[2020-09-25] Various "Looking Through A Glass Onion: The Beatles' Psychedelic Songbook 1966-72" 3CD set (Grapefruit UK)

Linda · **Posted:** Mon Aug 17, 2020 12:20 pm

Description
Though largely forgotten now, Liverpool quartet The Beatles were the toppermost of the poppermost in the Sixties, responsible for some of the biggest-selling singles of all time and a series of ground-breaking albums that dictated musical trends until their next LP emerged.

With those albums containing numerous potential hit singles, it was inevitable that producers and groups would wait impatiently for the latest Beatles LP to land in order to rush into the studio and clone a track with the aim of scoring a cheap hit single.

That process continued unabated for the rest of the band’s career, but the results became more interesting with the arrival of the psychedelic and progressive era, when rock started to take itself more seriously and a more self-respecting, artistic approach was called for.

Suddenly the cheap imitations were joined by more adventurous interpretations of Beatles material, including some startling re-imaginings of songs that dated back to the salad days of the Lennon/McCartney writing partnership, with early efforts like ‘Every Little Thing’ and ‘You Can’t Do That’ given radical treatments to reflect the changing musical times.

A 3-CD set, “Looking Through A Glass Onion” assembles these disparate strands into one cohesive package, with the studio day trippers, the cultural pranksters, the genre-benders, the folk club stalwarts and the hair-down-to-his-knees prog-rock brigade all grooving up slowly to the starting line.

The result is the proverbial Magical Mystery Tour, a Fab Four parallel universe, a Looking-Glass world in which ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ can be an Elizabethan garden party madrigal or a churning slice of Fudged-up sludge, where a spaced-out Duffy Power takes the lyrics of ‘Fixing A Hole’ perhaps a little too literally, ‘Penny Lane’ becomes avant-garde easy listening, the likes of Nick Lowe, Alex Harvey and Ritchie Blackmore try out early identities, and the Walrus was Lol.

Containing nearly four hours of music and a 40-page booklet, “Looking Through A Glass Onion” features 68 tracks from various UK acts, with tons of memorabilia and rare photos as well as the usual verbose smartarse annotation shamelessly passed off as informed musical commentary. A splendid time is guaranteed for all. Well, almost all.

Tracklist
[CD1]
1. Mystery Tour – Camel
2. Help – Deep Purple
3. Every Little Thing – Yes
4. I Am The Walrus – Affinity
5. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds – Rainbow Ffolly
6. If I Needed Someone – The Hollies
7. Tomorrow Never Knows – The Mirage
8. In My Life – Kippington Lodge
9. Yesterday – Eyes Of Blue
10. Flying – Sounds Nice
11. Strawberry Fields Forever – Design
12. Here There And Everywhere – Episode Six
13. Got To Get You Into My Life – Cliff Bennett & The Rebel Rousers
14. Birthday – Hair Rave-Up
15. Eleanor Rigby – Blonde On Blonde
16. Dear Prudence – Atlantic Bridge
17. Across The Universe – Jawbone
18. Fixing A Hole – Duffy Power
19. Oh! Darling – Trucial States
20. Good Day Sunshine – The Tremeloes
21. Taxman – Infinity
22. You Never Give Me Your Money/Carry That Weight – Orange Bicycle

[CD2]
1. I Am The Walrus – Spooky Tooth
2. Strawberry Fields Forever – Plastic Penny
3. The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill – Rainbow Ffolly
4. Within You Without You – Big Jim Sullivan
5. Hey Bulldog – The Gods
6. Cry Baby Cry – Freedom
7. Day Tripper – Don Fardon
8. Norwegian Wood – The Frugal Sound
9. The Two Of Us – Penny Arcade
10. You Can’t Do That – Andy Ellison
11. She Said She Said – Grand Union
12. Mother Nature’s Son – Davey Graham & Holly
13. Back In The USSR – Cliff Bennett & His Band
14. With A Little Help From My Friends – The Young Idea
15. Paperback Writer – The Shadows
16. One And One Is Two – Phillip Goodhand-Tait & The Stormsville Shakers
17. A Hard Day’s Night – The Majority
18. Birthday – Trucial States
19. Get Back – Linda Peters
20. Drive My Car – Bo Street Runners
21. Maxwell’s Silver Hammer – The Good Ship Lollipop
22. The Fool On The Hill – Stone The Crows
23. I Will – Young Blood
24. Yellow Submarine – The Hi-Fis
25. Yesterday – The Tomcats
26. I Am The Walrus – Lol Coxhill

[CD3]
1. Come Together – Jason Crest
2. Strawberry Fields Forever – Tomorrow
3. Norwegian Wood – Circus
4. She’s Leaving Home – Big Jim Sullivan
5. Exposition/We Can Work It Out – Deep Purple
6. A Day In The Life – Affinity
7. Help – Andy Ellison
8. Please Please Me – The Score
9. Taxman – Loose Ends
10. Good Day Sunshine – The Eyes
11. Penny Lane – The Wilson Malone Voiceband
12. The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill – Young Blood
13. I Will – Real McCoy
14. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da – The Spectrum
15. Rocky Raccoon – Brian Bennett
16. Day Tripper – The Ice
17. We Can Work It Out – The Sorrows
18. I Am The Walrus – Octopus
19. Northern Medley – Hardin & York
20. Good Night – Vera Lynn

Amazon USA
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08DBHCZMM/?tag=imwan-20

Amazon UK
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08DBHCZMM/?tag=imwan-21

NoURider · **Joined:** 21 Jul 2006 **Posts:** 3310

uhm, Yes!

stanner · **Joined:** 26 Aug 2014 **Posts:** 119

Ordered without a second thought.

GodsComic · 03 Aug 2006

This is quite a fascinating listen. Glad I purchased this.

Momo · 22 Jun 2007

Great! Still waiting for mine to ship from the UK.

NoURider · **Joined:** 21 Jul 2006 **Posts:** 3310

I am waiting on my delivery as well.
I tell you, Grapefruit does an outstanding job on these comps. I am at the point I generally buy them without much thought (I am a little on the fence on the upcoming Bubblegum comp), but resents that have been outstanding include
Peephole in My Brian
Across the Great Divide
Crawling Up a Hill
Lullabies for Catatonics
Gathered From Coincidence
etc
etc
etc...

Cherry Red is the bomb

Momo · 22 Jun 2007

Got a shipping confirmation from Amazon UK this morning; this should arrive next Friday. Looking forward to this!

[2020-09-25] Various "Looking Through A Glass Onion: The Beatles' Psychedelic Songbook 1966-72" 3CD set (Grapefruit UK)

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