CDs?

Every February, I play the American versions of the Beatles albums. Why is that? George was the first Beatle to visit the United States when he visited his sister Louise before Beatlemania broke. George’s birthday is in February.

Anyway, I’m reminded again of The Beatles songs, which were not on the US Capitol albums while the group was still together. I grew up on the Capitol and later Apple albums; for the former, it was what I got with my Capitol Record Club membership in 1966 and 1967.

I’m not talking about different versions of the same song, such as the single Love Me Do or even Sie Liebt Dich, the German version of She Loves You. The latter song appeared in the Rarities versions (1978-UK, 1980-US).

Misery and There’s A Place were both on the first UK album, Please Please Me, and the US Vee-Jay album, Introducing the Beatles. I heard them in the Beatles cartoons. But they didn’t make it onto The Early Beatles, Capitol’s belated version of Introducing. They finally showed up on the US Rarities.

From Me To You – a bust of a Vee-Jay single in the US in 1963, though it got up to #41 in ’64. Its B-side, Thank You Girl, was on The Beatles’ Second Album. From Me To You is not on The Early Beatles, either. It appears on the Red album (1973), functionally a greatest hits album for 1962-1966. It is the Beatles song I have the most difficult time recalling.

Movie non-soundtrack

A Hard Day’s Night—The movie soundtrack for the first Beatles movie was on the United Artists label in the United States. Capitol could use some of the songs – they did on the Something New album – but could not label the collection a soundtrack. I Should Have Known Better and Can’t Buy Me Love finally appeared on the Beatles Again/Hey Jude album. A Hard Day’s Night is first on the Red album.

I’m Down – The B-side of the Help single appears on the Rock ‘n’ Roll Music Collection (1976), the only new song on the double LP. I knew the song existed from the live version on the TV broadcast of The Beatles at Shea Stadium. It would have fit nicely on the Yesterday and Today album.

The Inner Light, the B-side of Lady Madonna, and You Know My Name (Look Up the Number), the B-side of Let It Be appear on both Rarities versions.

All of them, save You Know My Name, could/should have been on The Beatles Again.

Ah, the Beatles CDs

Of course, everything is made right in the CD era, using the British LPs plus Past Masters 1 and 2. I remember when the CDs first came out. There was speculation that the singles would be added to the albums. But why would they do that, aside from the fact that the early CDs were less than 40 minutes long and had a capacity of more than 70 minutes?

Still, From Me To You/Thank You Girl and She Loves You/I’ll Get You would easily fit on Please Please Me. One could throw in Sie liebt dich.

I Want To Hold Your Hand/This Boy plus Komm gib mir deine Hand might have appeared on With The Beatles; the first two were on the US near-equivalent Meet The Beatles.

The EP Long Tall Sally/I Call Your Name/Slow Down/Matchbox could have augmented A Hard Day’s Night.

Add I Feel Fine/She’s A Woman to Beatles for Sale.

Yes, It Is (the B-side of Ticket To Ride) and I’m Down (the B-side of Help), along with the US-only Bad Boy (from Beatles VI), could be added to Help.

Also:

Day Tripper/We Can Work It Out to Rubber Soul

Paperback Writer/Rain to Revolver

Lady Madonna/The Inner Light to Magical Mystery Tour

Hey Jude/Revolution to the white album

Get Back/Don’t Bring Me Down and You Know My Name (B-side of Let It Be) to Let It Be

Ballad Of John and Yoko/Old Brown Shoe to Abbey Road

Or maybe those latter singles in that singles-heavy period needed their own collection.

March rambling: Dismantling

The Strange, Post-Partisan Popularity of the Unabomber

**Used by permission of Clay Bennett, Editorial Cartoonist, Chattanooga Times Free Press**

“We Are Watching the Deliberate Dismantling of American Democracy” – Heather Cox Richardson with Katie Couric

Mark Evanier has posted nearly daily a series of Fact Checks over the last month that suggest members of the regime LIE regularly, especially FOTUS.

The regime seeks to starve libraries and museums of funding. Fight back with ALA.

The executive order targeting the Smithsonian Institution will “eliminate improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology” from the institute’s museums, centers, and the National Zoo in Washington.

