Frank Zappa - Sleep Dirt (1975)

Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention released their tenth studio album, "One Size Fits All", in June 1975. Featuring the Fall 1974 lineup of the Mothers, it was the last studio album Zappa released under the MOI moniker, as he disbanded the group in mid-1975. The album was recorded mostly in two separate sessions: one, which took part from early to late December 1974 at James Guercio's Caribou Ranch in Colorado, and sessions in mid-January 1975 at LA's Record Plant. With both of the sessions combined, Zappa and the Mothers recorded enough for a double record, with half of the material being more rock-oriented material with vocals, and the jazz-fusion inspired instrumentals making up the other half. Interestingly enough, Frank released the rock-oriented songs as the OSFA record, leaving the jazzier, more experimental songs in the vault, from which they'd only come out in 1978 in the earliest. Afterward, the guitarist changed his focus to a Beefheart collaboration album, recorded both live in the studio, called Bongo Fury, released in October, and to using a full-scale orchestra in concert, in September of the same year.

The songs from those sessions would still figure as part of Läther, a four-LP box set which was supposed to be released in late-1977, alongside material recorded both live and in the studio, from 1969 to 1977. His record label, Warner Bros, didn't quite like that idea (I wonder why), and seen as FZ was in the middle of litigation with both his former manager and his label, Zappa split the tunes into four different albums, with most of the songs from the sessions coming out in Studio Tan, from 1978, and Sleep Dirt, in 1979. However, according to Zappa himself, a long time before both Läther and the four record split, this material was supposed to make an album of its own. Frank says in the liner notes of One Size Fits All that it was recorded simultaneously with its followup, and stated in an interview in April 1975 that "Greggery Peccary", started in the December 1974 sessions and finished in LA in January, would be a part of the record. So it seems that Zappa had intended to release these songs in 1975 after all, only to wind up getting distracted by Bongo Fury and his Orchestra project and shelving the songs, leaving them in the vault.

That leads us to this reconstruction's primary question: what if Frank Zappa had released his second installment of the December/January sessions? And to answer that question, we'll have to set up some basic rules first. We can't take tracks from either One Size Fits All or Bongo Fury, in order to keep his already confusing and messy discography as cohesive as possible, and to let it coexist with the two LPs it would be released in between of. In addition to "Greggery Peccary", we'll include only songs he deemed worthy of inclusion in either Läther or the four albums, in order to keep some kind of quality control over the material. Whether it would be released as a Mothers or a Frank Zappa solo record, it's pretty debatable. On the one side, it was recorded with the same band as the Fall 1974 incarnation of the MOI, but on the other, Zappa normally released his fusion projects, such as Waka Jawaka and Hot Rats, as solo albums. And considering the 1979 Sleep Dirt was almost subtitled "Hot Rats III", and it features almost all of the songs on our reconstruction, I feel like it's safe to assume this would be a solo album. Anyway, here's our tracklist: 

Regyptian Strut (Sleep Dirt)
Sleep Dirt (Sleep Dirt)
Flambé (Sleep Dirt)
Spider of Destiny (Sleep Dirt)
RDNZL (Studio Tan)
-
Time is Money (Sleep Dirt)
Greggery Peccary (Studio Tan)

Bonus tracks:
A Little Green Rosetta (Läther)
Planet of My Dreams (Them or Us)

Zappa performing live with his band in 1975

In December 1974, he and his band recorded "Sleep Dirt", "Regyptian Strut", "Flambé", "Spider of Destiny" and "Time is Money", from the album Sleep Dirt, and "RDNZL" and parts of the 20-minute "Greggery Peccary", from Studio Tan. They also recorded the basic tracks for "Planet of My Dreams", which would only see release in 1984's Them or Us. In January, they also tracked "Revised Music for Guitar and Low Budget Orchestra" and the rest of "Greggery Peccary", from Studio Tan, and recorded the first part of "A Little Green Rosetta", from Läther. From those, we can exclude both the then-unfinished "Little Green Rosetta" and "Planet of My Dreams", seen as neither of them were up to Frank's quality control back then. One more exclusion we'll need to make is "Revised Music for Guitar and Low Budget Orchestra", seen as it doesn't fit in as well with the rest of the material, and has much more in common with the September 1975 Orchestral Shows (of which it was part of), than this more fusion-like record. We can include it and "Rollo" on an expanded version of Orchestral Favorites, bringing its length up from a mere 34 minutes.

