Beatles - That Means A Lot (True Stereo version)

That Means A Lot is a Lennon-McCartney song recorded for the album (and film) Help! but later threw away by The Beatles. When they decided not to release it, they gave it to P.J. Proby, who had a minor hit with his version. The original Beatles version was only released 31 years later, on the Anthology Vol.2 album. But, unfortunally, in spite of the original 4-track session tape and a stereo remix made by Norman Smith exist in the EMI vaults, George Martin decided to release a weird mono mix (actually a fake-stereo mix) with lots of reverb (similar to the I Feel Fine and She's A Woman american mono mixes), the same mix that was prepared by Geoff Emmerick for the unreleased album Sessions. To make things more difficult to understand, in the Anthology DVD, there's one sequence when Paul is speaking where a true stereo mix of this song is played as ambient music. So the question: if EMI has the original 4-track of That Means A Lot, why they chose to release such a bad sound mix on CD? God only knows...Well, the mix presented in this video was created by the engineer John Barrett in the early 80's, when he was working on the material for the Abbey Road Show 1983. As the sound comes from a cassette tape, the fidelity is not the same as a master tape, but I made some EQ to enhance the sound as much as possible. I think it's the next best thing to a stereo mix of That Means A Lot taken from the original master tape. Hope you like it! Regards, Leonardo Conde, Brasil.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• that
• means
• lot
• beatles
• stereo

[Matrix803]

Really nice, cleaner-sounding version. :3

The one on the Anthology is, as tacarn said, nearly unlistenable.

Only issue with this is around 1:19 and toward the end, it sounds a bit muffled, but that could be the condition of the tape when it was digitized for mastering.

[leoconde]

@Matrix803 thanks for your comments. You're right, this problem is from John Barrett's original cassette tape. My dream is to see one day the original stereo mix released. If you see the Anthology DVD, there's a section where Paul is talking about the film Help and the ambient music is the stereo version of That Means a Lot. This means that they have the tape!

[supermd4589]

Wow, this sounds absolutely amazing! :)

[tacarn]

This is a great mix. The Anthology mix is unlistenable in my book.

[haltmusic]

Good mix. Hey, who knows what EMI/Beatles camp are/were thinking? I know for a fact that in 1991 "The Beatles At Shea Stadium" film was mixed and mastered into true stereo. The tapes included 2 songs not in the film. One of which was "Everybody's Trying To be My Baby", which appeared on the Anthology 2 CD package. Although they were given the superior stereo mix, the powers that be chose include a mono mix.

[AppleCorp3]

@leoconde Of course they have the tape!! I have NO idea why they put out the garbage mix they did on the Anthology, but the multi-track session tapes and mixes are all sitting in the vault right now....probably sounding just as good as ever.

[Jazzawray]

this is great because ive never heard it and therefore is a new song from the masters as far as im concerned .

[kennyddd1]

Kind of suprised they didnt give this one away to some of the usual suspects. Might have made a top ten for someone eles on Parlaphone

[shutdafup]

This would benefit with a tad of old fashioned Capitol reverb -- i'm serious

[inkey2]

@cato1117moto i think it would be a lot better better with echo on the voices.

[deepeemark]

The official mix should have sounded like other "Help" album tracks - with a hint of echo (such as "Another Girl"). The decision to use the 'Sessions" mix on Anthology was unfortunate - and probably money driven. (Same could be said for the Anthology mixes of 'While my guitar..." with the repeated end riff, and "Not Guilty" etc etc

[TheCatalanBraveheart]

I've opened a new playlist and named it 'GEMS' to save this version of the song... Thanks a lot, leoconde, for loading it...!