Pete Hegseth Sent Secret War Plans to Journalist by Accident. Here Are the Texted War Plans That He Said ‘Nobody Was Texting’ on Signal. “A reminder that various administration officials lied under oath in the Senate.”

Millions face delays as administration ends Social Security phone verification. A new policy eliminating phone verification for Social Security benefits threatens to overwhelm field offices, cut off vulnerable recipients, and accelerate efforts to privatize the system.

Executive Order on Voting Denounced as ‘Authoritarian Power Grab’

Pentagon restores some webpages honoring minority service members but defends DEI purge.

Rights, Privileges, and Mahmoud Khalil

Decades ago, Columbia refused to pay him $400 million. The university was looking to expand. It considered and rejected property owned by djt. He did not forget it.

People named in JFK assassination documents are not happy their personal information was released.

FOTUS has big dreams for the Kennedy Center but doesn’t seem to know what it does. His hostile takeover of the Washington, D.C., cultural institution will probably chase away the very people who like to attend shows there

Here’s What RFK Jr. Got Wrong About H5N1 Bird Flu— “This is Hollywood science, not real science,” one expert said

EPA Teases Evisceration of Scientific Research Office

FCC Chair Brendan Carr, FOTUS’ Media Pit Bull Is “Off the Leash”

Cory Doctorow: Twinkump Linkdump (22 Mar 2025)

How DOGE is making government almost comically inefficient

Musk tells his biggest lie yet: ‘I’ve never done anything harmful’

How Elon Musk’s DOGE Cuts Leave a Vacuum That China Can Fill: The Department of Government Efficiency is shuttering organizations that Beijing worried about most or actively sought to subvert.

IRS braces for $500bn drop in revenue as taxpayers skip filings in wake of DOGE cuts at the agency

From Catherine Rampell – WaPo:

At the IRS, employees spend Mondays queued up at shared computers to submit their DOGE-mandated “five things I did last week” emails. Meanwhile, taxpayer customer service calls go unanswered.

At the Bureau of Land Management, federal surveyors are no longer permitted to buy replacement equipment. So, when a shovel breaks at a field site, they can’t just drive to the nearest town or hardware store. Instead, work stops as employees track down one of the few managers nationwide authorized to file an official procurement form and order new parts.

At the Food and Drug Administration, leadership canceled the agency’s subscription to LexisNexis, an online reference tool that employees need to conduct regulatory research. However, some workers might not have noticed this loss yet because the agency’s incompetently planned return-to-office order this week left them too busy hunting for insufficient parking and toilet paper. (Multiple bathrooms have run out of bath tissue, employees report.)

The Strange, Post-Partisan Popularity of the Unabomber: When Ted Kaczynski’s manifesto appeared 30 years ago, the internet was brand-new. Now, his dark vision is finding fans who don’t remember life before the iPhone. Paragraph 173: “If the machines are permitted to make all their own decisions, we can’t make any conjectures as to the results, because it is impossible to guess how such machines might behave.”

Researchers find thriving, never-before-seen ecosystem under Antarctic ice shelf: “This is unprecedented”

Author John Green on why he wrote “Everything is Tuberculosis.”

Do Adults Need a Measles Booster? A single-dose inactivated measles vaccine used from 1963 to 1967 was later found to not be as effective or long-lasting as the currently used live-attenuated vaccine, experts said.

George Foreman, Boxing Champion and Grill Spokesperson, Dies at 76

Richard Chamberlain, King of the Melodramatic Miniseries, Dies at 90. One of my sisters had a massive crush when he played ‘Dr. Kildare’

Goodbye Park City: Sundance Film Festival Heading to Colorado

My Quest to Find the Owner of a Mysterious WWII Japanese Sword. “When I was a kid, I was fascinated by a traditional katana my grandfather had brought home from Japan in 1945. Years later, I decided it was time to find the heirloom’s rightful owner.”

Rita Braver will retire from ‘CBS Sunday Morning’ after 50 years at the network

The 51 Best Canadian Films of All Time

How Charles Dickens Shaped Our Vocabulary

Magnet fishing is supposed to be a wholesome hobby. Why all the beef?

In 2012, when NBC had the Super Bowl, they shot a little video to precede it and promote all their shows and stars.

