Carnival Of Light
From BeatlesWiki
Carnival Of Light is an unreleased song from the sessions that would become Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
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[edit] The Million Volt Light And Sound Rave
In 1966, a design team called Binder, Edwards, and Vaughan painted a piano for Paul McCartney in psychedelic colors. Paul McCartney met Vaughan through a mutual friend, Tara Browne, the guiness heir whose death later inspired the lyrics for A Day In The Life. In December 1966, Vaughan asked Paul if he could contribute a recorded piece for two festivals held at the Roundhouse Theatre in London on January 28 and February 4. This evnt was called The Million Volt Light And Sound Rave (AKA 'The Carnival Of Light Rave'). Even though they were in the early stages of recording Sgt, Pepper (Strawberry Fields Forever and When I'm 64 were already recorded and the basic tracks for Penny Lane were recorded), Paul agreed to. Despite this, Vaughan seemed not to be impressed with the piece, as reflected in this later interview, "I asked Paul to do it and I thought he would make more of it than he did; I thought this was a vehicle for him, if anything was. My trouble is, I expect everybody to drop everything. I forget other people have got things on." The show also featured recordings from Unit Delta Plus, a group formed of Delia Derbyshire, Brian Hodgson, and Peter Zinovieff.
[edit] The Song
One person besides The Beatles to have heard the track is Barry Miles, who wrote Paul McCartney's authorized biography, Many Years From Now. He described it as having "no rhythm, though a beat is sometimes established for a few bars by the percussion or a rhythmic pounding on the piano. There is no melody, though snatches of a tune sometimes threaten to break through. The Beatles make literally random sounds, although they sometimes respond to each other; for instance, a burst of organ notes answered by a rattle of percussion. The basic track was recorded slow so that some of the drums and organ were very deep and sonorous, like the bass notes of a cathedral organ. Much of it is echoed and it is often hard to tell if you are listening to a slowed-down cymbal or a tubular bell. John and Paul yell with massive amounts of reverb on their voices, there are Indian war cries, whistling, close-miked gasping, genuine coughing and fragments of studio conversation, ending with Paul asking, with echo, 'Can we hear it back now?' The tape was obviously overdubbed and has bursts of feedback guitar, schmaltzy cinema organ, snatches or jangling pub piano, some unpleasant electronic feedback and John yelling, 'Electricity'. There is a great deal of percussion throughout, again much of it overdubbed. The tape was made with full stereo separation, and is essentially an exercise in musical layers and textures. It most resembles The Return Of The Son Of Monster Magnet, the twelve-minute final track on Frank Zappa's Freak Out! album, except there is no rhythm and the music here is more fragmented, abstract and serious. The deep organ notes at the beginning of the piece set the tone as slow and contemplative." In 2008, Paul mentioned the recording of the track "I said all I want you to do is just wander around all the stuff, bang it, shout, play it, it doesn't need to make any sense. Hit a drum then wander on to the piano, hit a few notes, just wander around. So that's what we did and then put a bit of an echo on it. It's very free." "I like it because it's The Beatles free, going off piste." In the same interview, Paul says it was influenced by experimental music composers John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen. In Mark Lewissohn's 1988 Book, The Complete Beatles Recording Chronicle, it descibes the song like this. "Track one of the tape was full of distorted, hypnotic drum and organ sounds; track two had a distorted lead guitar; track three had the sounds of a church organ, various effects (the gargling of water was one) and voices; track four featured various indescribable sound effects with heaps of tape echo and manic tambourine. But of all the frightening sounds it was the voices on track three which really set the scene, John and Paul screaming dementedly and bawling aloud random phrases like 'Are you all right?' and 'Barcelona!' Paul terminated the proceedings after almost 14 minutes with one final shout up to the control room: 'Can we hear it back now?'" Dudley Edwards (of Binder, Edwards, and Vaughan) mentioned that an early version of Fixing A Hole appeared partially in Carnival Of Light.
[edit] Public Mention of The Song
The song was first mentioned in Mark Lewissohn's 1988 book, The Complete Beatles Recording Chronicle. Apparently, Paul wanted to include the song on Anthology 2, but it was "George" who vetoed it, saying that he "doesn't like avant-garde music". In 2009, Paul confirms it was George Harrison he was talking about and not George Martin. Paul reacalls, "I said it would be great to put this on because it would show we were working with really avant-garde stuff." In April 2002, Mark Ellen from The Rocking Vicar interviewed Paul McCartney about the song. Below is a portion of the interview.
