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Volume 9 of What if the Beatles never broke up?

And then we reach 1980.  It's been a decade since they broke up, and as the decade progressed there were more and more opportunities for them to collaborate.  Ringo seemed to be the impetus for a lot of those collaborations including at least 3 songs that would've been released on his Stop And Smell The Roses release had Mark David Chapman not chosen to close off this chapter by murdering John Lennon.  

With the exception of the songs from McCartney II, the albums these songs were pulled from were released after Lennon's death (Somewhere in England in May, Ringo's Stop And Smell the Roses in October, and Lennon's posthumous Milk and Honey in 1984).  

Lennon was clearly settling into a new happy direction in his life and writing beautiful and personal songs that further highlight the tragedy of his death.  John Lennon had always been the most direct and upfront in his songs, and the songs on Milk and Honey, with about half being Yoko Ono tunes, do just that.

It's unclear why Paul disbanded Wings, but McCartney II just features him and is certainly not a Wings album as it features some lo-fi choices and the prescient and entirely fabulous "Temporary Secretary"

George Harrison rewrote the lyrics to "All Those Years Ago," after Lenoon's assassination, but Somewhere in England is a middling one in my opinion.  Yes, "All Those Years Ago" is a great tune.  Even better Somewhere in England also features the beautiful "Life Itself" and a really good cover of Hoagy Carmichael's "Baltimore Oriole" (not included in this project), but the rest is just sort of so-so.

Volume 9-44 Minutes

Albums:

  • Milk and Honey
  • McCartney II
  • Somewhere In England
  • Stop And Smell The Roses
Songs:

  1. Borrowed Time (JL)
  2. Life Itself (GH)
  3. One Of These Days (PM)
  4. Nobody Told Me (JL)
  5. Waterfalls (PM)
  6. Sure To Fall (In Love With You) (RS)
  7. Coming Up (PM)
  8. Temporary Secretary (PM)
  9. You Belong To ME (RS)
  10. I'm Stepping Out (JL)
  11. All Those Years Ago (GH)
  12. Grow Old With Me (JL)

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