Two extra-spesh releases to excite Beatles fans

Two freshly published works ought to please Beatles fans to no end – one being coffee table book The Complete Beatles Songs, the other being the beautifully packaged CD/DVD (or Blu-ray) compilation Beatles 1+.

Hachette Australia is proud to announce the publication of The Complete Beatles Songs – the very first book to feature every lyric to every Beatles song published. Included are all 207 original songs written by the Fab Four, from their debut LP Please Please Me, through history-making classics like Revolver and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, to rarer-known material on the Anthology and Live At The BBC compilation albums.

While the book looks like a hefty tome of encyclopaedic proportions, it is indeed beautifully laid-out, sturdily bound, and packed with easily digestible summaries of each song accompanied by fabulous photography.

The thing about Beatles songs is that individual listeners bring their own experiences to them. I Want To Hold Your Hand would mean something different to a nervous teenage boy than it would to an 70-year-old married couple. It’s the premise of the song – the original story behind it – that lovers of it can come together and appreciate.

The Complete Beatles Songs digs deeper into the background of these songs than any tome before it (including the recently released All The Songs). Author Steve Turner, himself a music journalist previously (for the NME and Rolling Stone) does a good job in patching legend with new-found information; and juxtaposing myth with fact.

It’s surprising to learn, for example, that the bassline in Day Tripper was a nod to Roy Orbison’s Oh Pretty Woman and the song itself was as much about a girl who leads a guy on as it is about trippy hippies on LSD.

The book is packed with this kind of fascinating anecdote and as a whole ought to satisfy even the most ardent (read: thinks he knows it all) Beatles fan.

Now, to the music itself – EMI has just released a CD/DVD and CD/Blu-ray compilation that pairs beautifully restored videos for each of the 27 songs that appeared on the Beatles compilation album 1 some time back.

The brand new Beatles 1+ celebrates the band’s career in over 200 minutes through 50 promotional films and videos. Fans should note that 20 of the films and videos were not used in The Beatles’ Anthology and of the remaining 30, these have only previously been seen in part or in alternate edits.

Indeed an entire second disc is devoted to sound and vision and includes alternate versions of clips and rarely-seen film footage of the Fab Four along with audio commentary from various band members.

If you’re not familiar with the 1 compilation, it includes all 27 of the Beatles number one hits from Love Me Do to The Long and Winding Road.

A double-LP pressed on 180-gram vinyl will soon be available.  Antonino Tati

The Complete Beatles Songs by Steven Turner is published through Hachette Australia, RRP $49.99 in hardback.

The Beatles 1+ is available in various formats and deluxe editions through Apple Corps Ltd/Universal Music Group.