Have You Heard?
By Doug Robinson, Feb 2, 2007

All love needs is you: The Beatles are back to blow your mind

In this review, I will discuss an obscure little band that against all odds continues to have hit records some 35 years after its breakup.

But first, I’d like to thank everyone for the kind words about the world premiere of A Forest of the Americas last month. S.M.E.F. and Pro Musica definitely made it possible, but the audience made the compositions come to life. And just in case you missed it, we’re bringing an expanded version to the Teatro Ángela Peralta on March 24. See you there!

OK, on to the business of recommending recorded music that deserves wider recognition. No matter how you slice it, the Beatles don’t actually need much help from me in promoting their new album, Love, which is the soundtrack from a brand-new Cirque du Soleil show of the same name. The show is constantly sold out (Glenda and I were lucky to see it late last year), and the soundtrack album held the number-one slot all throughout December. You’ve probably got a few Beatles albums already—maybe even all of them. And you’ve heard most of these songs before, so why would you go out of your way to buy another compilation? 

Because it is amazing. Because it will help you hear their work, and their magic, in a completely new way. Because if you ever loved the Beatles and their music, then this is the most important artifact that you could possibly discover.

As a lifelong Beatles fan and musician, I will try to describe some of the groundbreaking technical and creative aspects of this production that go far beyond simply compiling some of the catchiest and most emotion-laden pop music of the 20th century. 

The history of the new Beatles/Cirque du Soleil show is that George Harrison had been a close friend of Cirque founder Guy Laliberte. George and Guy were talking about one day doing a show that used Beatles music, and when George learned he was dying, he reportedly called Paul, Ringo and Yoko Ono to say he’d like to do one more fabulous collaboration with them and would like it to be this project. Paul and Yoko hadn’t spoken to each other for several months but agreed to put their previous legal hassles behind them in order to honor George’s request.

They brought in one other collaborator, producer George Martin—known to many musicians as the “fifth Beatle” since he’d helped craft every one of their albums save for the ill-fated Let It Be. Martin was pushing 80 at the time and recommended bringing his son Giles (also a successful producer) into the fold, and the small group laid out a plan: to create a soundtrack that was more creative than simply a set list of greatest hits, but without recording any new music. In other words, every note of the music for this Cirque du Soleil show, no matter impressionistic, had to be taken from a Beatles recording session that occurred between 1963 and 1970.

I don’t know whose idea it was to dissect these classic recordings and then layer them on top of each other in unexpected ways, but it had to have been pretty intimidating to propose it to the remaining Beatles. After all, it’s not as if the song “Yesterday” was broken and just needed a little tweaking. But the suggestion was accepted, and George and Giles Martin locked themselves in the studios of Abbey Road with the master tapes and spent the next two years doing exactly that.

There are 26 songs officially represented on the album, but if I had to guess I’d say that there are motifs from another 20 songs that sneak in and out at some point. I won’t give you a complete blow-by-blow, but I will mention some of my favorite moments. The album begins with just the lush vocal harmonies of “Because,” without the familiar instrumental backing. The naked vocals are a stunning reminder that these guys could really deliver the goods as musicians as well as songwriters. The Beatles had often experimented with playing recorded tracks backwards, and the next thing you hear—(M)a long orchestral build-up—is instantly recognizable as the final chord of “A Day in the Life,” even though it was turned around in this fashion. 

This is followed by Ringo’s stomping drum solo from Abbey Road’s “The End”— remixed with the best sonics of any Beatles release—which leads seamlessly into a terrific mix of “Get Back,” which evolves into John Lennon’s “Looking Through a Glass Onion” from the White Album. Many of the songs overlap: “Drive My Car” sounds normal enough until you reach the guitar solo, when astute listeners will realize that the solo is actually taken from George Harrison’s “Taxman.” Suddenly, as the band continues to rock out on “Drive My Car” (layered with the horn section from “Savoy Truffle”), you hear the perfectly synched and in-tune vocals from a more obscure number (“What You’re Doing To Me”) beating against the familiar “beep beeps” and the chorus from “The Word.” In anyone else’s hands, this would have turned into a train wreck, but Martin knows these tracks inside and out, and it shows.

Elsewhere in the album, you’ll hear “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite” merged with “I Want You (She’s So Heavy),” the lovely guitar intro from “Blackbird” morphing into “Yesterday” (same guitar, same guitarist, although separated by three or four years), and one hugely inspiring combination: the trippy vocals and Indian sitar backing from “Within You/Without You” superimposed over Ringo’s hypnotic drum part from “Tomorrow Never Knows.”

And so it goes. During the fade-out of “Strawberry Fields” (which in itself is made up of several demos and alternate versions flowing easily from one to the other), you’ll hear the string section from “Piggies,” the piano solo from “In My Life,” the trumpet solo from “Penny Lane” and the vocals harmonies from “Hello Goodbye.” It is both psychedelic and familiar, and huge fun for Beatles fans.

The emotional high point for me came when Martin starts off with a beautiful demo recording from George Harrison playing “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” on a lone acoustic guitar and singing. The stripped-down feeling lets you appreciate how strong a songwriter George was, but once you settle in, a cello appears, and then a viola, and suddenly this demo is elevated into a fully orchestrated arrangement. I knew within seconds that this was a brand-new arrangement by George Martin, and after seeing the show I spoke with one of the employees at the Cirque theater who confirmed it. The only new music recorded for the show was this perfect string arrangement, done by the man who had created all other Beatles string arrangements on songs such as “Eleanor Rigby” and “Yesterday.” In an interview with Martin, he acknowledged that it was a bittersweet experience, knowing that this would be the last time he ever had the honor of arranging a Beatles song.

One word about the Vegas show: I don’t mean to disrupt our local tourism efforts, but if you consider yourself a Beatles fan then there is simply no good reason for not getting up to Vegas and seeing this show, sooner rather than later. I believe it will be an unforgettable experience for you. There has never been a sound system quite like the one they have installed in the custom theater (at the Mirage) for this show: 6,000 speakers in total, and perfectly mixed so that the music is powerful yet clear. I would have paid to sit in a darkened theater and hear this excellent music so lovingly remixed, but the fact that Cirque du Soleil is performing brilliant and death-defying feats as they interpret Beatles classics is a lot more than icing on the cake. There is a sensory overload aspect to the show that might require you to simply “turn off your mind, relax and float downstream” now and then. Nothing wrong with that!

Doug Robinson is a jazz composer and multi-instrumentalist living in San Miguel with his wife and two basset hounds.