In 1969, Jim Henson produced several commercials for a new potato crisp called Munchos.

Now I Know: The Supreme Court Told Me I Was Wrong and Forcing Beer into Star Wars and A Miner Revolt

MUSIC

Jesse Colin Young, Youngbloods’ Frontman, Dies at 83. Get Together was one of the very few singles I ever purchased.

Herb Alpert turns 90 today. He’s still performing. I had half of his early albums, including his first, The Lonely Bull. Here’s Herb and the Tijuana Brass on that title track.

Signal Leak – Jesse Welles

You Were Not Supposed to Message It Through – Marsh Family Parody of the Bee Gees on #Signalgate

I Put Up Tariffs – Marsh Family adaptation of Bob Marley and the Wailers’ I Shot the Sheriff

Vivaldi’s Summer/Mozart’s Semplice/Mack The Knife

Get Away and three other songs – Jimi Somewhere

Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique

Please Please Please – Sabrina Carpenter, feat. Dolly Parton

On A Clear Day, You Can See Forever – Voctave

The Song (Love Is All) – Sadie Sink from the movie O’DESSA

Two of Hearts – Stacey Q

Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) – Marvin Gaye

Scissors Cut – Art Garfunkel

Coverville 1526: Cover Stories for Black Eyed Peas and Twisted Sister and 1527: The Solomon Burke Cover Story

Under African Skies – Paul Simon

The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway – Genesis

Can’t Fight This Feeling – REO Speedwagon

The Most ‘Beatles’ Beatle Song The Beatles Ever Beatled; btw, I disagree with the conclusion

Best Albums of 2025 (First Quarter)

New mashup version of Sour Milk Sea

Eric Clapton and Nicky Hopkins

My first Ask Roger Anything came from a dear friend, ADD:

Hey Roger, I wonder if you’ve heard the new mashup version of Sour Milk Sea that takes a George Harrison demo and makes it a new Beatles song featuring all of the Fab Four plus Eric Clapton? I just discovered it yesterday, and it’s pretty marvelous to my ears, like a lost track from The White Album. Here’s a link to it on YouTube.

There’s no AI involved, and if you watch as you listen, they explain how it was assembled. Love to read your thoughts on the actual end result, as well as more generally on projects like this. I actually added this track to my Beatles playlist because I think it deserves a slot among their very best songs, even though it’s not an official release.

Hope all is well with you and yours, Roger.

Alan

Thanks, Alan. Before answering, I should provide some notes for those who aren’t as Beatles-saturated as I.

From the Beatles Bible:

“‘Sour Milk Sea’ was one of the demo songs recorded in May 1968. Although it was an early contender for the White Album, it was eventually given to Apple recording artist Jackie Lomax,” a fellow Liverpudlian.

Song history

George noted: “I wrote ‘Sour Milk Sea’ in Rishikesh, India.. Anyway, it’s based on Vishvasara Tantra, from Tantric art. ‘What is here is elsewhere, what is not here is nowhere’. It’s a picture, and the picture is called ‘Sour Milk Sea’ – Kalladadi Samudra in Sanskrit. I used Sour Milk Sea as the idea of – if you’re in the s**t, don’t go around moaning about it: do something about it.”

Sour Milk Sea (Esher Demo). Not incidentally, here’s a list of songs from Esher, most of which ended up on the white album.

“The Beatles never attempted a studio version of ‘Sour Milk Sea’. It was taped by Lomax at Abbey Road on 24, 25, and 26 June 1968; Harrison produced the song, with Paul McCartney on bass, Ringo Starr on drums, Eric Clapton on guitar, and Nicky Hopkins on piano…

“Lomax was the first artist to sign to The Beatles’ Apple label. ‘Sour Milk Sea’ was released as a single in August 1968, with the catalogue number Apple 3.” It only went to US Pop #117, and failed to chart in the UK. Jackie Lomax included it on his album Is This What You Want?, which only reached #145 on the Billboard charts.

Apple singles

“It was part of Apple’s “Our first four” set of singles, which also included” The Beatles’ ‘Hey Jude,’ Mary Hopkin’s ‘Those Were The Days’ [#2 for three weeks AC, #1 for six weeks AC] and the Black Dyke Mills Band’s ‘Thingumybob.’“

Something called Outfake created a previous “Beatles” version of Sour Milk Sea from “the Beatles’ demo (recorded in Esher, May 1968) and Jackie Lomax’s basic track recording (which features Paul, Ringo, George, Eric Clapton, and Nicky Hopkins, recorded at Trident Studios in July 1968).”

