SONG OF THE DAY
“Flying” by The Beatles (Magical Mystery Tour, Parlophone Records, 1967). Credits for the lyrics and composition are given to all four members of the band in the liner notes (Lennon/McCartney/Harrison/Starr).
WHY TODAY?
Because I woke up singing the “la la la” part from the beginning of the instrumental piece, and was very proud of my subconscious for going deep into the Beatle repertoire. This is not a song people often wake up singing, I imagine, so I was really patting myself on the back this morning for being so cool. Lol.
INTERESTING FACTS (a la wikipedia)
– “Flying” is an instrumental by The Beatles which first appeared on the 1967 Magical Mystery Tour release (two EP discs in the United Kingdom, an LP in the United States).
– Their first instrumental since “Cry for a Shadow” in 1961, this was the first song to be credited as being written by all four members of the band with the writing credits of “Lennon/McCartney/Harrison/Starr” (another being “Dig It” on the Let It Be album).
– It was recorded on 8 September 1967 with mellotron, guitar, bass, maracas, drums, and tape loops overdubbed 28 September.
– “Flying” was originally titled “Aerial Tour Instrumental”.
– The end of the recording originally included a fast-paced traditional New Orleans jazz-influenced coda, but this was removed and replaced with an ending featuring tape loops created by John Lennon and Ringo Starr during the September 28 session. The loops initially made the song last 9 minutes 38 seconds, but the track was cut down to only 2 minutes 17 seconds.
– Part of the loops were used alongside an element of the ending jazz sequence to make “The Bus”, an incidental piece used at various points, for the TV movie.
– The track is likely to have originally started simply as a jam session — it is in simple 12-bar blues form in a straight-forward 4/4 time and the key of C major.
– On the track as recorded and officially released, John Lennon plays the main theme on mellotron, accompanied by Paul McCartney and George Harrison (both on guitars, plus a later bass overdub) and Ringo Starr (on maracas and drums). All four Beatles sing the melody sans lyrics of any kind, and the track fades in an assortment of tape effects created by Lennon and Starr.
– This released version is identical to that heard on the soundtrack of the Magical Mystery Tour film; the music is accompanied in the film by colour-altered images of landscape in Iceland taken from an aeroplane.
– A different version can be found on some Beatles bootleg albums (such as Back-track 1), and features added Hammond organ and strange whistling noises in the early parts of the track. The jazz-influenced ending is also present on this version, which is slightly shorter, clocking in at around 2:08. This coda, which Mark Lewisohn speculated was “seemingly copied straight from an unidentifiable modern jazz record,” was in fact played on a mellotron. (In addition to the familiar samples of instruments playing single notes, mellotrons had entire banks of a pop orchestra playing popular styles of music, with optional accompaniment.
– The Secret Machines covered the song for the film Across the Universe.