Revolver Deluxe – Missed Opportunities?

Plundering a vault can be tiring, I suppose. Especially when there’s really not enough left that people haven’t heard before. The Revolver Deluxe album(s) seem to be no exception.  While completely entertaining in many ways… the one thing about Giles Martin is… he likes to pad his track counts, when it comes to “rare” session takes. He’s done this before, of course… and the results are always interesting to hear, once or twice.  The problem is, of course, you never seem to get a complete take.  He’ll put the same track on there twice… oh yeah… but version one strips it down to a select few instruments, while version two will give you yet another (mono) select few instruments.  It makes me fucking crazy that the man doesn’t just say: “Dudes… here’s the whole song, the complete take 237 of Paul McCartney singing “Give Abbey Road Back To The Abbey’s”… with the count-in and John farting the solo in the key of “G-Minor”.

Another example: On the new Revolver release… Giles gives us:

1. Got To Get You Into My Life (Second version) – Unnumbered mix – mono  … and…
2. Got To Get You Into My Life (Second version) – Take 8

The “Unnumbered Mix: is, of course… take 8… without the horn section… in MONO, which, of course, sucks, because a stereo mix IS available, and if it wasn’t, he surely could have made one.  The second GTGYIML version on the album is called, simply, “Take 8”.  But it’s a stereo take of the horns, with the Beatles instruments mixed WAYYY too low in the background. And… as an added bonus annoyance… no vocals. Thanks, Giles… really… could you be more of an ass today??

The full take is preserved, but as yet, not officially released, of course. It’s a full alternate take of “Got To Get You Into My Life”.  I have friends who have claimed (I don’t believe them – I don’t think they’re lying, but I think they’re confused) they have HEARD a VERY lo-fi mono mix of it.  But, as usual, with these Deluxe Editions that seem to flame out due to bulk-over-quality… I took it as a “Challenge Accepted” moment, and decided to build myself a complete Take 8, using nothing but bailing wire, duct tape, 3 feminine hygiene products and a case of Hubba-Bubba Grape-Flavored chewing gum from 1978.  Actually, I used Tempo-Loc, iZotope RX10, DeepMix and Adobe Audition while my cat supervised as she sat on the mixing console.

The new remix of Rain was another missed opportunity for greatness, in my (un)humble opinion.  On the new Deluxe edition… they have a track called “Rain (Take 5 – Actual speed)”. What that track actually is… is a reduction take from the original master multi-tracks… reducing the instruments down to TWO tracks, leaving John two additional tracks for vocals.  When they MIXED take 5 down to what we (today) would call a “Safety Copy”… they panned John’s overdubs…. to hard left and hard right. And while the tape they used was less that stellar, sonically… it was my “HOLY SHIT” moment when I heard how those vocals sounded and I HAD to have them panned out in a mix, instead of it being just a blended overdub stuck at 12 o’clock in the stereo spectrum.  Aside from that, the elephant in the room has ALWAYS been, in EVERY mix of the song: The harmonies overshadow John’s lead vocals. Always have.  So I re-re-re-remixed the damned thing into what you hear in this posting today. Downloads are below… FLAC and MP3 versions. Enjoy!

MP3

FLAC