The Great Lost Beatles Album

The last Beatles album released was Let it Be which came out in May of 1970. But that was filled with material written mostly two years earlier. The project had been shelved so the band could put out Abbey Road, which came out in September of 1969.

Tired of living in each other's pockets, as they had been doing since around 1956, the Beatles split up in 1970. That year, all four band members released solo albums. What if we took the best cuts from each solo record to create a "new" Beatles album. Would it stand up to the high standards of Abbey Road?

Somewhat surprisingly, George Harrison would have the most to offer our new record, which I am dubbing The Great Lost Beatles Album. John Lennon had a fantastic solo record in 1970, but most of the songs would not fly on a "typical" Beatles release and I have left off several outstanding tracks.

Paul McCartney opted for a reflective record for his solo release that year. Undoubtedly, if he was still in the band competing with the others for space on an album, he would have come up with a stronger batch of tunes. But I resisted the urge to dip into his 1971 release Ram which has many strong tracks.

Ringo Starr released two solo albums in 1970, but neither were rock-and-roll offerings. While I stayed true to the timeline for McCartney, I cheated for Ringo and grabbed a single he released in 1971.

Here is the track listing for The Great Lost Beatles Album:

1. Maybe I'm Amazed
2. Well, Well, Well
3. What Is Life
4. Instant Karma
5. It Don't Come Easy
6. Hold On
7. Apple Scruffs
8. Let it Down
9. Mother
10. Teddy Boy
11. All Things Must Pass

Since McCartney has only two tracks on the album, we start off with "Maybe I'm Amazed", perhaps the finest solo song ever released by any member of the group and the one up-tempo number from McCartney.

Next is "Well, Well, Well" the most friendly song on Lennon's terrific John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. It would be fascinating to hear what kind of arrangement the Beatles and George Martin would have come up for with this track.

Harrison's "What Is Life" is up next. This is one of (at least) four top-10 hits on the album and it would be interesting to see which one the group would release as its first single.

Lennon released "Instant Karma" as a single in 1970. "Imagine" gets all of attention among Lennon's solo work, but to me this is his strongest work outside of the Beatles.

Ringo always got a song to sing and "It Don't Come Easy" is by far his most successful solo effort. I think it was well worth fudging the timeline to get this included on the album. And besides, it's quite possible he had this written in 1970 but it just did not fit on either his 1930s-inspired Sentimental Journey or country-themed Beaucoup of Blues.

"Hold On" is a nice acoustic Lennon track to follow the three monster hits. Next comes a first for the Beatles, an album with back-to-back Harrison songs. "Apple Scruffs" is a nice bouncy song that sounds almost like a McCartney tune while "Let It Down" is a more traditional offering by George, with beautiful shifts in tempo that would only be highlighted with Lennon and McCartney doing harmonies and backup vocals.

It would be unfair to Lennon not to include "Mother" on this album. It's by far the most non-traditional Beatles song on the record but that follows nicely in the spirit of "Tomorrow Never Knows" and "Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite!" It's hard to decide where to place this track, it led off Lennon's album, but I think it makes a nice follow-up to "Let it Down".

After the seriousness of "Mother" it is the perfect time for McCartney's "Teddy Boy", a typical Paul story-in-a-song effort. This also has the benefit of being done by the Beatles. It's on my copy of the Let it Be bootleg, Kum Back.

Our album closes with another song rehearsed extensively by the Beatles, Harrison's "All Things Must Pass". This is a beautiful song and a fitting tribute to our final Beatles album.

So, how would The Great Lost Beatles Album stack up against the band's best? There's little doubt it would surpass Let it Be. I think it would be difficult to call it better than Abbey Road but it would be packed from beginning to end with great songs and would be yet another terrific album by the Fab Four.