But, Alan, the very recent version you provided is my favorite. The vocals lifted from Helter Skelter was a great touch. The video asks who plays the organ; I don’t know, but it’s likely Nicky Hopkins or Paul.

As all the comments noted, it should have been a serious contender for the white album, but George already had his allotment of four songs. Most people had opinions about what should have been excised in favor of Sour Milk Sea. Unsurprisingly, Revolution 9 and Wild Honey Pie are popular choices.

As to your general question about my feelings about projects like this, I’m ambivalent. I remember the conversation about the release of The Beatles’ Now and Then. It seems that a lot of folks didn’t understand that the use of AI was merely to unearth the buried John Lennon vocal that 1995 technology couldn’t access when Paul, George, and Ringo took the tape Yoko gave them. There won’t be more Beatles songs, so it’s nice that it won the Best Rock Performance Grammy.

But I like some mashups of what could have been, whereas others with dead people—Natalie Cole singing Unforgettable with her late dad, Nat—seemed a bit maudlin. Hologram duets weird me out.

Beatles For Sale begat ’65 and VI

Capitol knew how to churn out the product

Many of us who grew up with the American versions of the Beatles albums were confounded when we discovered that the United Kingdom albums were different. For instance, Beatles For Sale on Parlophone generated the majority of songs for two Capitol albums in the United States, Beatles ’65 and Beatles VI.

“Beatles For Sale was released on 4th December 1964 – just 21 weeks after A Hard Day’s Night. It was The Beatles’ fourth album release in less than two years.” Some fans and critics consider it the band’s least successful collection. It contains six covers, probably because the band was busy with touring and moviemaking; this was the last time the band relied on so many outside songs for their albums. Here are the links.

Beatles ’65 also came out in December ’64, just before Christmas. All are by Lennon/McCartney except when otherwise indicated. If they’re from Beatles for Sale, they’ll be indicated as B4S. Here are the tracks.

Side 1

No Reply – B4S

I’m A Loser – B4S

Baby’s In Black—B4S. Is there a greater string of downer songs in the catalog than these?

Rock and Roll Music (Chuck Berry) – B4S

I’ll Follow The Sun – B4S, written by Paul c. 1958

Mr. Moonlight (Roy Lee Johnson) – B4S. One of the least popular Beatles tracks.

Side 2

Honey Don’t (Carl Perkins) – B4S. The Ringo vocal.

I’ll Be Back – the last song on the UK A Hard Day’s Night album

She’s A Woman – the B-side of the single. Unlike UK albums, which thought of LPs and 45s as separate entities, music producers in the US feared fans wouldn’t buy the album without the single.

I’ll Feel Fine – the A-side of the single.

Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby (Perkins) – B4S. George loved Carl Perkins.

An interlude

The next Capitol Record was The Early Beatles (March 1965), which included 11 of the 14 songs on the UK’s Please Me album (March 1963). I Saw Her Standing There showed up on the Capitol album Meet The Beatles! (January 1964). The other two songs, Misery and There’s a Place, never appeared on a Capitol/Apple album until the US version of Rarities in March 1980.

Those 14 songs, 12 at a time, also appeared in one of the iterations of VeeJay’s Introducing…the Beatles, just before and after Meet The Beatles!

The sixth Capitol album, excluding The Beatles Story

Beatles VI was released in June 1965, the first Beatles album I ever purchased. Here are the tracks.

Side 1

Kansas City/Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey (Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller/Richard Penniman) – B4S. Note that the latter song was not listed on the album cover.

Eight Days a Week – B4S

You Like Me Too Much – the Harrison track was from Side 2 of the upcoming UK Help! album

Bad Boy (Larry Williams) – The group recorded material especially for the North American market. This song’s first UK release was on A Collection of Beatles Oldies in 1966 and later appeared on the UK Rarities album in 1978.

