Tag Archives: Beatles

Unlocking the Boys of Dungeon Lane Collage

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It hasn’t even been released yet but quite a bit of work is being done by fans to identify the source of every image seen on the brilliant collage which fills the inside of the gatefold edition (announced just last week) of Paul McCartney’s new Boys of Dungeon Lane LP. There’s also a cassette which includes a fold-out collage print:

In what is turning into a major crowdsourced research project, fans from around the world have turned amateur detective and are contributing to a special Tumblr page set up by @bodl-gatefold.

The Tumblr page says: “We’re trying to source all the photos that went into this collage. If you think you’ve spotted one, send us an ask with a screenshot of the section where it appears, and a copy of the photo. The more info you can provide with your photo the better, but if you don’t know anything about where it was taken or even who’s in it, that’s find, send it!”

Here’s the gatefold collage (click to enlarge):

In an email announcing the new gatefold edition explained that the screen‑printed collage “…is made from over 100 archive images, including previously unseen photography from Paul’s personal archive.” 

So, here is the artwork showing (with red marks) all the people photos identified – so far:

As you scroll through the Tumblr page you’ll see examples of each of them – there are a lot! – where the collage image is shown, and then the original source photo – usually (where known) with a time and place included. These two come from Paul and George’s hitchhiking trip in August, 1959:

There are many, many more great discoveries.

One thing that’s also immediately obvious, apart from the all the people, is the huge number of bird images used throughout the collage. This helps explain the many bird references and little bird emojis across the current marketing teaser campaign. For example: The Story before THE Story 🐦‍⬛

From what we can tell the album is deeply nostalgic and young Paul was once a very keen birdwatcher. Turns out that the myriad of bird images on the collage are from The Observer’s Book Of Birds (which Paul has several times mentioned owning), plus two other books Coloured Figures of the Birds of the British Islands and The Birds of the British Isles and Their Eggs. So the Tumblr investigators have obviously been pouring over these. Here’s a detail example of the depth of the detective work being done just to identify the birds in the collage:

Perhaps making this complex artwork for the gatefold was one of the reasons the release has been slightly delayed.

Back in March Paul’s brother, Mike McCartney posted a message on X leaking the title of the album and it’s front cover logo – a British street sign. He said that the album artwork was designed by his son Josh McCartney, Paul’s nephew.

Then a member of the Steve Hoffman Music Forum said he’d attended a screening of the Wings film Man On The Run where Paul’s manager, Scott Rodger was special guest. He did a brief Q&A following the film and said “There will be new Paul music in 2026. The record is done. The only reason it’s not out already is Paul took his time with the artwork.”

This collage is reminiscent of the collage poster that came with the White Album and has the potential to stand as a landmark piece of imagery, a permanent tribute to Paul’s amazing past.

The Boys of Dungeon Lane – The Variants (So Far)

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Since we posted about the new Paul McCartney solo release The Boys of Dungeon Lane there’s been some developments, mostly to do with new variations and vinyl colours being added.

As we did for McCartney III and it’s sibling McCartney III Imagined, we’ve started a chart showing all the known variations so far to help you keep up. We’ll add to this if any more come down the pipeline (which, given McCartney’s track record, is very likely).

(Click on the image to see a larger version)

As of today a new McCartney and UME Store exclusive with 180g black vinyl, gatefold blind-embossed cover artwork, full collage interior spread, and a 12-page lyric booklet has been added to the ever-growing list. There’s now also a cassette with a fold-out collage print.

Gotta admit, the gatefold collage looks great. It is screen‑printed and made from over 100 archive images, including previously unseen photography from Paul’s personal archive.:

Along with the different cover art and vinyl colour variations, one other difficult thing emerging for the absolute completists (who must have everything in every permutation) is the different lyric cards to be included with some of the vinyl and some of the CDs.

So far there are 6 different cards: 3 “collage” lyric cards, and 3 “portrait” lyric cards.

In the green vinyl exclusive to the McCartney and Universal Music stores it is a green/purple collage card, while in the red vinyl – exclusive to larger chain stores – the card is an orange/red/blue colour with different images. It is also orange/red/blue in the Target exclusive CD, but it depicts a different collage of faces.