Now that we've narrowed the song list to album length, all we need to do is sequence the songs in a proper and interesting way. We start side one off with "Regyptian Strut", and end it with "RDNZL", taking our cues from the Läther album's original sequence, which had the former as album opener and the latter as last song on side three. We also reserve most of side two to "Greggery Peccary", as it was the final track on the final side of Läther, only adding the short "Time is Money" as side opener, making side two a healthy 23 minutes. And as for the rest of side one, I sequenced "Sleep Dirt", which would probably still be our title track, as track two, and put the combination of "Flambé" and "Spider of Destiny", which worked pretty well together on the Sleep Dirt album, as tracks three and four. I'd also note that none of the songs are included in their Läther mixes, due to some anachronistic vignettes being included in the start and end of tracks, which Zappa employed as a thematic link, and due to the fact that the Sleep Dirt mixes are considerably longer than their unreleased counterparts at times, which is beneficial when it comes to this.

Had FZ taken this project further, it would probably have been released sometime in September 1975,  through his own DiscReet records, with the release of Bongo Fury postponed to December or even January of 1976. I do believe that he would have still used the Sleep Dirt name, with the Hot Rats III subtitle as per his wishes. The cover would obviously be replaced by a Cal Schenkel work, seen as he was Zappa's artist of choice, and the released cover by Gary Panter isn't particularly great. No singles would be released off this album, seen as none of them have much commercial potential, and it's not as if he expected any hit singles to come out of an album like this. When compared to the two other installments of the Hot Rats Trilogy, it certainly is no slouch, and can stand as an equal to both Hot Rats and Waka Jawaka, maintaining his experimentation with jazz and experimental music, and it's probably no coincidence that they were to be released in three-year gaps (1969, 1972, 1975) either. It really is a shame that we never quite got to enjoy these fantastic tracks the way they were originally meant, as a lost brother to his most celebrated album.

Sources:
- Frank Zappa - Sleep Dirt
- Frank Zappa - Studio Tan
- Donlope - FZ Chronology

Cream - Goodbye! (1969)

Cream played their final concert at the Royal Albert Hall, in November of 1968. It was the last date on their Farewell Tour, which they embarked upon after releasing Wheels of Fire, a half live, half studio album, which further cemented their spot as one of the biggest groups in the blues-rock and psychedelic rock genres. However, not all was well in the band by that point. The group had decided to quit right before the release of the aforementioned album, mostly due to the constant fighting between bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker, as well as guitarist Eric Clapton's wish for a change of musical direction in the band, inspired by first hearing The Band's Music from Big Pink. After their farewell tour wrapped up at the Albert Hall in November, they were to finish a final album, fittingly titled Goodbye, before moving on to their respective solo projects. Recording started in October 1968 at London's IBC studios, where the band tracked three songs, one by each of the band members, produced by their regular producer, Felix Pappalardi.

The album they were making was supposed to follow on Wheels of Fire's footsteps, in that they intended to split the album into a "live" disc, chronicling their final performances together, as well as a "studio" disc, which was supposed to feature three compositions by each of the band members, in order to make for a truly collaborative effort. The three songs recorded in October seemed to be a strong starting point for this new record, with "Badge", Eric's tune, featuring George Harrison on guitar and co-writing status, apparently as a thank you for playing on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps". Bruce's "Doing that Scrapyard Thing" and Baker's "What a Bringdown" are also pretty good songs, all rooted in the type of psychedelia Cream did best. However, it seems the band lost interest in such an idea, and the strain in their relations was such that they never really got any further than those three songs. In order to fill out an album, three live recordings from a gig at the LA Forum were added, which meant their final album amounted to a paltry 30 minutes.

