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5.13pm
28 March 2014
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Lets face it, other than hard core Beatles collectors (like us), nobody’s gonna like this music. 
BEATLES Music gives me Eargasms! 
7.06pm
15 March 2017
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There is a niche market for noise so there would be some people outside of hardcore Beatles fans that would like to hear it but it wouldn’t be for the casual fan.
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8.44am
22 December 2013
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24 March 2014
Offline I am not really that interested in listening to this track as in listening to alternate takes to any other song in their catalogue. I listened to the Fireman and bleh, listened yo John (and Yoko) adventures into the avant-garde and bleh, George’s Electronic Sound bleh…The Beatles were way ahead inovating in their field (pop music) but when trying to get really experimental they were really naive (imo) . I’d rather listen to all the takes from Happiness Is A Warm Gun than this Carnival Of Light thing.
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11.48am
Reviewers
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1 May 2011
Offline Shamrock Womlbs said
I am not really that interested in listening to this track as in listening to alternate takes to any other song in their catalogue. I listened to the Fireman and bleh, listened yo John (and Yoko) adventures into the avant-garde and bleh, George’s Electronic Sound bleh…The Beatles were way ahead inovating in their field (pop music) but when trying to get really experimental they were really naive (imo) . I’d rather listen to all the takes from Happiness Is A Warm Gun than this Carnival Of Light thing.
I think the very large majority of Beatles fans, including the hardcore diehards, are only interested in the recording due to it being a previously unheard unreleased Beatles track (aside from the incredibly small amount of people who have heard it over the years). There is little doubt in my head that the large majority of that large majority will be left wanting if they ever hear it because it is so far out.
Any unreleased Beatles music wants to be heard by the die-hards, regardless of it being take 2 of ‘Wild Honey Pie ‘ or the third ‘Helter Skelter ‘ take (the 27-minute one). They all have their differing levels of interest to different fans but most will take what they can get.
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2.01pm
14 December 2009
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There’s got to be a lot of us who want to hear COL for (among other reasons) the practical equipment questions. The differing sounds the band explored makes for a series of milestones – first use of feedback! first employment of a fuzzbox! – etc. I want to hear what unusual guitar textures they discovered.
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9.57am
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15 February 2015
Offline Von Bontee and I said
I want to hear what unusual guitar textures they discovered.
…So I can steal their techniques! 
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8.14pm
9 November 2017
Offline Von Bontee said
There’s got to be a lot of us who want to hear COL for (among other reasons) the practical equipment questions. The differing sounds the band explored makes for a series of milestones – first use of feedback! first employment of a fuzzbox! – etc. I want to hear what unusual guitar textures they discovered.
Beatles weren’t even close to be the first band to use a fuzz box or distortion in general. Perhaps the earliest was 1951 with Rocket 88 by Ike Turner. That was the result of an amp being damaged in a fall. In the early 60’s another accidental fuzz tone was created when a recording console distorted but was used on a Marty Robbin’s song Don’t worry. First fuzz box was made right before that but not for mass consumption. Then I recall the Ventures guitarist had one made. Beatles didn’t even have peach fuzz until the mid 60’s.
Carnival Of Light was probably inspired by some of the same neo classical composers Frank Zappa was inspired by. Bartok I imagine would be one. Edgar Varese was the first one Frank Zappa was drawn to. He must of had a very unusual childhood. Of course at the time of the recording Paul had this idea that Sgt. Pepper was going to be the Beatles Freak Out! I believe he and George went to check out America. George thought the hippie scene was dirty and not very Utopian. Paul thought the Beatles could make a better product. He’s said as much. When I think about those neo classical composers and how for example people like Maila Nurmi used Bartok for her Vampira introduction and how she hung out with James Dean and even in a film did some “poetry” in a coffee house if you will I think Beatnik. What is the movement that comes before that? Bohemian. Now the Beatles most definitely went through a period when they considered themselves to be Bohemians. Hell their very name probably didn’t come via a flaming pie so much as it came via another Beatnik, friend of Vampira, Marlon Brando who of course starred in the Wild One with Lee Marvin who was the leader of the Beetles bike gang. You can explore the beat scene and find the Beatles very much Beatnik/Bohemians. Ringo totally looked like he hung out in coffee joints when he was in Rory Storm. Stu was totally a Bohemian and James Dean-esque along with his girlfriend who supposedly gave them their haircuts. Then there’s Paul playing that French tune that later would become Michelle . McCartney with Carnival Of Light is wanting to make a connection to the past.
