The Beatles - Abbey Road Part Two

(Ree Ben, 1988)

Another bootleg, and you might as well scoot on down to your local bootleg distribution center to buy this one, because it has some stuff that didn’t get included on the Anthology or BBC records. Like 1969’s “Goodbye,” a wispy “White Album”-esque acoustic number from Paul McCartney that he sings in that high-pitched voice he uses on “I Will.” And “Bad to Me” (1963), a charming Lennon guitar demo that would actually have been nice to hear with a full-band treatment on With the Beatles. The tracks that went legit over the course of the band’s ’90s archive clearings are Paul’s 1968 “Come and Get it” demo, which sounds exactly like what Badfinger eventually released; “That Means a Lot” (1965), a nifty, echo-laden (Spectorian, almost) pop trifle with a dramatic McCartney vocal; a 1963 BBC recording of the gentle Buddy Holly-soundalike “I’ll Be On My Way”; and John’s indifferent demo for the tossed-off “I’m the Greatest,” a solo Ringo hit in 1973 (this one snuck out on the John Lennon Anthology box set). There’s certainly nothing major on here – which the bootleggers seem to realize with the disc’s tongue-in-cheek title – but it’s a handy collection of six fun tracks that never appeared on the canonical studio albums, and the two rarities are useful additions to any goofball’s collection. Funny cover, too.