However, what you all might be asking by now is: what if Cream had managed to go on with their plan of a double album version of Goodbye? And to answer that, we will first set up some ground rules: We will keep ourselves to only nine songs on the "studio" half, with all the songs coming from either Blind Faith's first and only album, or from Jack Bruce's Songs for a Tailor album, as those were the two releases that immediately followed Cream's demise. The songs that most closely resemble the type of material the group played, or that had strong evidence of being part of their later repertoire, will be included. And as for the "live" half, we will keep ourselves to five to six songs in total, as the band improvised quite a lot live, and the live part of WoF consisted of only four songs. We will also try to keep the selection of material restricted to their final October and November 1968 shows, with only one exception that will be explained later. Either way, not to stretch this out any further than I already have, here's our reconstruction of Goodbye:

Never Tell Your Mother She's Out of Tune (Songs for a Tailor)
Theme for an Imaginary Western (Songs for a Tailor)
Do What You Like (Blind Faith)
In the Presence of the Lord (Blind Faith)
-
Badge (Goodbye!)
Weird of Hermiston (Songs for a Tailor)
Doing That Scrapyard Thing (Goodbye!)
What a Bringdown (Goodbye!)
The Clearout (Songs for a Tailor)
-
I'm So Glad (Goodbye!)
Politician (Goodbye!)
Sitting on Top of the World (Goodbye!)
-
White Room (Live Cream Vol. 2)
Deserted Cities of the Heart (Live Cream Vol. 2)
Steppin' Out (Live Cream Vol. 2)

Bruce, Baker, and Clapton playing live at the RAH, November 1968

In order to select six more songs to fill out the studio side of Goodbye, first, we will need to look at what the three band members were doing right after the band split. Luckily for us, Clapton and Baker came together again, alongside Traffic's Steve Winwood and bassist Ric Grech, to form Blind Faith. While most of the band's material doesn't quite sound like Cream, it does feature two compositions by the pair: Clapton's gospel-tinged "Presence of the Lord", and Baker's 15-minute jam fueled "Do What You Like". That brings us to our first two problems: we only have a song each, and one of those is almost a side long. The solution would be to edit Baker's opus down to a more sensible five minutes, which is the length it was performed in during BF's first gig, and to fill out the album with whatever it is Jack Bruce had available back then. Luckily for us, Jack released a pretty good solo album that year, which was produced by Pappalardi, and even featured a couple of songs that Cream had demoed way back in 1967. So our final four will have to come from him.

And out of all songs on the Songs for a Tailor album, the more adequate would be the opener, "Never Tell Your Mother She's Out of Tune", as it's very Cream-like and even features Harrison on guitar, "Theme for an Imaginary Western", which the band was supposed to record before the split (and would sound a hell of a lot more like the Mountain version of the track, with Clapton's input added in), as well as "Weird of Hermiston" and "The Clearout", which the band had demoed for the Disraeli Gears record, but didn't include as they were "too weird". All arrangements I didn't mention before stay the same, except for "Presence of the Lord", which gets a Clapton lead vocal, as he performs it live nowadays. As for the second disc, we keep those three songs from the original Goodbye album, while adding "White Room" and "Deserted Cities of the Heart", both from the same LA Forum gig, and an earlier recording of "Steppin' Out", which despite being slightly anachronistic, is the perfect way to close the final Cream album, all things considered.

As an album, I honestly think Cream's farewell is a better listening experience than its predecessor, Wheels of Fire. The live side especially is miles better, focusing more on their ensemble playing and fierce improvisation, rather than on drum solos and solo spots. As for the originals, they certainly don't reach the heights of songs like "White Room" or "Politician" (although "Badge" and "Imaginary Western" surely come close), but make for a much more uniform record, without any particularly bad songs. Its lead single would probably be "Badge", which already did pretty well in our timeline, with "What a Bringdown" as its b-side. We honestly have no reason to change the album's great and certainly pretty ironic artwork, so we get to keep it as well. It certainly is a shame that the relations between band members were so strained and uncompromisable that they couldn't go out on a more positive note. Hopefully, with this reconstruction, we managed to paint a clearer picture, of what the final words of one of the most important bands of the '60s were supposed to be.

Sources:
- Cream - Goodbye!

