The Beatles Videography

This isn’t a compilation of info on all of the Beatles TV appearances throughout the world. Obviously they made hundreds of appearances on various pop shows lip synching or performing live to promote whatever single they were releasing at the time. But of course, the Beatles were pioneers of the pop video, frequently shooting special clips for worldwide distribution, and therefore negating their need to travel and perform on specific shows. The main body of the book discusses these promos at various points, but there will be a specific chapter and new articles on these promos as the site develops. In the meantime, here’s a brief videography of the promo clips that were put together in the Beatles lifetime, and which were mistakenly omitted from original pressings of the Beatles’ Movies book.

November 1965: : ‘Help!,’ ‘We Can Work It Out,’ ‘Day Tripper,’ ‘Ticket To Ride,’ ‘I Feel Fine.’

Tuesday 25 November should be regarded as an important day in the history of popular music and television, for it was then that the Beatles, directed by Joe Mcgrath, filmed what were to become the first pop videos. Made to avoid the necessity of constant exclusive TV appearances, and to make profit from direct sales to various TV companies throughout the world, these promos, shot at Twickenham by Intertel VTR Services, were quickly shot pieces that were nevertheless hugely significant in that they were important precursors what, in the seventies and eighties, would later become known as the pop video age.

The Beatles shot ten clips in all, several of which were completed in multiple versions. These comprised three versions of ‘We Can Work it Out,’ one of ‘Help!,’ three of ‘Day Tripper’ one of ‘Ticket to Ride’ and two of ‘I Feel Fine.’ According to Mark Lewisohn's excellent Complete Beatles Chronicle, the BBC paid NEMS (the Beatles management company), £1750 for several broadcasts of the clips (largely on Top of the Pops), which in itself shows a tidy profit as the cost of the production was itself just £750! By far the most interesting of these is the ‘fish and chips’ version of ‘I Feel Fine,’ (not sold to television at the time at Epstein’s behest). Although many of the clips made only a semi-diegetic use of music (for example, on ‘Help!’ Ringo simply holds an umbrella), this video almost totally breaks with the notion of mimed performance altogether, and merely features the group eating fish and chips with almost no attempt at miming!

According to an interview I conducted with Joe McGrath in 1996, this was largely at the behest of John Lennon, though of course this break with performance had been pioneered by Richard Lester and the group themselves in sequences such as ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ in A Hard Day’s Night, where music was used in a much more illustrative capacity, to accompany their cavorting in a park. An important landmark, nonetheless.

May 1966: ‘Paperback Writer,’ ‘Rain’

Continuing the tradition of producing promo clips to replace exclusive television appearances, the Beatles shot a number of video and film performances for both ‘Paperback Writer’ and its flipside, ‘Rain.’ The crew and facilities were again supplied by Intertel, though this time they were directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, a TV director who had worked on the groundbreaking Ready Steady Go pop show, and who would go on to direct further Beatles promos and, of course, their documentary movie, Let It Be. Over a two day period, the Beatles recorded four versions of ‘Paperback Writer’ and three of ‘Rain.’

While the majority of these were taped at EMI studios on May 19 and merely featured straightforward mimed footage, the two most famous and striking promos, which were shot on colour 16 mm film stock, were filmed the following day at London’s Chiswick House. They are a mixture of mimed and conceptual footage featuring the group strolling and relaxing around the gardens and conservatory of the house in their Revolver era clothing. Ironically, it was these, and not the predominantly black and white performance videos shot the previous day, that the BBC chose to screen, in black and white on Top of the Pops the following June. That said, these are clearly superior to the other recorded material, and still have an elegant, detached cool. Indeed, when screened (albeit in re-edited form) as part of the Beatles Anthology documentary, they arguably looked the least dated of all the promo footage included, possibly because its release coincided with the popularity of the ‘Britpop’ phenomenon, many of whose chief exponents had borrowed heavily from their 1966 look.

January/February 1967: ‘Strawberry Fields Forever,’ ‘Penny Lane’

Shot by Swedish pop TV director Peter Goldmann, these promos, shot on film over a total of four days (mainly Knowle Park, Sevenoaks, Kent), represent the Beatles most effective and carefully constructed and self-consciously ‘arty’ work, using storyboarded surrealistic imagery and situations which totally rejected performance in favour of imagery which attempted to distil the largely abstract imagery of the songs.

The most lyrically ‘figurative’ song, Paul's charming ‘Penny Lane’ is also the most representationally direct, featuring some footage of the Beatles walking and riding horses down ‘Penny Lane’ (actually Angel Lane in Stratford, but made to look authentic by dropping in shots of the real Liverpool landmarks the song mentions). However, even this is offset to some extent by the intercut footage of the Beatles taking an Victorian alfresco tea break (served by be-wigged butlers) before appearing to demolish the crockery! The famous ‘Strawberry Fields’ clip is even more surreal/psychedelic, a veritable simulated filmic ‘trip’ replete with backwards visuals, coloured filters and intercut footage of the Beatles peering deeply into the lens as they examine a large dead oak tree and paint splattered piano in Knowle Park.

When the promos were first screened in mid February in Britain and late February in America, audiences were astonished, and in many senses, these promos were the pinnacle of the Beatles attempts to forge visuals and music, at least in a pop promo format. Although there were plenty more promos to come, none would be so visually arresting and skilfully produced as these, perhaps the only promos that were totally successful in blending their hugely experimental and intriguing soundscapes with visual ideas and execution that actually enhanced, or at least did total justice, to their music.

