As I medidate on the beauty of unease that’s highlighted on the German true stereo release of Magical Mystery Tour, I’m finding that “Penny Lane” is one song that does not benefit from this mix. The song is too perfect, too much a product of the vibe that was at the mighty core of the Sgt. Pepper’s sessions for which it was originally recorded. Here’s the German true stereo version.

The Beatles, “Penny Lane” (German true stereo mix)

I prefer the crammed, fake stereo of the US release I grew up with. It’s totally in your face, like McCartney and like his airtight pop confection was meant to be.

[NOTE: If the gratuitous clip that kicks off this video doesn’t convince you nerds that the film Almost Famous actually was the most contrived piece of prepubescent proto-porn ever produced by Hollywood, as I’ve felt since first watching it, I don’t know what to say.]

George Shows Rather Than Tells

Here’s a song I used to skip half the time I listened to Magical Mystery Tour as a kid. Granted, when I was 7 years old I hadn’t done the sort of things to my brain that might have helped me better tune into this song, but even years later, after I should have had a better idea of what George was up to, the song dragged.

The Beatles, “Blue Jay Way” (German true stereo mix)

That started to change as I got used to the German true stereo version of Magical Mystery Tour. Now, it couldn’t drag enough. The bass is so friggin’ deep. It’s a wonder the entire band didn’t fall asleep to Ringo’s beat. George, for a rare time in his raised-consciousness phase, shows rather than tells what he’s going through.

Again, the true stereo mix lets the closely mic’ed strings be fully felt. You can hear the bizarre vocal effects as The Beatles themselves might have heard them in the studio. Athough I usually hate when a remastered ’60s album cleans everything up and offers me the opportunity to pick and choose what I want to hear (rather than slamming me in the face with the main hooks, as most great ’60s records were meant to do). In the absence of tremendous songs, the vague focus of the German mix becomes a strength.

More broadly, as we head to the finish line of side 1, although the band’s loss of Brian Epstein is often pointed to as a profoundly negative turning point in their overall quality, the sense of unease in side 1’s EP-collected recordings, especially as reflected in the true stereo mix, can be seen as a treat for Beatles fans. There’s a humanity to these mixes that I find refreshing after the monolithic studio wizardry that is Sgt. Pepper’s.