- Jack Bruce - Songs for a Tailor

- Cream - Live Cream, Vol. 2

- Blind Faith - Blind Faith

Guns n' Roses - Perfect Crime (1989)

Guns n' Roses released their second album, GN'R Lies, in November 1988, through Geffen Records. Coming right after the stupendous success of their debut album, Appetite for Destruction, it was a hit almost by default, and also featured a song that would become one of their best known: "Patience". However, those who looked carefully saw that it was nothing but two EPs put together. The first one being their debut release, in 1986, a faux-live performance of four songs, and the other side being an acoustic session, where they play three new tunes and a version of "You're Crazy", from AFD. Those three new songs were of quality on the same level as the material on their first LP, despite the polemic lyrics on the closing track, "One in a Million", which used racist and homophobic slurs. As a stopgap released, it worked pretty well and gave them even more momentum than they already had, without much work having to be involved in it. As a result, the album charted considerably well and catapulted lead single "Patience" to a #4 spot on the singles chart.

However, not everything was roses in the band by then. Impressively enough, drugs had already begun to take hold of some of the members, most notably drummer Steven Adler and guitarist Slash. That meant that whichever time they had outside their hectic schedule, was spent getting into trouble and doing drugs, more of the latter than the former. After their massive world tour ended in December 1988 in Australia, they were exhausted, and as a result, took prolonged holidays from each other. They only reconvened in April of the next year, for an appearance in an awards show and an opening slot for the Rolling Stones. As a result, the band members drifted apart considerably during that time, and their addictions were spiraling out of control. Tentative writing sessions for a new album happened, and despite warranting some songs, they were nowhere near as inspired as before. An attempted recording session later the year went nowhere, and the band still wasn't sure as to where to go, and plans for an album were once more put on hold.

They would finally reconvene in the studio in April 1990 with a brand new batch of songs, and stay in the studio for almost a whole year. In addition to the newer material, they recorded a lot of older songs, even some that were written five years before Appetite! With that, they recorded some 30-odd songs, and decided to turn their followup to AfD into a double album. With that, the twin Use Your Illusion albums were released in 1991 to critical and commercial success, being a risky move that paid off. Certainly, the last four years of hype helped UYI's reputation, and many people wondered why they'd taken so long to record another album. So, what we'll be debating here is: what if Gn'R had released a second studio album in 1989? They certainly had enough material to do so, and had they not released the "Lies" EP, they'd certainly have the time to record it, in between stops of their tour. We will try to keep this album as closely related to Appetite as possible, with only twelve songs, and only songs written before April 1989. Here's what we've got:

You Could Be Mine (Use Your Illusion II)
The Garden (Use Your Illusion I)
Don't Cry (Use Your Illusion I)
Bad Obsession (Use Your Illusion I)
Perfect Crime (Use Your Illusion I)
Knockin' on Heaven's Door (Use Your Illusion II)
-
Used to Love Her (GN'R Lies)
Patience (GN'R Lies)
Back Off Bitch (Use Your Illusion I)
Yesterdays (Use Your Illusion II)
November Rain (Use Your Illusion I)
One in a Million (GN'R Lies)

Bonus tracks:
Ain't Going Down (GN'R Pinball Machine)
Hair of the Dog (The Spaghetti Incident?)

Stradlin, McKagan, Rose, and Slash playing live in early 1989

First of all, we need to select the material for the album. Any and all songs written before the April 1989 sessions that yielded "Civil War" and "Bad Apples" are fair game, and we will set the recording of such an album to sometime in February/March of the same year. That means "Patience", "Used to Love Her" and "One in a Million" from Lies, recorded in 1988, are obvious inclusions, alongside "You Could Be Mine", "Bad Obsession" and "Perfect Crime", all of which were written at the same time as the material on their debut album, and "Yesterdays", "November Rain", "Back Off Bitch", "The Garden" and "Don't Cry", which are from a time when Guns n' Roses didn't even exist yet, some dating as far back as 1985 and 1982! Their cover of Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" can also be included, as they played it live as early as 1988 in Japan, and UYI outtake "Ain't Going Down" and their cover of "Hair of the Dog" can be even added in as options as well, seen as the former was written in 1987, and the latter was played live infrequently during their tours. That gives us a pool of more or less 14 songs to choose from, when compiling Perfect Crime.

