REEL MUSIC & Movie Medley

In theory, this must have sounded like a great idea - take the title songs and several well-known tracks from each of the group's films and stick them all together on one album.  Unfortunately, not only does it make for a very disjointed listening experience, but the album is doubly unnecessary since all but one of the tracks - fittingly, I Should Have Known Better - had already appeared on other compilations.

SIDE ONE

A Hard Day's Night
I Should Have Known Better
Can't Buy Me Love
And I Love Her
Help!
You've Got to Hide Your Love Away
Ticket to Ride
Magical Mystery Tour

SIDE TWO

I Am the Walrus
Yellow Submarine
All You Need Is Love
Let It Be
Get Back
The Long and Winding Road

Not long after the album was released in March of 1982, an unusual single appeared.  At the time, there was a trend to create a medley of songs and place them on top of a dance beat - certainly not something you would expect to be done with selections by the Beatles, but nonetheless, here it was.  The Beatles Movie Medley, as it was officially known, linked together pieces from seven Reel Music tunes - Magical Mystery Tour, All You Need is Love, You've Got to Hide Your Love Away, I Should Have Known Better, A Hard Day's Night, Ticket to Ride and Get Back.  The B-side of the single featured I'm Happy Just to Dance with You, George's vocal outing from the group's first film.

Amazingly, such was the popularity of these stitched-together creations at the time that the single went to number ten in the UK and number twelve in the US.

On a personal note, when I first joined the cast of Shear Madness in Boston in 1988, the Movie Medley was part of the pre-show tape, and the characters on stage had several moves timed to cues in the music.  This clearly ranks as one of the more curious connections to the Beatles in my life.