dvd-4-life

What's the story behind the US release of this song? Was it originally a single and later came out on LP or never came out on LP?

The Cow

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hey_Jude#Single_release

dvd-4-life

Yeah I already went there and still don't understand it.

TomOpus

It was released as a single. Then was included on the "Hey Jude" album which contained other non-album singles.

Mike86

It's there in the article that the song was originally recorded during the self titled release (The White Album), but that it was always intended to be a single and not an album track.

creekdipper

All I remember is that when it debuted on Ed Sullivan, it looked like half the city was crowded onstage singing the chorus.

Not NYC...the Beatles had long since stopped appearing live & just sent in videos.

mcnabb

I am pretty sure this was the first song over 4 minutes that the radio played on a regular basis. Most songs back then had to be under 3-4 minutes to get substantial airplay, but this was a such a great song even at 7 minutes.

wendersfan

To name one off the top of my head, "Like a Rolling Stone" was a hit single for Dylan more than three years before "Hey Jude" was released.

dvd-4-life

What about Inna-Godda-Da-Vida by Iron Butterfly. FM radio played long version(17 minutes approx.)

JANK

It just followed the pattern of all Beatle singles where the song was not on any current album. It was just huge when it came out, especially with Revolution on the flip side. Amazing.

JANK

Top 40 radio, which is the focus here as far as play-length, never played the full version, just the shortened single 45''. Like A Rolling Stone & Hey Jude were played uncut full-length on Top 40 stations.

rw2516

Several of The Who's big singles were non-LP also. It's no wonder the two Beatles collections, 1962-66 and 1967-70 flew off store shelves when released, it was the first chance to get some on these in years, and first time on LP. The Who collected all their non-LP hits on the album Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy in 1970. Another huge seller.
Honky Tonk Women was a non-LP single not available in LP format until Hot Rocks .

Damfino

I suspect Ed Sullivan might have re-broadcasted the version that the Beatles played live on the David Frost show in the UK.

Hiro11

The venerable British band habit of releasing many of a their best songs as non-album singles has always struck me as odd. It might have made sense back when people bought 45s (pre-Revolver) but the trend continued up at least through the early ninties (e.g. a lot of the best early Morrissey was single only etc).

I think the Beatles started this trend. To A/B Paperback Writer / Rain and then A/B Strawberry Fields Forever / Penny Lane is pretty ridiculous. Most bands would kill to write just one of those songs, releasing a epochal, hugely influential track like Rain as a non-album b-side shows is bonkers.

arminius

True but Country Honk was on Let It Bleed.

Gerry P.

Don't forget:

Day Tripper / We Can Work it Out
Yellow Submarine / Eleanor Rigby
Come Together / Something

There were double a-side singles before The Beatles did it, but those happened by mistake when the b-side just happened to become a hit. For example, Booker T. & the MG's released 'Behave Yourself' as a single, But DJ's began to play 'Green Onions' instead.

Eddie W

That's one of the craziest & most overlooked aspects of The Beatles. That the singles were a complement to & not a duplication of the albums.

If you listen to what's now called Past Masters, it sounds like a greatest hits compilation. But then you realize that none of those tracks are on any of their proper albums.

Gerry P.

That was the standard practice in the UK at the time. They wanted fans to purchase both LPs and 45s, where as in the U.S., for the most part, there was no real incentive to purchase a 45 after buying an album.

Rex Fenestrarum

Agreed. Even stranger is that the practice persists. There are a couple of very recent UK bands I've gotten in to recently, and was shocked that several of their singles from the last couple of years aren't on any albums. I mean, I get that artists sometimes release a song or two between albums, but why can't they put those songs on an upcoming album? Oh, that's right: $$$$. Or perhaps I should say ££££.

Hiro11

It's really weird. People in the UK apparently don't mind buying singles. It was a huge trend in the late seventies, early eighties:

"Love will Tear Us Apart", "Transmission" and "Atmosphere" arguably the three most famous Joy Division tracks were all single only, not even on EPs.

"Temptation", which is probably the definitive New Order song, was never on any album. It was released on the "1983" EP and as a single. Also, a version of the even more famous "Blue Monday" was on "Power, Corruption and Lies" but the definitive version that everyone bought was single only (probably the most famous British single of the past thirty years).

The majority of the Smiths' best songs were single only. I'd argue that their singles collections "Louder than Bombs" and "Hatful of Hollow" stand as their definitive original releases.

The best Buzzcocks album is easily the classic singles comp "Singles Going Steady".

The Jam made a bunch of great albums, but their definitive release is probably the singles comp "Snap".

The Cure's "Staring at the Sea" singles comp is better than any of their early albums, IMO.

Souxsie and the Banshee's best early songs were pretty much all non-album singles.

...etc.

Buttmunker

Their producer, George Martin, was very much against "singles" appearing on Beatles albums. He (and the band, too, I guess) felt that it was "not right" to make fans buy the song a second time by it appearing on an album.

I Wanna Hold Your Hand and She Loves You weren't on Beatles albums, either. However, there are the exceptions (Come Together, Yellow Submarine, and Let It Be) come to mind. But for the most part, it was the norm for a Beatles album to have never-before-released songs.