With this, we can attempt to sequence an album. Starting off with "You Could Be Mine" and its drum intro is the obvious way to start this album, as is "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" finishing off side one, with "Used to Love Her" and "One in a Million" taking their usual spots as side two openers and finishers. I sequenced the rest by what flowed together well, spacing out ballads and rockers, and chose to exclude "Ain't Going Down" and "Hair of the Dog", using the former as a b-side. However, if you feel "One in a Million" is too controversial, you can sub "Ain't Going Down" in for it, switching "November Rain" to the final track. As for the arrangements, they'd mostly stay the same, with the exceptions of "Used to Love Her", which would sound much more like "Brown Sugar" than "Dead Flowers" in an electric arrangement, and "One in a Million", which would sound different in a non-acoustic arrangement as well. But other than that, I can see both "Don't Cry" and "November Rain" being much less overproduced, just simple piano ballads with no string arrangements, as they were in their 1986 demo forms we have heard before.

Overall, Perfect Crime sounds like a much more "proper" follow-up to AfD than what we got with both Lies and UYI, being much more varied than the former, and much more focused than the latter. I do believe that had they released this in 1989, it would have been as big of a hit as Appetite, seen as the band was on top of the world back then, and had only just started playing stadiums. Either way, they could release this and still release another record in 1991 with only the stuff they wrote after this, which shows how much material there is in the Illusions records. The album was titled after the song of the same name, as I felt it sounded pretty good, and the cover was a concert poster from 2016 I repurposed, just adding a name to it. Clocking in at almost an hour, I believe this album's first single would've been "You Could Be Mine", followed by either "Yesterdays" or "Patience", as those are the more commercial songs in the record. All in all, it's a shame the band chose to wait out the years they were on top locked away in a studio, but considering what happened in the 2000's, we can be grateful they managed to release Use Your Illusions so quickly.

Sources:
- Use Your Illusion I
- GN'R Lies
- Use Your Illusion II
- "The Spaghetti Incident?"
- GN'R Pinball Machine

The Beatles - Liverpool Childhood (1967)

The Beatles performed their final show at San Francisco's Candlestick Park, in August 1966. The group decided to call it quits from the touring business after a hectic few years, mostly because they could barely hear themselves because of the screaming girls, and decided to become a studio-only band. Their relief was such, that by the end of that tour (which involved death threats, LPs being burned in bonfires and almost being left for dead in Manila), George sat back on the plane ride home and said "well, I'm not a Beatle anymore", and they all decided to take an extended break. The group spend the next few months each doing their own thing, with Ringo staying at home to take care of his one-year-old kid, George traveling to India to study the sitar, Paul either dying or going on a holiday in Africa (we haven't quite figured that out yet, sorry) and John shooting a movie in Spain. And by the time they regrouped, in November 1966, the rumors that they'd broken up were many, and they were all considerably different than what people last saw them as, four nearly identical moptops. It was with all of this in mind that they went into their familiar grounds of Abbey Road Studios in December 1966 to craft the followup to their latest album, Revolver. And they would only be done in April of the following year.

The first few songs they worked on were "Strawberry Fields Forever", which John had written in Spain while shooting his movie, "Penny Lane", which Paul had been working on for the past few months, and "When I'm Sixty Four", which was written in 1958 and even played at the Cavern Club when the electricity died down. Inspired by Freak Out!, by The Mothers of Invention, the band had intended on making a concept album for a while, and decided that now was the time to do so, since they wouldn't need to tour on such complex material anymore. The first concept they'd thought of, because of the lyrical themes of the three songs, was a concept about working-class life in their hometown of Liverpool, and what growing up there was like. With work on those three songs taking up most of the month of December, the release of an album was put to somewhere in the middle of the following year, and EMI got desperate for material. Considering that back then albums were released every six months, waiting a whole year for a new album was unthinkable, and so they decided to release a compilation and demand a single be released by February. Considering they only had three songs ready, George Martin made "the worst mistake of his recording career" and released "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields Forever" as a single.

