‘Magical Mystery Tour’: The Non-Album That Accidentally Became One of The Beatles’ Best

In the realm of rock and roll debates, the argument over which Beatles album is the best is one of the mostly hotly-contested. Perhaps because the records that are most mentioned (Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Revolver, The White Album, Abbey Road, Rubber Soul) are also in the running for greatest rock and roll albums of all time. 

But we’re here to make a case for an album that technically wasn’t an album, at least not to start. Magical Mystery Tour is a bit of an odd duck in the catalog of the Fab Four. And yet, you can make the case that the 11 songs that it contains are as strong as any set The Beatles ever released. Let’s explore how this collection of tracks evolved into what it is today, beginning with a look at the record company shenanigans behind its strange status.

EMI vs. Capitol

The Beatles’ music was released in America courtesy of Capitol Records, which was the North American arm of parent company EMI. EMI pretty much gave Capitol free rein in the early days of the group in terms of how the music would be packaged for American audiences. Which is why there was a divergence between the UK and American versions of the albums.

For example, albums like Meet the Beatles! and Something New only existed in America. In some cases, an album would have the same title on both sides of the Atlantic and still contain a different collection of songs. Those who bought Rubber Soul in America, for instance, were greeted with “I’ve Just Seen a Face,” which had been released in Britain on Help!, as the first track. The general idea was to divvy up the material into as many releases as possible in the U.S.

By the time Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was released in 1967, The Beatles stepped in and insisted that their original vision of the album be honored in America. From that point forward, there was no separation between the EMI and Capitol albums. With the exception, that is, of the soundtrack for a bizarre Beatles film named Magical Mystery Tour.

[RELATED: 4 Beatles Songs That Capture Life on the Road]

A Fantastic Flop

Following the death of manager Brian Epstein in August 1967, The Beatles pushed forward with a Paul McCartney idea for a new film that they’d put together pretty much by themselves and which would feature new, original songs. Magical Mystery Tour, which debuted on television in Great Britain on Boxing Day in ’67, was a glorified home movie detailing a ramshackle bus trip that was occasionally interrupted by surreally absurd (or maybe they were absurdly surreal) set pieces.

The movie dumbfounded audiences and stirred up critics to deliver some of the first negative reviews the band had ever received for anything they had released. But it was hard to deny the brilliance of the music contained in the movie. John Lennon’s “I Am the Walrus” was majestic madness, Paul McCartney’s “The Fool on the Hill” served up lovely melancholia, and the wild experimentation of George Harrison’s “It’s All Too Much” was the best kind of overkill. Throw in the shiny title track, the charming instrumental “Flying,” and a fun McCartney singalong in “Your Mother Should Know,” and it was clear the boys were still operating at the psychedelic peak they reached during Sgt. Pepper’s, which had come out earlier in the year.

Leave It to the Yanks

In Great Britain, those songs were released as a double EP (extended play) disc. But Capitol knew that the EP format didn’t do that well in America. Thus, they came up with the idea to round up the singles and B-sides the group had released throughout 1967 and turn those songs into the second side of an LP.

And what a batch of songs that was. There was the 1-2 punch of “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Penny Lane,” which had introduced the world to the studio-bound Beatles (they gave up touring in ’66) and set the table for Pepper’s. “All You Need Is Love,” the ultimate Summer of Love anthem that the group had done as a one-off for a worldwide television special, was included, as was its quirky yet engaging B-side “Baby, You’re a Rich Man.” Topping it all off was the endlessly catchy “Hello, Goodbye,” which the group had released as a single in the interim between Pepper’s and the film.

At the time, The Beatles had complained about this Frankenstein monster of an album being released in America. But it’s telling that, when the Fab Four put their catalog on CD for the first time in the late ‘80s, they included the American version of Magical Mystery Tour in the package.

And why wouldn’t they? The songs all came from roughly the same time period and captured the band at a dizzyingly high creative point. Magical Mystery Tour can go toe-to-toe with any of the heavyweights in The Beatles’ collection of albums. Not bad at all, especially when you consider it took some record company interference to create the definitive version of it.

Photo by Jim Gray/Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images