MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR

From all the U.S. albums released by The Beatles, this is, IMO, almost the only one that deserves respect, because the U.S. version, which was also released on C.D., is a very good version, originally released in the U.S. as a whole L.P., in comparison to the English version, which was released in a two E.P. set. The U.S. version included, in the Side Two, songs previously released as singles in 1967, with their B-sides. So, IMO, it is more enjoyable, with the songs on Side Two complementing very well the songs included on Side One. This is another very influential album in the development of Progressive Rock, IMO. The arrangements, done again with the help of George Martin, are very good. It is also a very "magical" album for me, another "Musical mind trip" (without using drugs and alcohol!).

All songs of this album are very interesting, being my favourites: "The Fool on the Hill", "Blue Jay Way", "Your Mother Should Know" and the psychedelic "I Am the Walrus", from the "Magical Mystery Tour" film. From the other songs, tracks 7 to 11 of the C.D., my favourites are "Penny Lane" (with a very good bass gutiar played by Paul) and "All You Need is Love", which was originally broadcasted via T.V. in the "Our World" programme. It was the first T.V. programme broadcasted using satellites. I remember very vaguelly that my late father, with my mother and my brothers and me, watched on T.V this programme in 1967. My father also recorded the audio of this T.V. programme, using an old Philips Mono open-reel tape machine. Recently, I discovered that he copied these old open-reel tapes to cassettes. Maybe one day I`m going to listen again to the audio of this historical T.V. programme.

The original L.P. of this album, released by Capitol Records in November 1967, had "Penny Lane", "Baby You`re a Rich Man" and "All You Nee is Love" released in the "Duophonic" format, that is, original Mono versions electronically reprocessed to sound Stereo ("Fake Stereo"), but the C.D of this album has these songs in true Stereo mixing. The original U.S. L.P. also included the Photo book with photos from the "Magical Mystery Tour" film. The old L.P. that I have (bought in 1974) didn`t include it, but I discovered recently that a website has scans of this whole Photo album in www.orthogonal.com.au/music/beatles/magical/ . I previously saw this Photo Book in a L.P. copy which belongs to a friend. The C.D. didn`t include the Photo Book, so finally I could see again it in this Website.

I also watched on T.V the "Magical Mystery Tour" film in 1998, and I also went to a Cinema in 1981 to see this film. It was very criticized by many people since 1967, but I really like the film very much, being very psychedelic and it has some funny scenes too.