Now left without the two songs that defined the album's concept, the band decided to scrap said concept and start anew. And with that, Paul came up with a new concept: a fake old-timey military band, which would serve as an alias to the Beatles themselves. With that in mind, they quickly composed a theme for that band, "Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band", and set on to work on adapting the material they had to fit into the record. And well, the rest is history. Yes, I know it's almost a sin to mess with perfection, but what I'd like to know is: what if they had managed to work with their original concept? If that non-album single hadn't happened, they would be able to make use of the "Liverpool childhood" idea and shape the album around it, with no need for a different idea. Well, to see how such an album would come together, we first need to set up some rules. Only songs from the original Pepper sessions that fit in with the overarching concept of the album will be considered, and even songs written after the album changed concepts will be considered, as there is not much pre-Pepper material to work with. I'll be working with seven songs a side, considering that was the norm back then, and will obviously not include either the title track or its reprise. With all of that in mind, here's what I've come up with:

Strawberry Fields Forever (Magical Mystery Tour)
Getting Better (Sgt. Peppers)
Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite! (Sgt. Peppers)
Fixing a Hole (Sgt. Peppers)
Piggies (The White Album)
Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds (Sgt. Peppers)
She's Leaving Home (Sgt. Peppers)
-
Penny Lane (Magical Mystery Tour)
Good Morning, Good Morning (Sgt. Peppers)
Lovely Rita (Sgt. Peppers)
When I'm Sixty Four (Sgt. Peppers)
Only a Northern Song (Yellow Submarine)
With a Little Help from My Friends (Sgt. Peppers)
A Day in the Life of... (Sgt. Peppers)

Bonus track:
Isn't it a Pity? (All Things Must Pass)

The four Beatles in December 1966, at Abbey Road Studios' doostep

First of all, we need to figure out which songs work well within the idea of the album. For our luck, most of the songs fit in pretty well, and in an honestly less hamfisted way than they did with Pepper. All of the album songs, minus the title track and "Within You, Without You" (can't see where Indian mysticism fits in with English working-class experiences!) are then included here, although in a different fashion. Also, a different running order is adopted, mostly based on an alternative side A sequence from early 1967 that had "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" as the third track is used. Obviously, we switch the opener for "Strawberry Fields Forever", as its mellotron intro serves for a great, suspenseful start to the record, and pull in "Getting Better" as the second track in the album. Other than that, we follow the alternative sequence to the letter, only adding another song to make up for the latter's absence. Side two is a bit more complicated, as I add "Penny Lane" as the side opener, move "Good Morning Good Morning" up to the second spot, and then shuffle around the remaining tracks, with "With a Little Help from My Friends" repurposed as the track that leads to the finale, which is still "A Day in the Life", also trying not to have more than two songs from the same singer in a row, and to have evenly timed sides.

As for differences in the songs themselves, I don't see much changing. Honestly, the only thing that linked "Little Help" to the Pepper concept was the Billy Shears intro, which can easily be substituted for an instrumental version from the Pepper deluxe edition, making it just a song about how having friends goes a long way in making life better, which fits in 100% with the Childhood concept. "A Day in the Life" has a clean intro, as it doesn't segue from the crowd noises of the reprise, and doesn't have the weird hidden track in the end, as it sounds better that way. And now that we are left without a George track, I decided on adding two: "Only a Northern Song" (with its chorus being a direct reference to Liverpool, even though the lyrics are pretty nonsensical), and the more controversial one, "Piggies". Having been written all the way back in late-1966, but only finished for the White Album, its lyrics deal with capitalism and class struggles in a lighthearted and fable-like way, which certainly fits in with the more child-like songs in the album, and materialistic critique certainly fits in with the working class concept. And considering its lead by a harpsichord and orchestral backing, "Piggies" is certainly psychedelic enough to fit in the album, sound-wise. Ideally, a psychedelic take on "Isn't it a Pity?", also from '66, would be featured there, but as it is, it sticks out like a sore thumb.

