1/20/64: Meet the Beatles! -- This, Capitol's first Beatles album release in the U.S., was actually the Beatles' second LP (called With The Beatles in Britain), minus five cover versions of songs originally performed by American artists that Capitol felt would seem old to an American audience. In its American incarnation it
contained the eight original Beatles songs from With The Beatles ("It Won't Be Long," "All I've Got To Do," "All My Loving," "Don't Bother Me," "Little Child," "Hold Me Tight," "I Wanna Be Your Man," and "Not A Second Time"), plus the Beatles' cover version of Meredith Wilson's "'Til There Was You" from The Music Man. (Capitol apparently felt it was safe to include this one cover version because it was too old
4/10/64: The Beatles' Second Album -- This release was quite a hodgepodge, encompassing:
- Five cover versions of Motown songs that Capitol had feared would sound old hat to American audiences just three months earlier: Chuck Berry's "Roll Over Beethoven," Smokey Robinson's "You Really Got A Hold On Me," The Donays' "(There's A) Devil In His Heart" (with a suitable gender change), Barret Strong's "Money," and The Marvelettes' "Please Mister Postman."
- An incredible three B-sides: Two from singles Capitol had turned down in 1963, "Thank You Girl" (B-side of "From Me To You") and "I'll Get You" (B-side of "She Loves You"), and one from the Beatles' then-current single, "You Can't Do That" (B-side of "Can't Buy Me Love").
- "She Loves You," the single that was then #1 in America.
(Re-released by Swan Records, who held the rights to the single because Capitol had passed on it in 1963, "She Loves You" had replaced "I Want to Hold Your Hand" at the top of the charts in the U.S.).[Capitol never did release any of the Beatles' first four singles as 45's in America. "She Loves You," as explained above, was used only as an album track. "Please Please Me" and "Love Me Do" were not issued by Capitol until they appeared on Capitol's repackaging of the Beatles' first British album (Please Please Me) as The Early Beatles in 1965. And "From Me To You" didn't come out on the Capitol label until The Beatles 1962-1966 compilation (the "red album") was released nearly ten years later.]
- Two songs recorded just a month earlier (for possible use in the Beatles' first film, A Hard Day's Night): "Long Tall Sally" and "I Call Your Name." (Neither ended up being part of the film, and they were released in the UK on an EP two months later. This was the first time new Beatles recordings appeared in the U.S. prior to being issued in Britain.)
6/26/64: A Hard Day's Night (United Artists) -- United Artist's version of the LP A Hard Day's Night was quite a rip-off indeed. (By distributing the film, United Artists had obtained the rights to the soundtrack album as well. Legend has it that this was the only reason UA agreed to distribute the film, because they considered the Beatles too much of a fad to make the film pay off in the long run.) UA's record contained a meager eight songs, seven of which were from the movie (and not even sequenced in the order in which they appeared in the film): "A Hard Day's Night," "Tell Me Why," "I'm Happy Just To Dance With You," "I Should Have Known Better," "If I Fell," "And I Love Her," and "Can't Buy Me Love." ("Can't Buy Me Love" had already been released as a single three months earlier.) Interspersed with these tracks (and one song excised from the film at the last minute, "I'll Cry Instead") were four instrumental versions of various film songs, performed by George Martin and Orchestra. (By contrast, the British version of the LP contained five more songs not used in the film rather than filler instrumental tracks.)
7/20/64: Something New -- Another mishmash of songs, consisting of:
- Four songs from A Hard Day's Night: "Tell Me Why," "And I Love Her," "I'm Happy Just To Dance With You," and "If I Fell." (Remember, United Artists had first dibs on the film songs because they distributed the movie. "Can't Buy Me Love" was (mercifully) omitted from this release because it had already been issued as a single by Capitol, and it had appeared on the UA soundtrack album; "A Hard Day's Night" and "I Should Have Known Better" were left off because
they comprised both sides of Capitol's then-current Beatles single.)
- Four of the five non-film songs from the British A Hard Day's Night LP: "I'll Cry Instead," "Things We Said Today," "Any Time At All," and "When I Get Home."
- The remaining two tracks from the Long Tall Sally British EP: "Slow Down" and "Matchbox." (The other two tracks from the EP had already been used by Capitol for The Beatles' Second Album. "Slow Down" and "Matchbox" were also released as a single in the U.S. a month later.)
- A German-language version of "I Want To Hold Your Hand" (titled "Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand"), recorded for EMI's West German branch, Electrola Gesellschaft. Capitol didn't include the other side of this single, the German-language version of "She Loves You" (title "Sie Liebt Dich"), presumably because Swan Records held the rights to it. (Swan had released it as a single two months earlier and held the rights to the English-language "She Loves You" single in the U.S. as well.) As a result, "Sie Liebt Dich" would not appear on a Capitol release until the issuance of a Beatles "rarities" album over fifteen years later.
11/23/64: The Beatles' Story -- No new songs (or any songs at all, for that matter) appeared on this double album. It consisted entirely of interviews with the Beatles, interspersed with song snippets and overly-dramatic narrations, bridged by syrupy string renditions of Beatles tunes. The four sides of this album (one for each Beatle) totalled less than fifty minutes' worth of running time and could easily have fit on a single record.
