Should a lost Beatles song resurface?
Why Paul McCartney should—and shouldn't—release "Carnival of Light"
This one's for you, Beatlemaniacs, said Radar online. Paul McCartney is planning to release a 14-minute “experimental” song called “Carnival of Light,” which the Beatles recorded in 1967 but never played for the public. Apparently, “during the session McCartney suggested that the other band members ‘just wander round all of the stuff and bang it, shout, play it—it doesn't need to make sense.’”
“For one whose place in history is not so much secure as gloriously, unquestionably assured,” said John Aizlewood in the Guardian online, McCartney “behaves as though there is some doubt.” Releasing “Carnival of Light” certainly isn’t “going to enhance the Beatles' standing,” and it's likely “to make us think slightly less of them.”
Don’t be so sure, said CNN online. “Almost everything recorded by the Beatles from their early days in Liverpool and Hamburg to their break-up in 1970 has been released to meet insatiable public appetite for anything to do with the legendary Liverpool quartet.” Why would this song be any different?
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Well, for one thing, said Stuart Heritage in Heckler Spray, “Carnival of Light” is “probably most famous” for not being included on The Beatles Anthology “because George Harrison and Ringo Starr thought it was rubbish.” Does McCartney just want to show the world that he had an “arty” side, too? Or did Heather Mills take so much of his money that he’s willing to release what’s likely a “pile of un-listenable, self-indulgent twaddle”?
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