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9 November 2017
Offline I stumbled upon an interview Paul McCartney did back in 2009 where he actually hummed a few lines to Carnival Of Light . I’ve heard everything on Carnival Of Light . I’ve personally made about 25 cover versions of a song I never heard before but I like many others missed the interview or didn’t care. I dramatized Paul McCartney talking about Carnival Of Light . He just said the name, mimicked the song and that was it. I added a drone sound in the back ground, reverb to his voice, and his voice both forward and backwards. I think at the time he was still on the promotion kick and the mention was a rehearsed plug. There you go, this may be the closest anyone(most) has come to hearing Carnival Of Light . I take it he was doing the Indians sounds and imitating backwards loops with the whoop whoop.
1.31pm
1 December 2009
Offline Psychedelic Tripper said
Beatles weren’t even close to be the first band to use a fuzz box or distortion in general.
Yeah, I phrased that poorly, sorry. I meant I was interested in the Beatles’ own personal discoveries and their own personal first usage of guitar pedals, unusual (for them) amplifier techniques, etc.
GEORGE: In fact, The Detroit Sound. JOHN: In fact, yes. GEORGE: In fact, yeah. Tamla-Motown artists are our favorites. The Miracles. JOHN: We like Marvin Gaye. GEORGE: The Impressions PAUL & GEORGE: Mary Wells. GEORGE: The Exciters. RINGO: Chuck Jackson. JOHN: To name but eighty.
8.39pm
9 November 2017
Offline Oh, I see. It was definitely their own experience. When they started Vox was the thing and I think were also endorsing them. Whether directly or indirectly that’s what they were doing. They were pretty stagnated by George Martin & co. England was very innocent at the time compared with California. Although imagine if Joe Meek produced them!!! Ha! Now he was a little more out there in many ways especially sonically. He might have actually helped John with the direct vocal sound he wanted. WAs it Ozzy or Iommi that pissed his pants and was afraid of Joe’s studio? Like other musicians including one’s in England they soon found better equipment. Even in the US Fender amps got more durable because people like Dick Dale were blowing them up. Beatles got their first Strats in ’65 and Fender Twins down the road. They scrapped the Vox’s. I don’t exactly know the timeline or the connections but a lot of the early users of stomp boxes were session musicians. They were the guys laying down the tracks while record companies pushed what was essentially non musicians into stardom. Fans didn’t know anything about studios or lip syncing. England, especially London is relatively small when you consider the rock music scene in the 60’s with everyone knowing one another. So many a shoulder would have rubbed as they all had to go into a studio, no Les Pauls among them. These session guitarists had their secret weapons. I know one of the guys from the Ventures was one of the first to have a fuzz box. Beatles were turned on by the California sound and made a lot of friends. Many of those groups did not play on the records so if they were to have went to a studio they would have learned the same people were in most of the groups(Monkees, Byrds(sans Roger), Mamas, Neil Diamond etc). It would have been easy to find who was coming up with the new sounds. Many of them would have been paranoid and Glen Campbell or Carol Kaye probably could have beat up the entire group Ha! I remember Joe Meek felt the Dave Clark Five stole his stomp sound and I think he slept with his “black boxes” under his pillow. ;). Small world though. I would have loved to have seen their reaction to Clarence White’s B-Bender. They never went that route, nobody really did. Paul was obsessed with R&B bass but he tried to get the sound with what sounds like to my taperwound strings tuned down on Sgt. Pepper . Beatles could be naive too. Although they had broke up by the time James Jameson laid down What’s Going On….on the floor completely stoned out of his mind having just got the munchies and was woofing down some sort of pickled farm animal part. Now to be fair John was strung out on heroin and recorded vocals on the floor thus paving the way for Jameson to take it one step further….mind you with a bass that was desperate for a setup(probably the first since it left the factory).
1.50am
1 December 2009
Offline The Funk Machine!
GEORGE: In fact, The Detroit Sound. JOHN: In fact, yes. GEORGE: In fact, yeah. Tamla-Motown artists are our favorites. The Miracles. JOHN: We like Marvin Gaye. GEORGE: The Impressions PAUL & GEORGE: Mary Wells. GEORGE: The Exciters. RINGO: Chuck Jackson. JOHN: To name but eighty.
