Backwards Traveller - Paul McCartney & Wings (1978)
I dedicate this song to Tumblr.
The Brits spell Traveler with two Ls? I just noticed that. Must commit that one to the Colour, Aluminium, memory chest.
Her Majesty - The Beatles (1969)
Now, I know what you’re thinking… ugh, what a safe choice…
But… but LISTEN CLOSELY, dear followers. For this mix of Paul McCartney’s miniature Abbey Road epilogue predates its construction into and subsequent extrication from the infamous medley that takes up most of Side Two.
When you hear the released version, it begins with a thunderous chord that is actually the end of Mean Mr. Mustard. Before extraction, Her Majesty fit neatly in between MMM and Polythene Pam.
Abbey Road Studios tape operator John Kurlander had this to say about how the song ended up at the end of the album:
We did all the remixes and crossfades to overlap the songs, Paul was there, and we heard it together for the first time. He said, ‘I don’t like Her Majesty, throw it away,’ so I cut it out - but I accidentally left in the last note. He said, ‘It’s only a rough mix, it doesn’t matter…’ I said to Paul, ‘What shall I do with it?’ ‘Throw it away,’ he replied.
I’d been told never to throw anything away, so after he left I picked it up off the floor, put about 20 seconds of red leader tape before it and stuck it onto the end of the edit tape.
(via The Beatles Bible)When they cut an acetate the next day to hear the whole album in sequence, HM was still intact at the end of the tape. McCartney liked the happy accident, so the tidbit of monarchist melody was left on the final album, making it one of the first hidden tracks.
Bow Tie Daddy - Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention (1968)
Take a psychedelic jaunt down Tin Pan Alley with The Mothers.
From their third album We’re Only In It For The Money which is a bizarre and wonderful collage of pop music, telephone conversations, skits and freak-outs. A landmark of frazzled, yet precise production.
In the spring of 1967, Zappa was hard at work plotting out what would be The Mothers’ next album, which he planned to be a mixture of their music and Lenny Bruce comedy routines. But all that changed on June 1st, when The Beatles released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Too large an event for Zappa to let go by unnoticed, he immediately shifted gears and by August they were hard at work piecing together their own vision of what The Summer of Love was all about.
One needs to look no further than the cover of We’re Only… to see the influence of Pepperdom. It’s possibly the first and in my opinion the best parody of the cover in existence.
So the question still remains: Is this phase one of Lumpy Gravy?
Fear no more! I LOVE SHORT SONGS is here to help! Delivering music in short bursts (under or around a minute) to help diffuse the boredom in your iTunes playlist!