With two sides clocking in at about 22 minutes, Liverpool Childhood is a fantastic album, with some of the best Lennon/McCartney compositions ever written. When compared to the album it went on to become, I honestly feel it's superior on a song-by-song level, even though Pepper still takes the lead on consistence. Of course, adding two of the band's greatest songs to the album they belong to is obviously going to improve it, but songs like "Lovely Rita" and "Good Morning, Good Morning" honestly feel much more at home in a concept about everyday Scouse life than in a fictional marching band, which is understandable. As for the album cover, it was created by John Hunt over at I Design Album Covers, depicting what it would look like if Peter Blake designed a cover for this earlier concept. Alongside it came the title of Liverpool Childhood, which is honestly pretty good not to use. And as with Pepper, no singles would be released, to maintain the whole "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts" mythos. Considering we got one of the greatest albums of all time out of it, it's honestly not too bad that this album happened to transform itself into a different concept. However, it's still nice to wonder how things could have been, had fate not decided on having Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band perform on record.

Sources:
- The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
- The Beatles - Magical Mystery Tour
- The Beatles - The Beatles

Paul McCartney & Wings - Tug of War (1981)

Wings released their seventh and final album, Back to the Egg, in June 1979. It was recorded during the period of almost a year, and reflected Paul's desire to reflect some of the then-current trends in his work, most notably punk and new wave. The album ended up being an exceptional failure in all fronts, both in critical acclaim and in commercial performance, failing to soar to the heights their albums usually did. However, the band still toured the UK in late 1979, making plans for a Japanese tour in January 1980 and an American tour later that year as well. The British tour was well received, with the band's newest additions of Laurence Juber and Steve Holley gelling quite well, and closing off the year with a charity concert for Cambodia, in which Wings saw themselves performing alongside The Who, Queen, and newer acts such as The Pretenders and Rockpile. Despite a rocky start with a rather sub-par album, this new lineup seemed like a new beginning for the band, a breath of fresh air for a group that had been through a lot throughout its almost ten years of existence. And with dates planned in the States and in the Far East, the future looked bright for them. And then, of course, the Japan drug bust happened. And after McCartney was caught with some "recreational herbs" while entering Japan, activity within the band died down considerably.

After getting out of prison in February, he decided to release his solo, experimental recordings from the previous summer as his second solo album, appropriately titled McCartney II. Meanwhile, sideman Denny Laine also released his, rather ironically titled, album Japanese Tears, which included brand new recordings and some Wings outtakes, spanning all the way back to 1972, and making for a good retrospective of his time in the band, as well as his talents as a songwriter. The band would only finally reunite in June 1980, for rehearsals at a place called Pugin's Hall, in Kent. There, they'd spend the following months, with solo demos from June being used as a reference, rehearsing a batch of new songs written by Macca, apparently meant for a new LP by the band. In all, those amounted to eight songs, with the tapes we have of those rehearsals being very skeletal and simple versions of those songs, most likely because the band hoped to flesh out the songs in the studio, as they usually did. But by the time they hoped to enter the studio, in November 1980, with producer George Martin, Paul had decided to record that material as a solo album. Apparently motivated by Martin, who didn't like working with groups (how ironic!) and felt Macca should record with session musicians and with who fit the songs, instead of having to limit himself within the band's limitations.

Sessions started in December 1980 with only himself, his wife Linda, and Denny Laine from the band contributing. He managed to record an embryonic version of "Tug of War" and his collaboration with Laine, "Rainclouds" (which they rehearsed in Pugin's Hall in October), before tragedy struck, and the sessions were temporarily abandoned. By the time they returned, in February 1981, Denny only stuck around for another month before quitting, citing Paul's reluctance to tour in support of the album they were making, among other factors such as his desire to start a solo career. That prompted the official breakup of Wings, in April of that year, and Tug of War becoming a real McCartney solo album, with him inviting 10cc's Eric Stewart to the sessions to serve as second-in-charge, with no further involvement from any Wings members. However, what many were left wondering back then was: what if Wings had managed to record their final album, before George Martin interfered and decided on a solo album instead? Well, as always, we need to set up some rules first. We will include all the songs they debuted during those rehearsal sessions, and some of the songs Denny contributed to during the Tug of War sessions in 1981, with only one major exception which will be explained later, as usual when it comes to this blog. But other than that, here's our tracklist for Tug of War:

