Sunday, November 16, 2008

"Carnival of Light" - I Got Blisters On My Eardrums!

"McCartney says he wants to release "Carnival of Light," a 14-minute experimental track the Fab Four recorded in 1967 but never released.

The band played the recording for an audience just once, at an electronic music festival in London. It reportedly includes distorted guitar, organ sounds, gargling and shouts of "Barcelona!" and "Are you all right?" from McCartney and John Lennon."
I could not find a copy of this fabled recording online (there are mostly a couple of irrelevant YT videos and I am too lazy to look around). But honestly, the idea of another "Revolution 9" fills me with...meh. Unless they release the single with free hallucinogens. In which case, this could be the greatest song *ever*.

***
To me, even more interesting than the news of the release was the phrase Paul uses to describe the recording: "I like it because it’s The Beatles free, going off piste".

What the hell is "off piste"? It's a skiing term: Existing or taking place on snow that has not been compacted into tracks.

2 comments:

Rahul Siddharthan said...

Actually, "piste" is French for "trail" or "track", not necessarily related to ski-ing. Sounds like Paul was merely going off-track. (I'm not sure whether the groove on an LP is called a "piste".) He was/is probably reluctant to leave all the avant-gardeness to Lennon.

km said...

Rahul: heh, but the dude knows *some* French. He wrote that song, remember? :)