The album is released as an 8CD, 12LP boxset with Anthologies 1-3, along with an updated edition of the book and a re-release of the Anthology TV documentary, featuring a new final episode, on Disney Plus. You can read MOJO’s review of the new episode here. In the meantime, here’s our pick of the best tracks unearthed from the vaults for Anthology 4…

This Boy (Takes 12 And 13)

Recorded: EMI Studios, London, October 17, 1963

Originally the B-side of The Beatles’ breakthrough US single I Want To Hold Your Hand, both tracks were recorded the same day using the newly installed four-track desk at EMI Studio (now Abbey Road). Neither song appeared on the band’s then-nearly completed second UK album With The Beatles, but in the US Capitol Records chose to include them on its initial LP release, Meet The Beatles!. Written by Lennon as an attempt to emulate Smokey Robinson, it was mostly a vehicle for his three-part close harmonies with McCartney and Harrison. These two takes both begin with those harmonies locked in tight, but break down as they trip over switching between “This boy” and “That boy”, confusing themselves to the point on Take 13 of mistakenly singing “Thas boy” before collapsing into giggles.

Tell Me Why (Takes 4 and 5)

Recorded: EMI Studios, London, February 27, 1964

Recorded in eight quick takes just a few days before filming began for A Hard Day’s Night – it appears at the end of the film, opening a medley with If I Fell and I Should Have Known Better – Tell Me Why has always been loose and spirited. As the tape starts rolling for Take 4, McCartney and Lennon are caught in prickly discussion about how to sing the harmonies. Take 4 breaks down after just a few seconds as their vocals quickly go out of tune, but they immediately crack into Take 5, a much more raw, joyous and slightly quicker tempo version than the one on the album. Lennon’s crackling voice is high and bright in the mix, as is Starr’s backbeat masterclass: his drumming seldom swung freer than it does here.

I’ve Just Seen A Face (Take 3)

Recorded: EMI Studios, London, 14 June 1965

The country influence on The Beatles is often overlooked, but nothing came as close to them emulating their beloved Everly Brothers as I’ve Just Seen A Face, written about McCartney’s then-girlfriend Jane Asher. Like many of the tracks on Anthology 4, I’ve Just Seen A Face is more spirited than the eventual released version, and with Starr’s swishing train track shuffle, Harrison on 12-string, Lennon strumming so hard he breaks a string, this freewheeling take is almost a campfire thrash. The first song recorded on the final day of the Help! LP sessions – I’m Down (the b-side of the Help! single) and Yesterday were recorded the same day – it didn’t appear in the US until it was added as the opening track of Rubber Soul.

In My Life (Take 1)

Recorded: EMI Studios, London, 18 October 1965

The song Lennon considered his “first major piece of work” is remarkably fully formed on its first studio take. Stripped of the bright three-part harmonies that spark the version on Rubber Soul (there is a McCartney harmony deep in the background), Lennon’s vocal becomes even more wistful and nostalgic, sounding deeply tender despite him already chewing through the odd mid-Atlantic burr retained for the finished version. Missing, too, is the baroque, Bach-like piano bridge written and played by George Martin, recorded at half speed then sped up for the overdub to sound like a harpsichord. For once, the song is all the better for the absence of Martin’s contribution.

Something (Take 39 – Instrumental – Strings Only)

Recorded: EMI Studios, London, 15 August 1969

Classically trained musician George Martin doesn’t always get the recognition he deserves for the orchestral arrangements that he could seemingly knock out at will. It began of course with his suggestion to McCartney that they use strings on Yesterday, but few of his orchestral contributions were as beautiful as for Harrison’s Something, which even Lennon was once happy to acknowledge as possibly the best song on Abbey Road. Played by a 21-piece ensemble that included 12 violins, it’s so epic it required two of the eight studio tracks available at the time. McCartney called the finished track, “The best song George has ever written”, a comment that could be applied to either Harrison or Martin.

