MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR

Another winner from the Beatles, though not quite at the level of their prior two albums, Revolver and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. As has been repeated ad nauseam, in the UK, the Magical Mystery Tour record was a double EP with six new songs; in the US, those six songs comprised Side One of the LP; on Side Two were five songs previously* released on singles.

I've reviewed 'Hello, Goodbye'/ 'I Am the Walrus' and 'Strawberry Fields Forever' / 'Penny Lane' separately, and here I'll focus on the remainder except to say that without them, Magical Mystery Tour would be a considerably poorer album. Conspicuously, the group composition 'Flying,' Paul McCartney's 'Your Mother Should Know,' and in particular George Harrison's 'Blue Jay Way' are below-average Beatles songs. But 'Hello, Goodbye,' 'I Am the Walrus,' and 'Penny Lane' more than atone for them.

John Lennon's 'All You Need is Love,' and the Lennon-McCartney tune 'Baby, You're a Rich Man' are considerably better, and overall it's Lennon who provides much of the depth on Magical Mystery Tour. I think the average fan of the Beatles is ambivalent to McCartney's relatively trifling pieces of the time, exemplified here by 'The Fool on the Hill' (and elsewhere by 'When I'm Sixty-Four,' 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer,' etc.). While they pale in comparison to 'Hey Jude' or 'Penny Lane,' I still enjoy them as pop music. Nonetheless, there's only so much 'The Fool on the Hill' and 'Your Mother Should Know' one 36-minute album can withstand.

Luckily, the title song (composed, as I understand it, by McCartney with help from Lennon) is on par with the previously-released material. One writer cites critics who regard 'Magical Mystery Tour' as 'a warmed-over 'Sgt. Pepper'- type fanfare/invitation to what's to follow,' but to me McCartney manages to create a unique song despite it playing a role nearly identical to that of the the lead song on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which had been released just six months earlier.

Despite its unevenness, the Magical Mystery Tour LP contains at least six indispensable Beatles songs among its thirteen tracks, making it a good place to start for those interested in the Beatles' later work.