r/TheBeatles
▲ 11 r/TheBeatles
Groovin’ Up Slowly (A Beatles Fan Album YouTube Channel) Episode 38: What If The Beatles Never Broke Up? Beware of Darkness (The 1970 Album That Never Was)
What if The Beatles never broke up… and 1970 gave us one more album?
This album, Beware of Darkness, imagines that moment.
For song selection I used John’s real-life suggestion (as a possible follow-up to Abbey Road) of a fairer split—4 songs each for John, Paul, and George, plus 2 for Ringo. This fan album reconstructs a world where the band keeps going after Abbey Road. My hope is that this selection of songs sounds like an album, not a playlist.
For example, I do not include any of the so-called “diss” tracks or any of George’s overtly religious songs. I just don’t think The Beatles would have recorded them (though they are some of my personal favorites).
Every choice matters. The 14-track limit forces tough cuts, just like the original UK Beatles albums. Songs can reach slightly back in time, but never forward—keeping the project grounded in what 1970 could have been.
This isn’t about replacing the real albums. It’s about reimagining the story—and inviting geeky fans like me into it. Come on…every fan has their own version of this record… you probably had it on a mixtape (yeah, I went there).
So here’s the question: if The Beatles had one more chance… would it sound like this?
Here is the tracklist for this album:
- Remember
- Another Day
- What Is Life (Session Outtakes/Jams - Take 1)
- $15 Draw (special guests Pete Drake, Jerry Reed, and Charlie Daniels)
- Working Class Hero
- Maybe I’m Amazed (I cheat a bit and use the live version, which I prefer)
- All Things Must Pass
- Loser’s Lounge (special guests Pete Drake and Charlie Daniels)
- Hold On
- Every Night
- Going Down To Golder’s Green
- Look At Me
- Junk
- Beware Of Darkness
Here’s a link to Episode 38 of Groovin’ Up Slowly:
Here’s a link to this album on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5PwZgP2eoIZw2afegwJIBp?si=349d3605bff44d15
Here’s a link to this album on Apple Music:
Here’s a link to the YouTube playlist for this album:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB5dkZQ7h7GhH4ogP_2pvxWIw7yvuke9R
Here’s a link to the Substack essay for a bit of a deeper dive into this album…
https://groovinupslowly.substack.com/p/what-if-the-beatles-never-broke-u
u/Anxious-Raspberry-54 — 6 hours ago
Maureen Cleave
Quick sanity check: does Maureen Cleave appear, very briefly, in the film of A Hard Day's Night? I seem to remember her flitting past in the scene where there is a scrum of media asking questions such as "What are your hobbies?" Can't find a still on line that captures here, but my memory insists Cleave was in the film.
u/Spiritual_Lie_8789 — 5 hours ago
The sudden and unfab death of Marv Lionson
Only fiction can predict the future, as we all know...
u/zjokkagain — 7 hours ago
▲ 2 r/TheBeatles
a little instrumental/loop version i made of “she loves you”
u/No-Fruit-31 — 12 hours ago
Beatles Love Unknown Sound Origins
This is a sequel and expansion of a previous post I made.
I am currently working on a project relating to The Beatles Love show by Cirque du Soleil. In the show, there are moments where voice clips are taken from studio sessions, interviews, and press conferences. There's a good amount and though I've made a good dent, there's still a lot still unknown.
I've created a docs of all the origins I've found. If anybody wants to help, I'm happy to let you join in the hunt.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sKTjLnsBoyXni9k3GXfxNa9BhbeVeUUwLU0v1D-5MKU/
u/PixInvader — 23 hours ago
▲ 0 r/TheBeatles
Did The Beatles look like walking skeletons in Get Back and how they embraced the anorexic trend of the 60s?
Watching the documentary footage from Get Back, one can’t help but ask: are these rock stars or patients in a sanatorium for the starving? The sight of John and George in January 1969 is frankly terrifying—they are so shrunken and thin it looks as if they might collapse under the weight of their own instruments at any moment.
It all started with a playful remark in 1965. During the filming of Help!, a journalist had the audacity to tell John he looked "fat." That was the moment Lennon put a stop to food forever. He called this his "Fat Elvis period" and spent the rest of his life in a panicked flight from every gram of fat. While in Get Back he melts away on macrobiotic rice and heroin, his biological clock is completely blocked by his obsession with thinness.
George was no better. After India, he became an extreme vegetarian, even an ascetic. In Get Back, George looks like a man who eats nothing but meditation and air. In fact, everyone—with the possible exception of Ringo—was infected by the anorexic trend of the Twiggy era, when body fat was considered a bourgeois relic.
Even Paul, who always had a healthier fridge thanks to Linda, wasn't immune. All those oversized suits and beards in the studio were a shield to hide how thin he had become as well. They integrated into this 60s trend with such speed that, in the end, they looked like "clothes-hanger child" Twiggy dressed in fur coats.
Ultimately, The Beatles created their greatest masterpieces during this period, but was the price a savage hunger that only a Mega Legend could endure? Watching the Rooftop concert at Apple, I can practically hear their stomachs growling.
u/Pure_One_4598 — 24 hours ago
Week