Got To Get You Into My Life (second version – unnumbered mix)

EMI Studios, London 6 & 11 April 1966

This is complicated. The Beatles originally recorded an earlier arrangement of McCartney’s love song to weed on 7 April with organ, acoustic guitar and drums. The next day they changed it completely, reimagining it as a Stax-style stomper, which this appears to be an early version of, although its lack of numbering makes it hard to be certain where this particular mix sits in the development timeline. Instead of the Memphis Horns-style stabs of the _Revolve_r version, Harrison plays rudimentary guitar riffs with a fuzz pedal as a guide for later horns, not unlike Keith Richards originally did on (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, intending to substitute horns for the guitar later. Eventually Take 8 was chosen as the bed track for overdubbing with extra guitar, another bass line and falsetto backing vocals from Harrison and Lennon. Even without the horns, this version still kicks butt.

Strawberry Fields Forever (Take 26)

EMI Studios, London, 8, 9, 15 and 21 December 1966

Take 26 of Strawberry Fields Forever has appeared before, but unless you forked out £100+ for the 2017 Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band Super Deluxe Edition you may not be familiar with its original form. Famously spliced together with Take 7 to create the landmark 1967 single (Take 7 appeared on Anthology 3), Take 26 had to be slowed down to make it the same pitch as Take 7, only for the tempos to also, miraculously, match. The creation of Take 26 is miraculous in itself, however, bouncing multiple earlier takes down onto single tracks which were run backwards beneath other versions then bounced down again, eventually arriving at what became the second half of the single version. Before it breaks down into thudding, percussive chaos towards the end, Take 26 is startlingly uptempo, jauntily skipping through those famous fields and sounding positively childlike instead of filtering through Lennon’s stoned third eye.

All You Need Is Love (rehearsal for BBC broadcast)

EMI Studios, London, 24 June 1967

Playing live to an audience of 350 million viewers on five continents is a hell of a way to promote your new single. Asked by the BBC to perform a new song for a worldwide, groundbreaking live satellite broadcast, little was left to chance. All You Need Is Love was meticulously rehearsed, with three desk tracks already filled for on-the-night playback. This final rehearsal includes Lennon’s live lead vocal with the orchestra for the first time, which the next day would fill track four. There’s nervous-sounding larks before the orchestra and backing tracks kick in, but Lennon’s vocal is, as on so many Anthology versions, sweeter and warmer than the eventual release. A month earlier BBC producer Derek Burrell-Davis had confirmed The Beatles’ involvement to project co-ordinator Aubrey Singer with a telegram that included the phrase, “Happening hoped for”. And then some.

Hey Bulldog (Take 4 Instrumental)

EMI Studios, London, 11 February 1968

​“Veering between yer blues and yer comedy,” quips Lennon as this early take of Hey Bulldog finally breaks down after just over three minutes. Always intended for the Yellow Submarine soundtrack, and included on the album but cut from the movie until its 1999 re-release, it took just 10 takes plus overdubs in 10 hours to nail Hey Bulldog while a camera crew recorded the band working as a promo film for – of course! – their next single Lady Madonna. Although Take 4 ends with Lennon’s dismissive comment, it’s not clear who it’s directed towards, if indeed anyone in particular. Even so, this purely instrumental version, with nary a dog bark in hearing, sounds remarkably similar to the finished bed product six takes later, showing just how perfectionist The Beatles had become in the studio.

Helter Skelter (Second Version – Take 17)

EMI Studios, London, 9 September 1968

“Keep that one! Mark it fab!” says a breathless, exhausted-sounding McCartney at the end of this take for The Beatles’ most notorious track, made forever apocalyptic by its eventual association with Charles Manson. Originally arranged in E minor and played much slower (hence ‘Second Version”), Starr recalls the band recording the restyled song in “total madness and hysterics in the studio” after changing the key to E major and upping the tempo. In spite of the messages Manson claimed to hear within the song, the lyrics were largely nonsense, McCartney simply trying to out-Who The Who’s Pete Townshend in volume. Although more thrashing, this version is close to what eventually appeared on ‘The White Album’: the final take, number 21, became the bed track, by which time McCartney must’ve been on the verge of collapse.

Images: Apple Corps Ltd.