Graham Reid
Music writer·New Zealand Listener·
15 Nov, 2025 06:00 PM3 mins to read
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“I’ve just seen a fresh face” – The Beatles in 1964. Photo / Getty Images
Anyone following the remastering and reissue of The Beatles’ catalogue – all those box sets with out-takes, studio chatter, different takes and so on – knows their Apple Corp company (not to be confused with the tech giant) jealously controls the flow of information and releases.
While Beatles obsessives yearn
for an expanded version of a remastered Rubber Soul – their pivotal 1965 album where they ceased to be mop-top pop stars – this year’s Apple/Beatles release was to come bundled with a remastered reissue of the Anthology series, the ground-breaking, career-spanning double-CD sets of obscurities, rehearsals, rarities and different takes.
The first volume arrived in 1995, along with the single Free as a Bird, created around the late John Lennon’s home recording and embellished by the remaining “Threetles”.
But the announcement of this reissue caused outrage: there would be a fourth volume of previously unreleased demos and studio recordings, however, it wouldn’t be available separately.
As Beatles online sites burned with accusations of Apple greed, another announcement finally came: all the volumes, including the new Anthology 4, would be released separately in double disc and triple vinyl formats.
Beatles records. Images / Supplied
For those who consider Anthology the equivalent of a holy writ, volume 4 contains their first attempt at I Saw Her Standing There, two takes of This Boy (the B side to I Want To Hold Your Hand, in which Lennon delivers an extraordinarily soulful part), different takes of Tell Me Why from A Hard Day’s Night and Paul McCartney’s folk rocker I’ve Just Seen A Face. There’s Lennon’s first take of his personal In My Life, a different take of George Harrison’s While My Guitar Gently Weeps with Eric Clapton (it opens with Harrison asking for a cheese, lettuce and marmite sandwich – such rock ’n’ roll decadence!) and another take of McCartney’s throat-searing Helter Skelter.
Also included are remasters of Free as a Bird and Real Love in which Lennon’s vocal, spectral previously, is now very much in the same sonic space.
But there’s more: the six-part Anthology television series of Beatles interviews and a career overview also gets an audio remix and arrives with an extra chapter overseen by Beatles fanatic and Get Back director Sir Peter Jackson.
In 2023, Jackson told Britain’s The Evening Standard, “Apple unearthed over 14 hours of long-forgotten film shot during the 1995 recording sessions [for Free as a Bird] including several hours of Paul, George and Ringo working on Now and Then.” Now and Then was another Lennon home recording which, in 1995, Harrison rejected (“fucking rubbish”), so work on it was abandoned.
However, with Jackson’s technology, and Harrison – who died in 2001 – out of the picture, McCartney and Starr worked on it again.
Now And Then – also remastered for Anthology 4 – was released as the final Beatles single in 2023. More than half a century after The Beatles broke up, it went into the top five in Britain, the US, Japan and half a dozen other countries.
They’ve been going in and out of style, but they’re guaranteed to raise a smile … and credit card debt?
The Beatles Anthology collections on double CD and triple vinyl are released on November 21. The expanded Anthology television series screens on Disney+ from November 26. The The Beatles Anthology 25th Anniversary Edition book is in shops now.
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