12/15/64: Beatles '65 -- This was really Beatles '64, the songs included all having been recorded and released in 1964, but Capitol had to ensure that the album would still seem 'new' after the Christmas selling season ended, hence the title. The record offered a skimpy eight of the fourteen songs released on the British Beatles For Sale LP eleven days earlier: "No Reply," "I'm A Loser," "Baby's In Black," "Rock And Roll Music," "I'll Follow The Sun," "Mr. Moonlight," "Honey Don't," and "Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby." Also included were a leftover non-soundtrack song from A Hard Day's Night ("I'll Be Back") and both sides of the Beatles' then-current single ("I Feel Fine" b/w "She's A Woman"). (One can only conclude that the prospects of potentially huge Christmas sales induced Capitol to include a current single on an album release.)
3/22/65: The Early Beatles -- Capitol repackaged the Beatle's first British LP (Please Please Me, the album they originally turned down) to create yet more product. Once again the U.S. consumer got the short shrift, as the songs "Misery" and "There's A Place" were omitted from the LP. (The song "I Saw Her Standing There" was left off as well, probably because it had already been used by Capitol on Meet the Beatles! a year earlier.
6/14/65: Beatles VI -- The Beatles had actually recorded only four LPs at this point, but never mind that. Capitol had managed to squeeze six albums out of those four LPs, and that total didn't even include United Artists' A Hard Day's Night soundtrack or the double-record The Beatles' Story. Beatles VI was thrown together from six songs off the British Beatles For Sale album not used on Beatles '65 ("What You're Doing," "Eight Days a Week," "Words of Love," "Kansas City," "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party," and "Every Little Thing"), two songs recorded for the upcoming Help! LP but not slated to be part of the film ("You Like Me Too Much" and "Tell Me What You See"), and the B-side of the Beatles' latest single ("Yes It Is," the flip side of "Ticket To Ride"). Note that "Eight Days a Week" and "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party" were yet another repackaging, as they had already been used to comprise yet another Capitol single release four months earlier.
Even then, Capitol only had nine tracks for the release, too small a number even by their minimal standards. To help Capitol fill out the record, the Beatles' filming of Help! was interrupted so they could be rushed back to London to record a couple of new songs for the album. The Beatles had no new material at hand, so they ran through a couple of old Larry Williams tunes ("Dizzy Miss Lizzy" and "Bad Boy") with John singing lead. "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" was eventually used on the British Help! LP, but "Bad Boy" wasn't issued in the U.K. until EMI put out A Collection of Beatles Oldies in December of 1966.
8/13/65: Help! -- Another soundtrack rip-off, this time containing a pitiful seven songs (one less than United Artists' A Hard Day's Night soundtrack). The Capitol version of the LP included only the songs appearing in the film ("Help!," "The Night Before," "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away," "I Need You," "Another Girl," "Ticket To Ride," and "You're Going To Lose That Girl"), but at least they were sequenced in the proper order this time. Six instrumental tracks were added to compensate for the four other new Beatles songs from the British version of Help! that didn't make the cut. (Predictably, two of the missing songs, "Yesterday" and "Act Naturally," were issued as a single by Capitol a month later.)
12/6/65: Rubber Soul -- For the first time ever, a Beatles LP appeared on both sides of the Atlantic at the same time, with the same title to boot! They still weren't the same records in terms of content, though. Both versions had ten tracks in common: "Norwegian Wood," "You Won't See Me," "Think For Yourself," "The Word," "Michelle," "Girl," "I'm Looking Through You," "In My Life," "Wait," and "Run for Your Life." Capitol excluded four other tracks that appeared on the British version ("If I Needed Someone," "Nowhere Man" "What Goes On," and "Drive My Car") and replaced them with two leftover Help! songs ("I've Just Seen a Face" and "It's Only Love"). (As usual, "Nowhere Man" and "What Goes On" were released as a Capitol single two months later.)
This was the one case where Capitol's rearrangement of tracks actually made some artistic sense (although Capitol undoubtedly had no such intentions in mind). They removed four 'electric' songs from Rubber Soul and replaced them with two folksy, acoustic Help! songs that fit in quite nicely with the rest of the album. (The song "Wait," in fact, was an outtake from the Help! sessions, used by the Beatles to fill out Rubber Soul when they came up a song short.) Inexplicably, the version of "I'm Looking Through You" used on the U.S. version of Rubber Soul included a false start that was not part of its British equivalent.
6/15/66: Yesterday and Today -- the ultimate butchery.
To assemble this polyglot of an album, Capitol used:
- Two songs withheld from the previous year's Help! LP so Capitol could issue them as a single ("Yesterday" and "Act Naturally").
- Both sides of the Beatles' previous single ("We Can Work It Out" b/w "Day Tripper").
- Four songs lopped off the British Rubber Soul album (two of which had already been issued on a Capitol single): "Drive My Car," "Nowhere Man," "What Goes On," and "If I Needed Someone".
- Three songs from the uncompleted Revolver LP, rushed over from London to fill out Capitol's new album ("I'm Only Sleeping," "Dr. Robert," and "And Your Bird Can Sing.")
Revolver was released in the U.S. several weeks later, minus the three songs pulled for Yesterday and Today. From this point on, all of Capitol's releases (both singles and albums), matched their British counterparts, with the exceptions of the Magical Mystery Tour double EP (to which Capitol added "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" and released as an LP), and The Beatles Again (later retitled Hey Jude), which appeared only in America.