The Beatles Again (December, 1969, Timaeus | Apple)
< file under Beatles In Atlantis >
~ an approximation of this album, using latest remasters and sadly substituting an oldies medley in place of Suzy Parker, can be heard here on Apple Music ~
translated: Atlantis saw much turmoil in the year since Tivowr Dorna had last overseen the release of a Beatles album, and he found himself in the midst of its intrigue. As 1969 wore on, it became clear the existence of Atlantis was coming into question— its past and present to the surface world, its very future to the nation itself.
The heinous attacks from the surface supremacists, front though the antagonists were, grew ever more deleterious by dint of their sudden relentlessness. Atlantis was left no choice but to confront surface world leadership on the global stage, at the United Nations — from within a nimbly traveling, adaptively amorphous bubble-dome of seawater. Other nations' delegates froze upon first sight, stunned onlookers transfixed by the technological majesty of an obviously advanced society.
Tivowr Dorna traversed in this conveyance with the Atlantean delegation, having been recruited to an advisory role thanks both to his engineering prowess and his pivotal role in the Western/Surface-to-Atlantean cultural bridge that was The Beatles.
The initial demand from Atlantis was twofold and doubly bold.:
- Surface nations, East and West, to agree to apprehend or otherwise decommission any Pirate Front Facade perpetrators within their boundaries lest risk prompt worldwide exposure of their complicity, direct involvement, and even instigation and direction of the ongoing terroristic aggression against the societally free and democratic republic of Atlantis
- Atlantis be granted immediate permanent membership to the UN Security Council
These demands were callously dismissed by the landed international establishment. Many surface leaders had long kept their populaces in the dark regarding Atlantis, and when the sea nation's recent diplomacy on both sides of the Cold War conflict made their existence undeniable, attempts were made by certain land governments to portray the aquatic inhabitants as primitive. Atlanteans' open arrival in the splendor of their advancements before all the world rendered such demeaning subterfuge untenable. Major nations declared Atlantis a threat, refusing to admit or deny association with the Front Facade but now tacitly endorsing the PFF's terroristic tactics. Atlantis' contemporary diplomacy, trade, and cultural exchange across the surface world geopolitical divide now perversely allowed Eastern Bloc nations to portray them as capitalistic cronies of imperialist stooges, while giving the West ammo to smear them as communist agitators and even a submerged Soviet satellite.
Atlantean president Zithå Rubbqe led the delegation on a final visit to the UN, proclaiming in an unprecedented uninvited appearance before the Security Council, "You are forcing us to acknowledge we have the means to destroy you all." For emphasis, she then stepped out of the bubble-dome, effortlessly breathing dry air by means of imperceptible wholly unobtrusive scientific wizardry, and conjured up a seemingly infinite school of winged piranha, equally at home in the air, swirling above her delegation. "Our preference," she declared, "remains only to defend our safety and sovereignty." With that, the Atlanteans departed and the assembled representatives of the surface elite gasped— as if they, ironically, were the fish out of water.
Against this backdrop, Tivowr returned to record making. Despite the severe escalation of tensions between Atlantis and the surface world, Atlanteans' love of the Liverpudlian quartet was undiminished. Though they'd never visited Atlantis, the Beatles were seen as friendly ambassadors from beyond, their artistry unassailable. Nonessential manufacturing, which had been largely halted in the previous year, was up and running courtesy of another technological marvel. Mass implementation of Dorna's Sonic Repatriator was underway, leaving the assailants neither able nor willing to assail. With a sound, they could — and many were — located and sent back to the nations from whence they'd received their marching orders. On occasion the repatriated aggressors appeared quite publicly, to the embarrassment of governments worldwide who now had to more strenuously attempt to address claims from Atlantis of an ongoing, coordinated international attempt to destabilize and possibly obliterate the sole realm of underwater peoples. Those Front operatives not sent back were generally willing to talk, becoming an invaluable intelligence resource, and so the surface antagonists had to change tactics. For the time being, Atlantis was back at peace. (Excavated journal entries indicate Dorna had also devised, with key contributions from a pair of Timaeus engineers, a companion device codenamed the Sonic Repatriotizer which apparently had mind-altering effects, designed for use on the few treasonous Atlantean PFF collaborators. Dorna and his colleagues deemed this invention too dangerous to ever be used and pledged never to reveal its development and, apparently, destroyed the only prototype and its design plans.)
Despite the triumph of Magical Mystery Tour, Dorna had been concerned about the band's ongoing prospects since the late summer 1967 death of their manager, Brian Epstein, fearing they'd now lack a key component to their cohesiveness. From the material that had amassed in the preceding year — amounting to what would be the endmost Beatles recordings, save for two early January 1970 sessions, tellingly sans Lennon, recording a studio take of I Me Mine and providing their final overdubs to Let It Be — and from corresponding correspondence — Dorna aptly discerned he was now tasked with preparing releases for a band which, like his own nation, was at an existential crossroads. Unlike as concerned the fate of his nation, though, Dorna was nearly sure of The Beatles' future: there would be none.