Then, in those releases that come with a black and white portrait of Paul, there seem to be 3 different photos in use. One for the gold vinyl (B&N, and possibly Rough Trade UK – but this is still to be confirmed); one for the green cover CD (a McCartney Store/Universal Music exclusive), and a third variation for the Walmart exclusive CD. We’ve tried to show these on the chart, but here they are side-by-side for comparison.

We’ll update this variations chart if and when any more differences emerge.

Beatle Films – Out Now and on the Way

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There’s definitely a bit of a rush on Beatle and Beatle-related documentaries and films at the moment.

First up is John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Power to the People – live in concert.

This will obviously be a brilliant companion piece to the recent documentary One To One: John & Yoko by Kevin Macdonald, a revelatory inside-look at John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s life in Greenwich Village in the early 1970s.

The One To One doco featured music from the two benefit concerts the pair played at Madison Square Garden in August, 1972, all newly remixed and produced by Sean Ono Lennon. Now, we get to see the concert in full – with the best performances taken from the two shows – in multiscreen on the big screen. Power To The People will also form a great visual companion piece to the multi-disc box set, also called Power To The People, released last year.

Newly restored, re-edited and remixed by the Lennon Estate’s seven-times GRAMMY®-Award winning team, the film will premier exclusively in cinemas worldwide from April 29 for a limited time only. Tickets go on sale March 20. There’s no word of a physical release yet, but a Blu-Ray/DVD is expected later in the year.

You can sign up for more information at powertothepeoplefilm.com

Of course we’ve just had the release of the Morgan Neville-directed documentary Man On The Run, which follows Paul McCartney stepping out for the first time as a solo artist and forming his new band Wings during the 1970s:

But one of the other great stories in McCartney lore is the search for his legendary long-lost bass guitar – a 1961 Höfner 500/1 which was stolen in 1972. Now comes a behind-the-scenes documentary film about tracking it down and getting it back to it’s original owner, The Hunt For The Lost Bass:

From the official site:

“For over 50 years the disappearance of McCartney’s original Höfner bass has been one of rock ‘n’ roll’s enduring mysteries. McCartney: The Hunt for the Lost Bass tells the extraordinary story of this iconic instrument, and the fan-powered quest to find it. This rock ‘n’ roll detective story features exclusive interviews with McCartney, his brother Mike, Klaus Voormann, Elvis Costello and the roadies, journalists and fans who embarked on a mission to track down and restore the bass to its proper place in music history and to Paul. It’s a story about fandom, creativity, love, loss, memory and the transformative power of music.”

Gotta admit, this looks like it’ll be great fun. It is in cinemas only in the UK to start, on April 2 & 4. It’s unclear if other countries will be rolled in, if the film will be streamed at some stage, or if there’s to be a physical release for fans to buy. I guess it is a case of “watch this space”.

Last but not least is the official release of an extraordinary biographical doco on Billy Preston, That’s The Way God Planned It. This film follows the life and six-decade career of the Grammy Award-winning keyboardist whose sound helped shape the work of a virtual Who’s Who of the music world: The Beatles, Ray Charles, Mahalia Jackson, Aretha Franklin, The Rolling Stones, Barbara Streisand, Eric Clapton and many others. He had his own solo No.1 hits too including ‘Outa-Space’, ‘Will It Go Round In Circles’, ‘Nothing From Nothing’ and ‘You Are So Beautiful’. Billy’s first hit single, ‘That’s The Way God Planned It’ – recorded in 1969 for Apple Records – was produced by George Harrison.

