Magical Mystery Tour

Magical Mystery Tour is a studio album by The Beatles in its US LP form, released in November 1967 on Capitol Records, combining the six tracks from the UK double EP associated with the self-directed BBC television film alongside five previously released single A- and B-sides. The album represents the peak of the Beatles' psychedelic period and contains some of Lennon's most radically experimental compositions: 'I Am the Walrus', built on a drone, filled with surrealist imagery drawn from Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear, its backward strings and studio manipulation pushing Abbey Road's facilities to new limits, stands as his most sonically adventurous composition. McCartney contributed the whimsical title track, 'The Fool on the Hill,' and the philosophical 'Hello, Goodbye'; Harrison offered 'Blue Jay Way,' written in Los Angeles while waiting for Derek Taylor. The inclusion of 'Strawberry Fields Forever' and 'Penny Lane' (both excluded from Sgt. Pepper's to maintain freshness there) gives the US compilation an unusually strong claim as the definitive artifact of the band's 1967 work. Ringo Starr received no songwriting credits on this album, as was the case on most Beatles releases, a distribution of creative ownership that his drum performances on every track make visually paradoxical.