In addition to a pair of non-album singles, 'white album' outtakes, and the scattered, disparate, nearly year-old countless hours of largely underwhelming recordings from the film studio rehearsals for the aborted or postponed Get Back project, and its brief ensuing studio sessions, Dorna received the completed Abbey Road album. While the singles and Abbey Road came from his friend and aboveseas mentor George Martin, the Get Back material arrived in poorly annotated boxes from unnamed Apple personnel. Martin had made clear to Dorna during Get Back that he was no longer working with "the lads" as he had, and then while preparing Abbey Road conveyed that they had deliberately reconvened to fashion a more characteristically crafted statement, intimating it would prospectively been seen as a farewell. Brief messages from both Lennon and Harrison, who'd taken to occasional friendly dispatches to Dorna since they first sent their approval of his Help!ed collection, made it even clearer the band was fracturing and unlikely to make it into the approaching decade.
Recognizing that the relative shambles of Get Back material needed some finessing to work its way into album shape, and deciding to first wait to see what, if anything, Apple eventually readied for release from those tapes, Dorna set aside consideration of most of that material until the next release.
Privy to Abbey Road's likelihood as the band's recorded swan song, he earmarked that for their final Atlantean issue. Further contributing to this decision to delay what was a finished and in Dorna's view near-perfect LP, he thought the impeccable Abbey Road ideal for the surround treatment he'd given to Pepper's. With the three-needle LP surround turntable tech out of production and in relatively few homes, and with the cessation of consumer optical disc production for duration of the surface–sea dilemma, Timaeus would need to first devise a new means of delivery for any such multichannel experience.
Hence Dorna set about compiling from the remaining recordings a set both wistful and lighthearted, relying heavily upon demos and on examples of the band's trademark humor, while enthusiastically incorporating a little assistance from the combo's friends to round out the selections.
Starting with perhaps the earliest existing evidence of their joking nature, leading right into more joviality, by way of Suzy's Parlour, from the reportedly oft-grim Get Back sessions, and concluding with the band's funniest number, The Beatles Again surprised and delighted Atlantean listeners. Taking advantage of the (safely) expanded LP length of the new Timaeus vinyl formulation, with each side around half an hour, the collection was named as a followup to the band's sprawling self-titled release of the previous year (with a nod to an Odeon compilation issued in Brazil half a decade earlier under this very title) and proved equally as eclectic, if not as magisterial, as that double LP. Though he'd considered, due to reliance on demos, jams, or outtakes, issuing this as band's second budget release on the Critias imprint, Dorna knew the tremendous strength of the second side ruled that out. However, it became what he'd denominated to staffers as "stealthy bargain" due to its expanded length coupled with a somewhat lowered retail price compared to other Timaeus releases.
Surmising that a famed soloist's guest spot helped While My Guitar Gently Weeps land on The Beatles, Dorna embraced utilizing some prominent outside contributions to expand the number of quality Harrison compositions, including the Jackie Lomax sung Sour Milk Sea, featuring George, Paul, Ringo, the aforementioned guitarist friend, and Revolution pianist Nicky Hopkins, and the Billy Preston fronted cowrite Sing One for the Lord, also featuring Harrison and Starr. George, who'd sent the latter directly to Dorna in an early mix, advised he was considering adding a choir. Dorna wrote back, asking for permission to explore such an addition. George happily agreed, and the version that appeared on The Beatles Again, never to be heard outside Atlantis, featured an Atlantean choir recorded by Dorna in an arrangement by legendary Atlantean choral composer Mift Deloniumn. Harrison would soon overdub the widely popular Edwin Hawkins Singers, realizing his intent to add a choir to the Preston-Harrison-Starr recording, for surface world release on Billy's Encouraging Words album.
The band's final UK single of 1968, along with their second of 1969 (their last comprised solely of non-album tracks) enlivened the proceedings, the a-sides of each in now-lost remixes by Dorna. Other highlights included a stirring Harrison 'white album' outtake, McCartney's demo of a Top Ten hit for Apple act Badfinger, and both sides of the canceled single which Lennon explained he had wished to issue under the Plastic Ono Band moniker, What's The New Mary Jane and You Know My Name, sent to Dorna so that, per John's handwritten note to Tivowr, "they could at least be heard underwater, before both numbers end up underground!" The latter selection, in an exclusive stereo mix of indeterminate length, proved so popular — it was the fabs' biggest subaquatic hit, which sure is saying a lot — that subsequent pressings of its host album were partly renamed in its honor. The previously nameless spine of The Beatles Again now read "(Look Up The Numbers)" though each side's label continued to sport the official, original title, and the cover shot — from the band's final photo session — remained unblemished by any type.
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| Whether found under original / label name, with no title on spine, or as subsequent issue with '(Look Up the Numbers)' written on spine, all pressings of Atlantean The Beatles Again sport the above front cover |