Two variations of the film’s promo trailer are out there on YouTube, both with different cuts and content, so both are worth watching. Here’s the official trailer:

And this next one is great as it focuses specifically on Billy’s time with The Beatles:

Billy Preston, for a time, truly did deserve the title, “The Fifth Beatle”:

Not sure if this is coming to one of the streaming platforms after it’s cinema release (we certainly hope so) but for more info on That’s The Way God Planned It and where you can see it go to billyprestonfilm.com

Meanwhile, to tie in with the film’s release, Dark Horse Records has re-issued Billy’s two Apple Record LPs. Encouraging Words (produced by Billy and George Harrison) is now available to stream and to buy on gold vinyl:

That’s The Way God Planned It (produced by George) is available to steam and is also out on purple vinyl:

New Ringo Starr – Long Long Road Coloured Vinyl, Black Vinyl & CD

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The old addage “when you’re on a good thing, stick to it” comes to mind today as Ringo Starr announces the release of his second album with T Bone Burnett as producer – due out on April 24.

It’ll be called Long Long Road and it follows on from last year’s well-received Look Up, a welcome return to the country/Americana style that Ringo, and his audience, are very comfortable with. Under the direction of Burnett, Ringo is having something of a late career revival and reaching new audiences.

Recorded in Nashville and Los Angeles, the 10-song album features collaborations with Sheryl Crow, Billy Strings, Molly Tuttle, Sarah Jarosz, and St. Vincent.

Packaged in a gatefold sleeve, there’ll be an “Ultraviolet Dream” purple vinyl edition (not sure yet if this is exclusive to the Ringo Official Store and Universal Music’s various online outlets):

There’s also a standard black vinyl LP:

And a CD in a good old-fashioned plastic jewel case:

Talking about the new album Ringo says “I’m blessed to have T Bone in my life right now and working with me on these records. After we did the last record, which I love listening to, this one just sort of happened. I like to say sometimes I make the right moves, like you can go left or right at any point, and one of the right moves was hooking up with T Bone for Look Up, and now for this one, which I’m calling Long Long Road, because I’ve been on a long long road.”

Renowned music photographer (and good friend of Ringo’s) Henry Diltz shot the album cover, as well as additional photos for the album packaging. If you don’t think you’ve seen his work before, it’s almost certain that you have! Check out the link above to his official page. Since the 1960s he’s been snapping rock royalty. His photographs of The Doors, Joni Mitchell, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Neil Young, James Taylor, Paul McCartney plus countless others have graced more than 250 album and magazine covers. 

An Unusual ‘Some Time In New York City’

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Whenever we venture up to the suburb of Hornsby in Sydney’s north, a visit to the used record store Mix Up Music is always on the cards.

As you can probably tell from the image above, this is not the most appealing store from the outside, and that vibe continues continues once you’re inside. It’s a bit of a rabbit’s warren with stock seemingly all over the place – but there is treasure to be found here if you have patience and the time to check it out.

The store is actually two shops in one, with a space at the front being sub-let to another, completely separate second-hand dealer called The Vinyl Section. So, with two collections on offer it is rare to walk out without buying something from this store.

And that’s what happened last week when we found this LP in The Vinyl Section part of the store:

With last year’s focus on the Lennon Estate’s big box set Power to the People, this album (minus one controversial song) was it’s centrepiece, along with the One To One concerts and a wealth of previously unreleased Lennon and Ono outtakes and rarities. So it was timely to find an unusual Australian vinyl pressing from 1981 of the original Some Time In New York City album to add to our collection.

Now, you might be saying didn’t Some Time In New York City come out in 1972? Yes, it did – but it was never released here locally at that time. The Australian pressing only came out in early 1981 in the wake of John Lennon’s death when interest in his back-catalogue was reignited.

It comes in the same gatefold sleeve as the original. Here’s the rear sleeve:

If you look closely you can see in the small print on the rear this EMI Records Australia credit included:

And these are the images inside the gatefold:

The two discs themselves do away with the original custom labels used in 1972 (featuring John and Yoko’s faces morphing into each other across the top). Instead we have bright orange Parlophone labels for both discs. Labels like these were common in Australia for many Beatle pressings, so it looks kind of weird to have them on a John and Yoko/Plastic Ono Band release:

And instead of the two different printed inner sleeves of the original, you only get this one (below) with its hand-drawn liner notes. There is one of these for each disc, and they’re not so much inner sleeves as thin cardboard inserts. It’s a pity the original inner sleeve for Record 1 isn’t included as it carried a full list of credits for who played what, etc.:

So, after the big Power To The People release of last year it’s great to have this vinyl version join it in the collection.