Tug of War (Tug of War)
Take it Away (Tug of War)
Keep Under Cover (Pipes of Peace)
Average Person (Pipes of Peace)
Be Together (Anyone Can Fly)
No Values (Give My Regards to Broad Street)
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Ballroom Dancing (Tug of War)
The Pound is Sinking (Tug of War)
Wanderlust (Tug of War)
Rainclouds (Single B-Side)
Dress Me Up as a Robber (Tug of War)
Ebony and Ivory (Tug of War)

Bonus tracks:
Love's Full Glory (Wide Prairie)
Sweetest Little Show (Pipes of Peace)

Laine, the McCartneys and Martin at Montserat Studios, February 1981

In order to turn this hybrid of the Pugin's Rehearsals and the early ToW sessions into a proper album, we first need to select which songs are fair game to be used, out of the available few we have. All the new songs from those final rehearsals, which are "Take it Away", "Keep Under Cover", "Average Person", "No Values", "Ballroom Dancing", "Rainclouds", and "Ebony and Ivory", are included, as is "Dress Me Up as a Robber", which is based on an older Wings song from the BTTE sessions and has Denny playing the guitar synthesizer. But other than that, we are left with four blank spots, considering a new album would have more or less twelve tracks. And taking a look at which songs Laine performed in, we have "Tug of War", which was recorded during those early December sessions, and is an obvious addition to the album, as are "Wanderlust" and "The Pound is Sinking", which were demoed by the band in 1977, during the sessions for the London Town album. The fact those three were also demoed during solo sessions in June 1980 certainly helps! Not included, however, will be two songs Laine contributed to, "Somebody Who Cares", which was written after the rehearsals and demos at Martin's insistence, and "Hey Hey" was written in collaboration with bassist Stanley Clarke, who obviously wouldn't perform on the album had it been an actual Wings record.

Well, what about Denny's song, then? Luckily for us, he demoed a song with that exact title during both the Pugin's rehearsals and the Tug of War sessions, which is the closest we'd get to his solo spot on the album. And since "Denny's Song" is an embryonic version of "Be Together", from his Anyone Can Fly album, we can include that song here, even though it features no input from Paul. But other than that, if Wings had performed as a band on this record, or even in a sort of Band on the Run fashion (only the main three assisted by studio musicians), the arrangements would end up being different. And the main differences I see are the harmonies, which in the TOW album sound one hell of a lot like 10cc, because of Eric Stewart's presence and input, would have that classic Paul/Linda/Denny sound we'd all grown accustomed to over the years. And some of the songs, such as "Take it Away" and "Average Person", would have a more guitar-based sound, instead of relying on the piano too much, which in my view is always a positive. And "Ebony and Ivory" would not feature Stevie Wonder, of course! As for sequencing, I maintained the general shape of the album as much as I could, only filling in the gaps with the available songs, ending up with two evenly-timed sides at about 22 minutes, which is fair enough.

All in all, this certainly feels like a step up from Back to the Egg. With McCartney less preoccupied in being hip, we end up with a batch of very strong songs ("Average Person" notwithstanding), with mature arrangements, courtesy of George Martin, and overall good listening experience, if not a brilliant album. And in my humble opinion, this is even better than the released Tug of War album, with the exception of the great "Somebody Who Cares" and "Here Today". As the former is brought down by subpar collaborations with Stevie Wonder and Carl Perkins, it's nice to see Paul only receive input from his own band members, and not have to listen to "What's That You're Doing" ever again! And as for the album cover, I decided I wanted something visually similar to what ended up on the finished product, and ended up with this. It keeps the mostly red color palette, while substituting that picture of Paul with a painting of an actual tug of war, which remains the title of the album as well. The main single off the album would most likely still be "Take it Away", with "Ballroom Dancing" as the second single. This is a great look into how things could've been different, had Paul chosen to keep his longtime backing band together into the eighties. Considering it's his "lost decade", and not much good came out of it, I feel like he probably could've used their opinions, instead of playing a creative tug of war with himself.

Sources:

- Paul McCartney - Tug of War

- Paul McCartney - Pipes of Peace

- Paul McCartney - Give My Regards to Broad Street

- Denny Laine - Anyone Can Fly