I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party – B4S

Words of Love (Buddy Holly) – B4S

Side 2

What You’re Doing -B4S

Yes It Is – the B-side to the single Ticket To Ride

Dizzy Miss Lizzy (Williams) – recorded material especially for the North American market. But it showed up on the upcoming UK Help album.

Tell Me What You See – from the upcoming UK Help album

Every Little Thing -B4S

The Story of The Beatles Cartoons & Why They Will Never Be Shown Again

#1 hits in 1964: yeah, yeah, yeah; baby, baby!

Jeff Barry/Ellie Greenwich

To no one’s surprise, the #1 hits in 1964 featured the most famous pop band in the world, even today. Indeed, I wrote about the Liverpudlian dominance of the US charts on February 9, so I won’t link to either the Beatles’ hits or the Peter and Gordon song attributed to Lennon-McCartney.

Because I have the book Across the Charts: the 1960s, I can quickly see if any of these songs appeared on other charts besides the pop charts. Interestingly, The Beatles never did until Something landed at #17 on the Adult Contemporary charts.

I Want To Hold Your Hand – The Beatles (Capitol), seven weeks at #1, gold record

Can’t Buy Me Love – The Beatles (Capitol), five weeks at #1, gold record

There! I Said It Again – Bobby Vinton (Epic), four weeks at #1, five weeks at #1 AC. This was the first #1 of 1964.

Baby Love – the Supremes (Motown), four weeks at #1, three weeks at #1 RB, gold record. It is one of three Supremes songs, all written by Holland-Dozier-Holland.

Oh, Pretty Woman – Roy Orbison (Monument), three weeks at #1, gold record. Orbison went to England in 1963 and toured with The Beatles. This is the last song on the soundtrack for some Julia Roberts/Richard Gere flick.

The House of the Rising Sun – the Animals (MGM), three weeks at #1

Chapel of Love – the Dixie Cups (Red Bird), three weeks at #1. Composed by Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich, and Phil Spector

I Feel Fine – The Beatles (Capitol), three weeks at #1, gold record

She Loves You – The Beatles (Swan), two weeks at #1. As noted, its original failure in 1963 helped propel it when Beatlemania struck in 1964.

My favorite compilation album

I Get Around – the Beach Boys (Capitol), two weeks at #1; a gold record. The first song of theirs I owned is from a bizarre album called Big Hits From England & U.S.A., which I picked up from the Capitol Record Club. It was also when I first owned Can’t Buy Me Love; I had not yet purchased the A Hard Day’s Night soundtrack (United Artists) because it was too similar to the Capitol album Something New. It’s also how I got Peter and Gordon’s World Without Love.

Come See About Me – the Supremes (Motown), two weeks at #1, two weeks at #2 RB.

Where Did Our Love Go – the Supremes (Motown), two weeks at #1, ditto on the RB charts. Their first #1.

Do Wah Diddy Diddy – Manfred Mann (Ascot), two weeks at #1. Written by the legendary Barry and Greenwich

My Guy – Mary Wells (Motown), two weeks at #1, seven weeks at #1 RB. Smokey Robinson wrote this and the Temptations’ 1965 #1, My Girl.

A Hard Day’s Night – The Beatles (Capitol), two weeks at #1, gold record. I never saw this movie until after Let It Be came out, and I saw all four films, including Help and Yellow Submarine, in one sitting.

Rag Doll – the 4 Seasons (Phillips), two weeks at #1, gold record.

A single week at #1

Hello, Dolly – Louis Armstrong (Kapp), nine weeks at #1 AC. The artist that broke The Beatles’ stranglehold on #1 in the charts. Written by Jerry Herman.

Mr. Lonely – Bobby Vinton (Epic). Also #3 AC. He had a #1 in January and this in December; I do not recall either.

Everybody Loves Somebody – Dean Martin (Reprise), eight weeks at #1 AC, gold record. Every time I hear this song, I feel a little inebriated.

A World Without Love – Peter and Gordon (Capitol)

Ringo – Lorne Greene (RCA Victor), six weeks at #1 AC. A spoken word piece by the star of the NBC western series Bonanza that apparently had nothing to do with Richard Starkey.

Love Me Do – The Beatles (Tollie)

Leader Of The Pack – the Shangra-las (Red Bird), #8 RB. It was written by Barry, Greenwich, and Shadow Morton.