More Auction Buys – Dark Horse Singles

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As mentioned in December, we made some successful bids on a big Beatle and Beatle-related auction here in Sydney, Australia.

The other successful bid was on an auction lot made up of quite hard-to-find, original Australian (plus one quite rare New Zealand) Dark Horse Records singles. These are all 45’s you very rarely come across in the wild, so they’re welcome additions to the collection.

They each come in their original generic company outer sleeves too – in this case from Festival Records, which had the manufacturing and distribution rights for A&M Records (Dark Horse Records‘ parent company).

The first, which will be reasonably well-known to most, is from the George Harrison protégés Splinter. Their song ‘Costafine Town’ is lifted from the 1974 Dark Horse debut LP, The Place I Love. Harrison produced all the songs and played a variety of instruments, including electric and acoustic guitars, dobro, bass, and harmonium:

Next up another Splinter single, this time from 1975, called ‘Which Way Will I Get Home’ taken from the band’s second LP, Harder To Live produced by Tom Scott:

And there’s one other Splinter single from the Harder To Live LP, called ‘Half Way There’:

Also in this auction lot was a single from Shankar Family & Friends. It is of course ‘I Am Missing You’, taken from their self-titled 1974 LP, produced and arranged by George Harrison:

Jiva was a Los Angeles band signed to Dark Horse that released only one album with the label in 1975. From that self-titled album came this single. They had a nice funk/soft rock sound, but never made into the charts:

Attitudes was a bit of an L.A. super group consisting of killer keyboardist David Foster, brilliant guitarist Danny Kortchmar, bassist Paul Stallworth, and Jim Keltner on drums. They were all top flight session players who went onto play with just about everybody. In fact a very young David Foster met Jim Keltner while playing on George Harrison’s Extra Texture. Attitudes released two LPs on the Dark Horse label and this first single comes from their self-titled 1975 debut release:

This second single ‘Sweet Summer Music’ was included on Attitudes’ second album, from 1977, called Good News:

In this auction lot there was also an unusual New Zealand pressing of ‘Sweet Summer Music’ on the Dark Horse label but distributed there by WEA (i.e. Warner Bros. – hence the different company sleeve and small print on the labels). The label also contains a mistake as it incorrectly states under the title “from The Dark Horse Album “Attitudes” DH 3021″. It should say “from The Dark Horse Album “Good News” DH 3021″

If you want a bit more information on the Dark Horse label check out this article on the official George Harrison site.

Yes, There WILL Be a McCartney: Man On The Run Soundtrack

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There has been a lot of speculation about the forthcoming documentary film, Paul McCartney – Man On The Run. Would there, or wouldn’t there, be an accompanying soundtrack release on physical media?

Director Morgan Neville dropped a hint a few weeks ago saying yes, there would be one. But many fans figured he was simply referring to last year’s Wings triple LP band retrospective. Well, it turns out he was correct as the McCartney camp has today announced a single LP (or CD) 12-song Man On The Run soundtrack album. There are just four rarities/unusual tracks on it though alongside more standard back-catalogue songs which all collectors no doubt already have – probably many times over. The rarities are one previously unreleased version of ‘Arrow Through Me’; ‘Silly Love Songs (Demo)’; ‘Gotta Sing Gotta Dance’ (from the 1973 James Paul McCartney TV special); and a version of ‘Live and Let Die’ (taken from the live video, Rockshow).

The version that is already sold out is a limited “New York Taxi Yellow” edition, pressed by Third Man Records. This was limited to just 3,500 copies:

There’s also an Amazon exclusive on orange vinyl:

And of course it’ll be available on standard black vinyl as well:

Each of the vinyls comes with a poster.

Plus there’s a CD:

Pre orders are available now and they’ll be released on February 27.

The documentary film itself is due for a limited, one-day-only theatre run in cities around the world on Thursday, February 19 before it premieres on Amazon Prime. You can see where it is is playing and book tickets online. EDIT: Some cities have now added additional screenings for Sunday, February 22.

