Paul McCartney has revealed the secret gifts The Beatles gave to their followers with each single and album release.
Speaking on his official website, the 82-year-old music icon divulged how the band always aimed to offer fans more than just songs. Before the vinyl re-release of the 1975 Wings album Venus and Mars, Paul reminisced about the recording process in New Orleans and the creative concepts behind it.
Among the anniversary edition’s special features are collectibles including stickers, posters, and a bookmark — a tradition which Paul noted he began during his time playing with The Beatles. He shared, “When we came to the point of putting out records ourselves as The Beatles – particularly once we had a bit more say in the matter – we wanted to put stuff in that people could pull out.”
Adding something to their albums was integral, starting with Sgt Pepper, which broke convention with added cut-outs and printed lyrics, a rarity at the time.
The Beatles always wanted to give their fans more (
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
Paul mused, “It was about including interesting and fascinating things for the record-buyer. If you unwrapped it on the bus, then you would have found the little things: ‘Oh, there’s a poster! I’ll have a look at that later. There’s the little bookmark thing, little stickers…’ And we’d just ask the record company if we’d be able to do all of this, if it would still be affordable.”
He added, “Luckily for us they said yes, because record sales were very high in those days as well. It meant that we could give our audience more, and I always loved that.”
Paul then explained, “We’d been record-buyers ourselves and I had bought a couple of records that were rip-offs. There was a Little Richard album I bought once because I loved him so much – it was Little Richard and Buck Ram with an orchestra. I thought, ‘Yeah, great. That should be good!'”
However, he was left shocked when he played the album. “I got it home and Little Richard was on one track… The rest was Buck Ram and his bloody orchestra! I thought, ‘That is such a rip-off!'” he recalled.
Paul continued, “In The Beatles we were all very much anti that kind of marketing. Early on we’d hung out with Phil Spector, whose work we loved, but he was a little bit that way. He asked, ‘Why do you have two different songs on a single?’ We said, ‘Well, because it’s great if you’ve got the B-side as well as the A-side.’
“‘We love turning it over and getting a new song, two for the price of one!’ And he said, ‘Oh no, no. All we do is just take the vocal off and leave the backing track on, and we call it ‘Sing along with…’.” That is such a rip-off, man! That is terrible!”