The Beatles |
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Wed. June 09.1999 9:08 PM EDT |
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A Hard Day's News For Beatles Fans: There's No New SongFab Four's spokesperson admits he misled the public when he said an unreleased 1968 song had been found. by Contributing Editor Brian Hiatt |
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The late John Lennon wrote and sang "Hey Bulldog." ( ) |
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Paul still isn't dead. And there isn't another new Beatles song on the
way. Evoking memories of the elaborate hoax in the late 1960s in which Beatles fans around the world were led to believe Paul McCartney had died in a car accident,
It turns out all that was discovered was previously unknown video footage of the beloved '60s rock group recording "Hey Bulldog," a song from the Beatles' 1969 soundtrack to the animated film Yellow Submarine. The "Paul is dead" rumor persisted for years and many say the Fab Four added fuel to the hoax in their music, as on "Glass Onion" (RealAudio excerpt). The rumor spawned a complex mythology in which Beatles songs and album covers were scoured for clues. In comparison, the announcement of a new track by the legendary quartet was reported by national and international news organizations, including Reuters, Associated Press, CNN and Newsweek, and spurred Beatles fans into fevered speculation about what the song might be. Millions of fans have been anxious to get their hands on new music from the Liverpool, England, quartet since the release of its three-part Anthology (1995-1996) series. Many assumed the much-talked-about new song would be just a previously unearthed take of "Hey Bulldog" (RealAudio excerpt). Beatles fans were steamed to find out it wasn't even that. "Geoff Baker is a damned liar and has tarnished the Beatles' aura of integrity," William Scheckel, 28, of Nutley, N.J., wrote in an e-mail. Scheckel was one of several Beatles fans from the rec.music.beatles newsgroup who expressed outrage at the news. Baker refused to say Wednesday why he had repeatedly stated over the past month that an unreleased Beatles song was on the way. "I'm not particularly interested in talking about that," he said. But he said his initial comments had been misinterpreted by journalists, who he said were motivated by "wishful enthusiasm." When the news broke a month ago, Baker was quoted in Reuters as saying archivists had discovered "a real rocker" featuring the late John Lennon on vocals. Later in May, he encouraged speculation that an alternate take of the Lennon-penned "Hey Bulldog" had been found. "Some of the diehard fans will know the song, but the majority of people won't," he said. "[And] I don't think anyone will know the song in this form." A spokesperson for Apple Records, the Beatles' label, did not return a call for comment by press time. The new video footage is expected to be made public in conjunction with the upcoming reissue of the 1968 Beatles movie "Yellow Submarine," though Baker said he didn't yet know what form that release will take. As is every other track on the Yellow Submarine soundtrack album, "Hey Bulldog" is being remixed and remastered for a Sept. 14 CD reissue, but no alternate take of the song will be released, Baker said. "I'm sort of ticked. I feel we were definitely misled on this one," Lee Rand, a 51-year-old Beatles fan in Lincoln, Maine, wrote. "The [news of a] little bit of film footage doesn't get me that excited." But Sean Courtney, 24, of Ocean Grove, N.J., said the news didn't faze him. "I'm not mad," he wrote. "I'm used to all the hype, so I just ignore it. I'm used to Beatles rumors, cancellations and delays." Gabriel Montemurro, 24, of Pittsburgh, who runs a website dedicated to the "Paul is dead" phenomenon, said that although the two incidents of Beatles misinformation occurred decades apart, they shared a common motivation: "You cannot rule out simple curiosity. ... Be it the mystery of [McCartney's supposed death], or tapes left in the vault -- people eat this stuff up." If there had been a new Beatles song, it wouldn't have been the first "new" track released in the '90s. The surviving members released two songs in 1995 and 1996. "Free as a Bird" (RealAudio excerpt) and "Real Love" (RealAudio excerpt), which appeared on the first two volumes of the multimillion-selling Anthology series, featured new backing tracks by McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr behind solo recordings by Lennon, who was murdered outside his New York apartment in 1980. |
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