[edit] 2002 Interview on the song
"Rocking Vicar: Just one last question - Carnival Of Light: does it actually exist?
Paul McCartney: It does exist, yeah. We recorded it in about fifteen minutes. It's very avant garde - as George would say 'avant garde a clue' - and George did not like it 'cos he doesn't like avant garde music.
RV: Who wrote it?
PM: It's officially me. I instigated it. No there's no lyrics, it's avant garde music. You would class it as... well you wouldn't class it actually, but it would come in the Stockhausen/John Cage bracket... John Cage would be the nearest. It's very free-form. Yeah man, it's the coolest piece of music since sliced bread!
RV: This is early '67?
PM: I was asked about '67 to do it by Barry Miles - you know, who did my book Many Years From Now - and he asked me to do it for this event at The Roundhouse called Carnival Of Light, so that's how it got its title. And he asked me to write a fifteen to twenty minute piece, and I was into that kind of thing, not on record with The Beatles, but just for that. I went into the studio and said to the guys, Look we've got half an hour before the session officially starts, would you mind terribly if I did this thing?
RV: So this is with the other Beatles?
PM: With the other Beatles. This is a Beatle record. And they all just fell in with the spirit of it and I just said, Would you go on that and would you stay on that and would you be on that and we'll just take twenty minutes to do it in real time? And they all just got into it.
RV: Why don't you release it?
PM: I actually have a project I would like ... I'm involved ... One of the many things I did, I did a thing called The Grateful Dead Photo Film, using Linda's snapshots and making them move, dissolving between them and making them into a film, a short art film, which I showed at festivals and things. And I'm actually in the process - although everything else and its uncle is holding it up - but I've got a Beatles photo film on the go and I would love to use it as part of the soundtrack of that.
RV: There was a rumour it was going to come out on Anthology. What happened with that?
PM: It was up for consideration on The Anthology and George vetoed it. He didn't like it. Maybe its time hadn't come."
Paul McCartney has mentioned wanting to see it released several times. The photo film, as of 2009, still has yet to see the light of day and may never. He has not commented on it since. In November 2008, Paul once again mentioned that he wanted it released on an interview with BBC Radio Four. He also first mentioned a possible setback for the release of the track; He needed permission from Ringo and the estates of John and George.
[edit] Recording
The song was taped in a single take (with overdubs) on January 5, 1967. Paul McCartney has said it was "about fifteen minutes." In The Complete Beatles Recording Chronicle, it mentions the song length as being 13:48. It took up most of the session, which lasted between 7:00 PM and 12:15 AM, and was alo used to record the vocal overdubs onto Penny Lane. Engineer Geoff Emerick recalls how George Martin was not particularly fond of the track, "When they had finished George Martin said to me, 'This is ridiculous, we've got to get our teeth into something more constructive.'" At the end of the session, a mono mix was given to Binder, Edwards, and Vaughan, who played it several times during both of the festivals. Dudley Edwards has claimed it was taken to America by Ray Anderson, who directed the light shows.
[edit] Recording Sessions
- January 5, 1967: The Beatles record Carnival Of Light as well as the vocal overdubs to Penny Lane. →
[edit] Release
The song has yet to be released, on any official album or bootleg. Paul McCartney claims to own a copy. In mid-2000, a minute-long MP3 of backwards guitar was first found on file-sharing networks. It claimed to be a short clip from this song. As it turns out, this was a hoax and the outfake was done by Lord of Boothferry, a Beatles collector. Paul wanted to release it on Anthology 2 in 1996. Later that year, he mentioned in a interview with Mojo magazine that he wanted the track released as a soundtrack to a photofilm he made about The Beatles. He mentioned this film and Carnival Of Light again in 2002, but it still has not been released. It has been suggested that sounds from the song have been mixed into the LOVE mix of Blue Jay Way, however, since the song has not been released, noone can be sure. In 2008, he once again said that he wanted it released, this time not mentioning the photofilm. Because of this, rumors spread around that the song would released on January 5, 2009 to celebrate to forty-second anniversary of the song being recorded. These turned out to be false.