He Photographed Paul McCartney – and Upset the Beatle

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When you see an iconic image like this one it is often fascinating to hear the backstory as to how it came about.

Photographer Chris Floyd has a fantastic tale to tell about working with Paul McCartney and the process of capturing an image of him for the ages:

If Floyd’s photographs looks familiar, that’s because another from that same shoot eventually made it’s way (some 12 years later via Paul’s own company MPL) onto the cover of Paul Du Noyer’s 2015 book, Conversations With McCartney:

As well as the YouTube above, Chris Floyd has written in detail about the session too, both in his book Not Just Pictures, and also at his substack.com page. His article there is well worth a read. It’s got some great additional information and images, plus two very surprising postscripts which add delightful new elements to the tale!

‘A Song Reborn’ – A New Beatle “Making Of” Film

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The Beatles have released a new short film on the “making of” their Anthology song, ‘Free As A Bird’:

A Song Reborn is directed by Oliver Murray, who did a similar thing in 2023 for ‘Now And Then’:

Murray also compiled the trailer for The Beatles Anthology 2025 now on Disney+:

And he wrote and directed the new 50 minute Episode 9 of the Disney+ series, so Apple is obviously sending quite a bit of work his way. Hopefully soon we’ll get the Oliver Murray take on the making of ‘Real Love’, with even more previously unseen footage?

The Pre-Christmas Bealtes Release List – Even More To Add!

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In late October we published a graphic titled “If You Want To Keep Up, Here’s Everything You’ll Need To Order” showing what we then thought was every Beatle, solo, or Beatle-related title released (or about to be released) this holiday season.

It didn’t last long. Some helpful readers pointed out we’d left out Ringo’s Stop & Smell The Roses – the numbered, liquid vinyl edition – limited to 400 copies.

This was due November 14, but seems to have been delayed. It is currently looking like December 5 now.

And the other Ringo Starr was a red vinyl re-issue of his 14th studio album, Choose Love from 2005. This had first been slated for Record Store Day Black Friday, but was quietly removed from official lists prior to the day. It’s popped up again on the Friday Music site, this time with a late January 2026 release date (though knowing Friday Music that is extremely likely to change):

Then came news of the John Lennon and Yoko Ono ‘War Is Over (If You Want It)’ 12″ Zoetrope pressing issued to coincide with the release of the children’s hardback book and the premiere of the short animated film of the same name on YouTube.

Then Dark Horse Records announced it would be issuing a further title from the Yusuf/Cat Stevens back catalogue that the label now has the rights to. It’s called Tell ‘Em I’m Gone and it will be on yellow vinyl:

So, each of these were duly added into a revised graphic and we were just about to re-publish when last Friday came news of yet another collectable, this time linked to the Beatles’ Anthology re-issue – and in particular Anthology 4. On it are the 2025 re-mixes of ‘Free As A Bird’ and ‘Real Love’ and they are now being released as a limited edition, double A-side 7″ translucent milk white vinyl single. This is the 2025 mix of both songs.

There’s been no indication of a CD version of the single being made available (except for Japan where there’s been an exclusive Japan-only CD announced). Nor has there been any talk of updated versions of the ‘Free As A Bird’ and ‘Real Love’ EPs (or “maxi-singles”) which were originally released to accompany Volumes 1 and 2 of Anthology back in 1995 and 1996. That means all of the extra tracks on those EPs will remain unavailable, with the exception of the song ‘This Boy’, which has been added to the Anthology Volume 4 discs.

The ‘Free As A Bird’ (2025 Mix)/’Real Love’ (2025 Mix) 7″ coloured vinyl single is only available from Beatles official stores (e.g. in the UK or the US), or from certain Universal Music online stores (eg. this one in Germany).

So, it has been a most busy time for any Beatle collector who is a completist. There’s been so much product so fast it’s been difficult to keep up.

To help, here’s our updated visual. If you want everything, this is what you’ll need to order. There are no fewer that 51 items here! This has got to be unprecedented in the run-up to Christmas:

(Click on the graphic to see a larger version)