February 1967: ‘A Day in the Life’

Shot by Beatles assistant Tony Bramwell, this clip features footage of the recording for the orchestral overdubs of ‘A Day in the Life,’ shot on February 10, just three days after the completion of shooting for ‘Penny Lane’ and ‘Strawberry Fields.’ Re-edited somewhat for the Beatles Anthology, the clip was never shown in its day either in Britain or America, partly because the song was banned in Britain at the time, and partly- or at least, possibly- because it was held back for a Sergeant Pepper television special that never materialised, and was effectively abandoned when the Beatles commenced work on Magical Mystery Tour in September 1967.

November 1967: ‘Hello Goodbye’

Fresh from his directorial work on Magical Mystery Tour, Paul McCartney directed three promo clips for the Beatles current single, all of which were shot, predominantly performance style, at Brian Epstein’s Savile Theatre. The clips were never shown in Britain at the time because of a miming ban on all TV appearances instigated by the Musician’s Union. The promos, which were lip synched, were therefore unusable in the UK, though one version was shown in the USA, and debuted on the Ed Sullivan Show. This version, the most famous, featured the Beatles playing in their Sergeant Pepper suits, intercut with brief appearances of the group in their early sixties gear waving to camera. The other two versions feature the Beatles miming in their ‘ordinary’ psychedelic clothing, once ‘sensibly’ and once in what is known to fans as a ‘twist’ version, which features out-takes of the other two promos intercut with footage of the group humorously twisting and generally larking about. A new edit combining all three versions was used in the Beatles Anthology documentary, though all three versions stand up well in their original edits, and successfully echo the light-hearted and uplifting qualities of the song.

March 1968: ‘Lady Madonna’

This promo clip, which exists in two different edits, was the first to be shot under the auspices of Apple, and was again shot on film by Tony Bramwell, Denis O’Dell’s assistant at Apple Films. As most fans know, it was actually comprised of studio footage of the group recording John’s ‘Hey Bulldog’ for the Yellow Submarine movie. Basically, the group had decided previously that they should be seen working on ‘Lady Madonna’ in the studio for the promo, but when they arrived, decided that there was no point in simply predenting to do so, so rather than produce another semi lip-synced promo in the style of say, ‘Hello-Goodbye’ or the studio versions of ‘Paperback Writer,’ they agreed to simply work on John’s new composition instead.

The resulting clips, which were obviously not lip-synched, are nevertheless edited sympathetically to Lady Madonna’s style and rhythm, and when they were eventually aired that month in the US and the UK, the public were totally unaware that they were seeing the construction of a whole different song! The final result is a perfectly serviceable, though visually pedestrian piece, its chief interest being the aforementioned story, and perhaps that it was one of the first promos to feature the band ‘at work’ as it were, possibly providing the blueprint for subsequent clichéd videos of the seventies and eighties which featured a similar approach. The Police videos designed to promote the singles from their LP ‘Ghost in the Machine’ (1981) spring immediately to mind.

September 1968: ‘Hey Jude,’ ‘Revolution’

Two completed videos each were produced for each of these tracks, from three takes of ‘Hey Jude’ and two of ‘Revolution.’ Again these were performance clips, and the main ‘Hey Jude’ video, which was edited from two of the three takes, was recorded with an introduction by David Frost (in order that the Hey Jude clip appear as if the Beatles were appearing live on his show, Frost On Sunday, where the video was premiered in the UK).

The videos were shot at the Beatles now familiar Twickenham film studios, and again directed by Michael Lindsay Hogg, Despite the additional presence of a full 36 piece orchestra and several hundred extras brought in to add visual panache to the vocal finale of ‘Hey Jude,’ only the vocals are live on these promos, though thankfully the visuals were enough to convince the Musician’s Union that the performances were live, and thus protect them from a another ban on British TV!

All of the performances were strong and powerful, and the use of a broad spectrum of extras on ‘Hey Jude’ (recruited voluntarily after leaflets were distributed in the local area) proved an inspired visual backdrop, re-affirming the group’s cross-gendered, cross-generational, cross-racial appeal to the world. As well as being screened on Frost On Sunday, the clips were also seen on British TV (in black and white) on various editions of Top of the Pops. In the US they fared better in that they were aired in colour on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.

January 1969: ‘Get Back,’ ‘Don’t Let Me Down,’ ‘Let it Be’

These promotional clips (shot on 16 mm film by Michael Lindsay-Hogg), were essentially the studio (single) versions of the songs edited to performance footage recorded during the making of what would become the Let It Be movie. Although the clips do not exactly match their movie counterparts, the footage for all was sourced from the same body of material, so consequently ‘Get Back’ features the rooftop concert, ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ combines footage from the Twickenham Studios rehearsals with the rooftop concert, and ‘Let It Be’ uses footage from the Apple Studios sessions which took place the day after the rooftop concert. Of the three, ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ was never screened in Britain, while the other two were screened, as usual, on Top of the Pops. All three were seen on US television, ‘Get Back’ and ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ on The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, and ‘Let It Be’ on The Ed Sullivan Show, on a Beatles Special, in 1970.

October 1969: ‘Something’

By this point, relationships within the group were such that it was no longer possible to get them together for a video shoot to promote their new single, which was not released until the end of October, a month after the release of its parent album, Abbey Road. As a result, Neil Aspinall produced a composite promo (shot on 16mm film) of each group member strolling in a pastoral setting with their wives. It’s a charming, if insubstantial, clip, which, as Mark Lewisohn points out, cleverly softens ‘the blow that it delivers: at no point are even two of the Beatles seen together.’ Although presumably constructed quickly and certainly out of the starkest necessity, it’s nevertheless an affecting piece, made all the more poignant with the passing of the years. It was shown just once on British television, in black and white (though it was shot in colour), on Top of the Pops, in November.