(AP / LONDON) — Paul McCartney says it's time an experimental Beatles track saw the light of day.

McCartney says he wants to release Carnival of Light, a 14-minute experimental track the Fab Four recorded in 1967 but never released. (See TIME's pictures of the week)

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.

McCartney said during a recording session at Abbey Road studios he asked the other members of the band to "just wander round all of the stuff and bang it, shout, play it. It doesn't need to make any sense."

"I like it because it's The Beatles free, going off piste," he told the BBC in a radio interview to be broadcast Thursday. Extracts of the interview were published Sunday in The Observer newspaper.

McCartney said he still had a master tape of the piece and "the time has come for it to get its moment."

McCartney, usually regarded as the most melodically minded Beatle, told the BBC he had a long-standing interest in avant-garde music. He said Carnival of Light was inspired by experimental composers John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen.

He said he had wanted to include the track on the Beatles' "Anthology" compilation, but was vetoed by his bandmates.

McCartney would need permission from Ringo Starr and the widows of Lennon and George Harrison to release the track.

From Time.com

but... don't call COL a "new" beatles song!



it's just the LAST UNRELEASED beatles song (and unheard by the general public).

Beatles expert Mark Lewisohn, who listened to the song in 1987 while compiling his book The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, says the song included "distorted, hypnotic drum and organ sounds, a distorted lead guitar, the sound of a church organ, various effects (water gargling was one) and, perhaps most intimidating of all, John Lennon and McCartney screaming dementedly and bawling aloud random phrases like 'Are you alright?' and 'Barcelona!'"[1]

Barry Miles, the official McCartney biographer, wrote in Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now that the song had "no rhythm, although a beat is sometimes established for a few bars by the percussion or a rhythmic pounding piano. There is no melody, although snatches of a tune sometimes threaten to break through."

The basic bed track of an organ playing bass notes and drums was recorded at a slow speed, giving them a deeper sound. There is also a huge amount of reverb used on the instruments and on Lennon's and McCartney's vocals (the only two voices on the track); Lennon and McCartney also recorded Native American war cries, whistling, close-miked gasping, genuine coughing and fragments of studio conversation. Other overdubs to the song include bursts of guitar feedback, schmaltzy cinema organ, snatches of jangling pub piano and electronic feedback with Lennon shouting 'Electricity!'. The track concludes with McCartney asking the studio engineer in an echo-soaked voice, "Can we hear it back now?"

Also, according to Barry Miles, musically it "resembles "The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet" from Frank Zappa 's Freak Out! album, except there is no rhythm and the music ... is more fragmented, abstract and serious."

Dudley Edwards (one of the organizers of The Million Volt Light and Sound Rave and friend of McCartney's) said that an early take of "Fixing a Hole" (from Sgt. Pepper's) with a piano appeared during the song.[2] It is unlikely that a sample of an early take was heard since the recording of "Fixing a Hole" did not commence until five days after the last The Million Volt Light and Sound Rave, but it is not impossible that McCartney played a few bars of the song on the track.

wikipedia:



Sounds like there was good reason not to release it.

What would be great? That 27-minute version of Helter Skelter.

What would be great? That 27-minute version of Helter Skelter.

Yeah. This and "Carnival," both need to be on some kind of THE BEATLES - WEIRD SHIT

What would be great? That 27-minute version of Helter Skelter.

took the words right out of my mouth.

fab macca set to discuss this on BBC radio4 in about half an hour

So what did he say?

not much that hadn't been said already.said that john dug stockhausen and that, which I'd not heard him say before but it was mostly about the fireman thing.seems they used oblique strategies but he referenced Burroughs rather than eno.

Okay, so who is/was Stockhausen? ...

Okay, so who is/was Stockhausen? And, do you mean that Paul McCartney was influenced by William S. Burroughs for the Fireman project? I do not think I could ever have imagined a creative connection between W.S. Burroughs and Paul McCartney ... intriguing ...

So what did he say?