The Beatles' 'disaster' Paul McCartney didn't want to 'take the blame' for
In 1967 The Beatles were at the peak of their powers. The band had released the masterpiece 'Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' that May, revolutionising popular music and topping the UK charts for 23 consecutive weeks.
The ground-breaking album was the soundtrack to the so-called 'Summer of Love', capturing the psychedelic zeitgeist. The band's next move continued with the experimental sound they had been developing since 1966's 'Revolver' and became 'Magical Mystery Tour', which was released as a double EP in December 1967.
Its initial US release included the classic tracks 'Hello, Goodbye', 'Strawberry Fields Forever', 'Penny Lane' and 'All You Need Is Love' and the album was loved by fans while garnering critical acclaim. However, the film of the same name it served as the soundtrack for was considerably less adored.
The 'Magical Mystery Tour' film aired on BBC1 in black and white on Boxing Day 1967. It was the third Beatles film, following 'A Hard Day's Night' and 'Help', which were released in 1964 and 1965 respectively.
Much of 'Magical Mystery Tour' was improvised and its story follows a group of people on a coach trip who then start to experience strange and surreal things. About its production, Ringo Starr said: "Paul had a great piece of paper – just a blank piece of white paper with a circle on it. The plan was: 'We start here, and we've got to do something here'. We filled it in as we went along."
Source: Dan Haygarth/uk.news.yahoo.com
