beatles hey jude

Paul Haney wrote: It should also be noted that some (many?) DJs probably dumped out of the song early, since the last 4 minutes or so is basically a super-extended fade-out anyway.

I would dare to say many, if not most stations faded
the song early, especially in drive times. I have to
wonder if "Mac Arthur Park"'s length was what inspired
the Beatles to do their own 7 minute song, even if in
reality it was a 4 minute song with a 3 minute
repetitive chorus tacked on the end. The Beatles were
such a must-add artist in 1968 that they almost could
do no wrong (though they did push things a bit too far
a year later with "Ballad of John & Yoko" with many
stations either doing clumsy house edits or just not
playing the song).

I was just 6 months into my first radio gig in the
spring of '68 when "McAP" came out...ISTR one of the
selling points of the song was that it was 7
minutes long!! The picture sleeve to the promo EP can
be seen
here.

What makes McAP so much more amazing is that (1) it
not only didn't have a radio edit, the structure of
the song was such that it didn't readily lend itself
to editing...the PD at my station made an edit by
shortening the intro and removing most of the bridge,
but it sounded clumsy and somehow the cart jammed
while he was on vacation (wonder how that happened?),
and we just went back to playing the full version.
Secondly, if Rick Sklar's book is to be believed, the
song was broken by WABC, the #1 station in market #1,
which was generally very conserviative on adds,
usually waiting until a song was in the top 40
nationally before adding it.


Edited by Hykker

I would likely label this as:

Beatles - Hey Jude [non-hit early fade from 1982 20 Greatest Hits album] {early fade of Past Masters Vol. 2 Stereo}

My opinion:

I see this particular version as more of a mastering choice than an intentional shortening of the song. To cram 20 songs on a single LP, the mastering engineer likely took all the bass out of the songs, but I wouldn't label the other songs as [non-hit bass-free version from 1982 20 Greatest Hits album]. Since this 5:05 version never turned up anywhere, ever again, including all the Beatles CD releases in 1987, and the meticulous repackaging on CD in 2009, it seems to me that the Beatles and Capitol didn't see this as a proper version of the song either.

If I had plenty of hard drive space, I suppose I'd include it with the other files, but I see it as hardly essential.

In contrast, I think there's a real place in history for some of these non-hit versions:

• Alarm - Strength [previously unreleased version] {Best Of}
• Al Green - Let's Stay Together [stereo, 4.46 version that first appeared on Greatest Hits vinyl LP] {Ultimate Love Songs Collection Falling In Love Again}
• America - A Horse With No Name [non-hit remix from 1975 History album] {History America's Greatest Hits}
• Aretha Franklin - Rock Steady [previously unreleased mix extending to a cold ending, first appeared on 2006 What It Is box] {What It Is Disc 3}
• Commodores - Just To Be Close To You [non-hit 1978 edit that first appeared on vinyl Greatest Hits LP] {Anthology Disc 1}
• Derek And The Dominos - Layla [non-hit 1988 remix by John Jansen for Crossroads CD] {Crossroads Disc 2}
• Derek And The Dominos - Layla [non-hit 1990 remix by Steve Rinkoff for 1990 rerelease of Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs] {Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs 1990 rerelease}
• Elton John - Daniel [non-hit 1983 remix] {The Superior Sound Of Elton John 1970-1975}
• O'Jays - Love Train [non-hit version from 1977 Philadelphia Classics vinyl LP] {Club Epic Vol. 3}
• Robert Palmer - Bad Case Of Loving You (Doctor Doctor) [non-hit 1989 remix] {Only track on promo CD single}
• Village People - Y.M.C.A. [non-hit 1980 Can't Stop The Music LP version with different lead singer] {Dance Fever}
• ZZ Top - La Grange [non-hit 1980s-era remix] {Sixpack Disc 2}

These are just some assorted examples, all of which came out well after the song was a hit, and all of which show some sort of intentional mix/length differences.

I had one of those flexy disc at one time.
They sounded really bad and were pressed cheap.
No station would've carted it because frankly sounded bad.
Most Top 40 stations in the original 1968 release did play
it all the way through, probably in the evening.
In daypart hours a few stations would fade at the 4:25 or
5:30 mark, both being a good place to fade.
In the 70's KILT in Houston, where I lived at the time,
faded the song at 5:25 in their Gold Rotation. Other Top 40
stations in those years followed the same path, with an
early fade.

TallPaulInKy wrote: "Mac Arthur Park" was a landmark record, no doubt. But I think saying, "A no-name record by a pretty much no-name artist" is really stretching it. The record was issued in Apr 1968. At that time Harris was an extremely popular actor having made these films, The Bible: In the Beginning...; Hawaii (with Julie Andrews); Camelot playing King Arthur, which was out at the time he had a hit single. These are just a few of the films he had out and so the American public was very familiar with him. SO, "a pretty much no-name artist" , no I don't think so. He wasn't the Rolling Stones, or The Beatles..but unknown? I wish you were living during that time.

Was the snark really necessary? I was living when that song was a hit (as was YahShure), indeed 1968 was the year I graduated high school. I had
gotten my first paid radio gig (weekends at our local station) about 6 months earlier. Among my fellow jocks, there was a MUCH bigger buzz on this
song than on "Hey Jude", and I recall getting a lot of calls from listeners about McAP.
While film buffs may have been familiar with Harris, not many actors had hit songs that reached the top 40...a few here and there but not
many. As a teenager at the time, I was vaguely aware of his existence, but didn't really know who he was and even if I did, it wouldn't
have cut any ice. I'll bet I'm not the only one. "MacArthur Park" made it on its own merits. Granted, he was, for all intents and
purposes a one-hit wonder, but what a hit!

Edited by Hykker

Chuck "The Gong Show" Barris wrote the 1962 hit "Palisades Park".

Just sayin'.