5.22pm
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1 May 2011
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Add to the pile of fakes. No idea where it came from but there are sections in it that are from ‘Revolution 9 ‘, for instance John and George saying “the Watusi, the Twist, Eldorado” that wasn’t recorded until the 20th June 1968.
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6.47pm
22 December 2013
Offline meanmistermustard said
Add to the pile of fakes. No idea where it came from but there are sections in it that are from ‘Revolution 9 ‘, for instance John and George saying “the Watusi, the Twist, Eldorado” that wasn’t recorded until the 20th June 1968.
Well… atleast you got to hear it… ‘Removed By User’ for me… “Where There’s Smoke There’s Fire”?… Did Geoff Emerick not confirm that bits of ‘Carnival Of Light ‘ were indeed utilized for ‘Revolution #9′?… Remember… the piano apparently does appear in the genuine ‘Carnival Of Light ‘… Would you be able to elaborate a little bit more on what you heard, for those of us who weren’t able to view the video?…:-)
3.02am
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1 May 2011
Offline Billy Rhythm said
meanmistermustard said
Well… atleast you got to hear it… ‘Removed By User’ for me… “Where There’s Smoke There’s Fire”?… Did Geoff Emerick not confirm that bits of ‘Carnival Of Light ‘ were indeed utilized for ‘Revolution #9′?… Remember… the piano apparently does appear in the genuine ‘Carnival Of Light ‘… Would you be able to elaborate a little bit more on what you heard, for those of us who weren’t able to view the video?…:-)
Parts may have been but John and George recorded the names of dances in June 1968 (below excerpt from Lewisohn’s ‘Recording Sessions’).
Damn hard for a genuine ‘CoL’ to include parts of a song not recorded for another 17 months later.
The drums from the coda of ‘SFF’, parts taken from the 10:48 ‘Revolution 1 ‘. ‘Someone shouting ‘Barcelona was in there but hard to discern who and easy to add in to add some sort of believability.
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9.06am
22 December 2013
Offline meanmistermustard said
‘Someone shouting ‘Barcelona was in there but hard to discern who and easy to add in to add some sort of believability.
It’s one of the true “acid tests” for gauging the authenticity of this relic, for those who have heard it before state that, “when you hear it you will know it’s them because of John & Paul’s distinctive voices”…:-)
10.14pm
15 May 2015
Offline In the informational article on the Carnival Of Light project here at Beatles Bible, there seems to be a contradiction:
Quoting an interview McCartney gave in 2002:
Rocking Vicar: Just one last question – Carnival Of Light : does it actually exist?
Paul McCartney : It does exist, yeah. We recorded it in about fifteen minutes.
Later in the information article:
Carnival Of Light took up the majority of the 5 January session, which lasted between 7pm and 12.15am.
And the article adds, for emphasis:
When they had finished George Martin said to me, ‘This is ridiculous, we’ve got to get our teeth into something more constructive.’
The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, Mark Lewisohn
(I doubt George Martin would have expressed such impatience had they only been at it for “15 minutes”)
Is this another example of Paul’s “creative” memory?
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11.45am
31 March 2008
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I think so. According to Lewisohn (Sessions, p92) it lasted 13:48, and “was the combination of a basic track and numerous overdubs”. They recorded on all four tracks, then made a rough mono mix. Assuming the overdubs were each done in a single take without drop-ins (which, given Lewisohn’s description, isn’t guaranteed), they still worked on the recording and mixing for well over an hour. Then there was setting up microphones, levels and tapes, getting instruments and effects ready, etc.
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3.48pm
24 August 2021
Offline I think we just have to admit to ourselves that this song will not come out. Nor, in my opinion, should it. Let’s face it, even the most hardcore Beatles fans can barely tolerate Revolution 9 , which is basically the same idea as Carnival Of Light . So if this ever came out, nearly one to one, the response would be, “this sucks so hard,” and basically vindicating George’s decision to veto the track from Anthology 2 .
Of course there are some among us who would easily pay obscene sums for a real life recording of Paul brushing his teeth, like the “Weird Al’ parody sketch for “Anthology 17.”
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