The Beatles - City of Light

Label: DarthDisc, DD 007/8

DISC ONE

1. Beatles Interview at Le Bourget Airport
OLYMPIA MUSIC HALL - January 19, 1964
2. If I Had A Hammer (Trini Lopez)
3. Robert Marcy's Comment
4. From Me To You
5. She Loves You
6. This Boy
7. I Want To Hold Your Hand
8. Twist And Shout
9. Robert Marcy and Outro
10. I Saw Her Standing There
11. This Boy (Intro Only)
12. Twist And Shout
13. From Me To You (Instrumental)
14. Long Tall Sally
15. From Me To You (Instrumental)
16. From Me To You
17. Michel Lemaire Interviews the Beatles at The Olympia
18. Michel Lemaire Interviews Sylvie Vartan at The Olympia
19. Interview for Armed Forces Network's "Weekend World" - Jan. 24, 1964
PATHE-MARCONI STUDIO - January 29, 1964
20. Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand (Announcements)
21. Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand (Stereo, "Something New" version)
22. Sie Liebt Dich (Breakdown)
23. Sie Liebt Dich (Stereo, U.S. "Rarities" version)
24. Can't Buy Me Love (Take Two)
25. Can't Buy Me Love (Take Three)
26. One And One Is Two (Demo, probably recorded in Hotel George Cinq)
27. Interview with Bernard Redmont, for WINS Radio, NYC
28. Interview at London Airport - February 5, 1964
THE 1965 OPENING ACTS
29. I'm All Right (Les Pollux)
30. Memphis Tennessee (Evy)
31. Joy, Joy, Joy (Moustique)
32. Les Copains D'Abord (Les Haricots Rouges)
33. I Wish You Would (The Yardbirds)

DISC TWO

PALAIS DES SPORTS - June 20, 1965 (Afternoon Show)
1. Twist And Shout
2. She's A Woman
3. I'm A Loser
4. Can't Buy Me Love
5. Baby's In Black
6. I Wanna Be Your Man
7. A Hard Day's Night
8. Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby
9. Rock And Roll Music
10. I Feel Fine
11. Ticket To Ride
12. Long Tall Sally
PALAIS DES SPORTS - June 20, 1965 (Evening Show)
13. Twist And Shout
14. She's A Woman
15. I'm A Loser
16. Can't Buy Me Love
17. Baby's In Black
18. I Wanna Be Your Man
19. A Hard Day's Night
20. Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby
21. Rock And Roll Music
22. I Feel Fine
23. Ticket To Ride
24. Long Tall Sally
25. Interview By Jacques Ourevitch in Rolls Royce and at Hotel George Cinq
26. George and Ringo interviewed by Chris Denning
27. A French fan interviewed by Chris Denning
28. A French interview about the M.B.E., in London (Probably October 1965)

Audio: Neo
Research: Mr. Ron Obvious
Design: Corbeau
Special thanks to all who lent a hand. You know who you are...

Liner Notes

"There were more boys than girls in the audience," appears to have been the main impression Paris made on the Beatles: they said it at the time, and in retrospective interviews as recently as the "Anthology." Yet some of their best live recordings come from their two visits to the City of Light, the first in January and early February 1964 just before their first visit to America, and the second on June 20, 1965, their first live shows after finishing work on "Help!"

Paris also has the distinction of being the only city outside London where the Beatles held a formal recording session, that being the January 29, 1964 session at Pathé Marconi studios that produced "Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand," "Sie Liebt Dich" and "Can't Buy Me Love." And it was in Paris that they wrote and probably recorded the demo for "One And One Is Two," a song that they did not revisit in the studio, leaving the demo as the only available performance. And of course, during both visits they gave interviews. All of their recordings that have survived and have come to light -- including snippets made available in the "Anthology" and on Beatles.com -- are included here.

TECHNICAL NOTES / EDITING DISCLOSURES: Most of this material has been available before, although the 1965 evening show here is derived mostly (all but "I Feel Fine") from a first generation copy of the original video master. Considerable work has been done on all of the recordings, however. The 1964 performances, derived from "The Lost Paris Tapes," have had any clicks or other anomalies removed, but more importantly, we have tried to restore the broadcast section to the original running order. On the original, there audible edits, one of which we had to retain: the split introduction of "She Loves You" -- half by Paul, half by John -- probably didn't happen that way, but the existing material did not allow for it to be corrected.

On the other hand, we found that restoring the songs to their normal performance order only fully worked when we also moved the applause and comments preceding or following the songs in question. So, the applause and the "Merci" formerly heard after "From Me To You" is now after "I Want To Hold Your Hand" and the applause (and another "Merci") formerly after "I Want To Hold Your Hand" now separates "From Me To You" and "She Loves You." If it sounds confusing or nefarious, compare the running orders of the two versions and you'll see what we did; compare the discs and you'll hear why.

The newly discovered material from "The Lost Paris Tapes" has been left as it was: since these extra songs were likely from different shows, inserting them into the broadcast order seemed unwise. The other 1964 recordings are self-explanatory except for the two brief interview snippets preceding the Armed Forces Network interview, one with the Beatles, the other with Sylvie Vartan (with the Beatles playing "I Want To Hold Your Hand" in the background). These were conducted at the Olympia by Michel Lemaire for his "Les Moins de 20 ans" program on RTBF, Belgian radio.

The 1965 shows posed special problems too. The best sources for the afternoon show were missing some of the introductory comments -- often not much more than the odd "Merci," although among the missing were the guitar intro to "Baby's In Black." The missing bits, long available on the poor quality "Paris Sports Palais" LP, had been moven into a better quality source on "Et Maintenant Une Chanson," but the edits were crude and the "Paris Sports Palais" sections had a high-pitched whine. In truth, there is no way to make the sound of the "Paris Sports Palais" material match that of the better source, but we have eliminated the whine (and crackle) and remade the edits. The result is a complete but somewhat less jarring version of the afternoon show.

The running order of the evening show, also skewed on the original videotape -- what is it with French broadcasters? -- is here restored to the running order of the Beatles' spring 1965 set, and "I Feel Fine," from a different video source (and with a moment of tape-drag near the start restored to normal sound by way of an edit) has been reconnected with its ending, left on the videotape where the song was excised. This collection is rounded out with interviews, the last of which doesn't actually belong here: it was recorded in London several months after their Paris visit. But it was done for French radio, and leaving it off would have made it the only track from "Les Beatles A Paris" not included here.

And hey, completeness are us...

Neo, 2001