The Beatles recorded output apparently will be mined for sales until the last Boomer is buried, if not beyond. Recent years have seen the serial remastering of the band’s catalog, a project overseen by Giles Martin, son of legendary producer George Martin. The latest album to get the treatment is “Revolver,” the group’s 1966 great leap forward that many consider their greatest LP.
The 5-LP/CD box set drops Friday, but several tracks were pre-released to promote it, including a remixed “Taxman” and a demo of “Got to Get You Into My Life” with a fuzz guitar playing the horn lines. But the one getting the most buzz is a fragment: John Lennon singing a demo of what became the verse of “Yellow Submarine,” one of the band’s least regarded tunes.
The version we’re familiar with is dominated by its chorus, supplied by Paul McCartney, a jaunty singalong that has lived on as a children’s tune. It feels an ocean away from where Lennon began. He only had one line written, and its first half is familiar: “In the town where I was born.” But it finishes in a most unfamiliar way.
The horn-free version of “Got to Get You Into My Life” sounds like a cover by an indie-rock band of the ’90s.
