Speculation over what major Beatles product Apple Corps would issue as the group’s big annual fall release can now end: It’s a reissue of all of the components of “Anthology,” the band’s multimedia retrospective project of the late ’90s, with additional material added to both the music boxed set and the TV series. The documentary will now be seen as a streaming series on Disney+.
Although a new generation may be discovering all of this audio and visual material for the first time, longtime Beatles buffs will be most interested in the added material. For the LP, CD and digital music packages, that will come in the form of an “Anthology 4” in the boxed set that will include 13 previously unreleased demos and session recordings, alongside other outtakes that already appeared on the band’s deluxe editions in recent years. For the documentary series, that entails a newly assembled ninth episode to join the original eight that were first aired in 1995.
The Beatles‘ “Anthology” book is also being reissued in a softcover 25th anniversary edition, albeit without any additional material beyond the photos and text that were part of the original 2000 printing.
The book reissue will be first out of the gate in this campaign, with an Oct. 14 release date. The music collections will follow on Nov. 21 (a week before Black Friday) in vinyl, CD, digital download and streaming formats. Five days after that, on Nov. 26 (the day before Thanksgiving), the first three episodes of the remastered and expanded documentary series will begin streaming on Disney+.
Beatles Anthology
Apple Corps
The new Episode Nine of the documentary series is announced as “including unseen behind-the-scenes footage of Paul, George and Ringo coming together between 1994 and 1995 to work on ‘The Anthology’ and reflecting on their shared life as the Beatles,” per Tuesday’s announcement. The entire documentary has been restored and remastered by Apple Corps’ production team in conjunction with Peter Jackson’s Wingnut Films & Park Road Post teams, plus Giles Martin, whose new audio mixes will be heard in “the majority of the featured music.”
The expanded music collection going out under the “Anthology” banner will be available as an eight-CD set and a 12-LP vinyl set along with the digital editions. This boxed set will include 191 tracks in all, with the new “Anthology 4” volume contributing 36 of those numbers. The fresh additions have been curated by Giles Martin, who also remastered all of the material from the three original audio volumes of “Anthology,” which were first released individually in 1995-96.
Among the inclusions on “Anthology 4” are remixed versions of “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love,” the two songs that came out in conjunction with the original “Anthology” releases, in which John Lennon demos from the 1970s were augmented and brought to completion as official Beatles tracks by Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. These 2025 remixes are described as having been “given new life by their original producer, Jeff Lynne, using de-mixed John Lennon vocals.” (“Now and Then,” released in 2023 as the third and apparently last of the posthumous Beatles singles, joins those two remixed 1995 songs to form the final side of “Anthology 4.”)
The new remix of “Free as a Bird” was released Tuesday as the first previously unheard track to come out from the forthcoming set.
“Anthology 4” also includes track notes written by Kevin Howlett and an introduction compiled from 1996 interviews recorded with Beatles adviser Derek Taylor.
The 36 tracks on “Anthology 4” are a mixture of the 13 previously unreleased tracks and numbers that heretofore appeared on deluxe sets celebrating albums like “Abbey Road,” “Let It Be,” the White Album, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and “Revolver,” plus a couple from the limited digital release “The Beatles Bootleg Recordings 1963.” Most of the previously unissued tracks are from the Beatles’ early and mid-’60s sessions for albums that have not yet gotten the full deluxe treatment, the way everything from “Revolver” forward in the catalog’s chronology has.
Some fans were hoping for a “Rubber Soul” 60th anniversary set with session outtakes, but Apple Corps has not released any full-album deluxe sets since “Revolver” got that treatment in 2022. Last year’s big Beatles release was “The Beatles: 1964 Albums In Mono,” which did not include previously unreleased material, issued in conjunction with Disney+’s “Beatles ’64” documentary.
Below is the full track listing for the “Anthology 4” discs (which are not being released independently in physical formats apart from the full boxed set):
ANTHOLOGY, VOLUME 4
LP ONE:
Side A:
1: I SAW HER STANDING THERE (Take 2)
The Beatles Bootleg Recordings 1963 – limited digital release (2013)
2: MONEY (THAT’S WHAT I WANT) (RM7 undubbed)
The Beatles Bootleg Recordings 1963 – limited digital release (2013)
3: THIS BOY (Takes 12 and 13) – Free As A Bird CD single (currently unavailable)
4: TELL ME WHY (Takes 4 and 5) – previously unreleased
5: IF I FELL (Take 11) – previously unreleased
6: MATCHBOX (Take 1) – previously unreleased
7: EVERY LITTLE THING (Takes 6 and 7) – previously unreleased
8: I NEED YOU (Take 1) – previously unreleased
Side B:
1: I’VE JUST SEEN A FACE (Take 3) – previously unreleased
2: IN MY LIFE (Take 1) – previously unreleased
3: NOWHERE MAN (First Version – Take 2) – previously unreleased
4: GOT TO GET YOU INTO MY LIFE (Second Version – unnumbered mix)
Revolver Special Edition (2022)
5: LOVE YOU TO (Take 7)
Revolver Special Edition (2022)
6: STRAWBERRY FIELDS FOREVER (Take 26)
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band Special Edition (2017)
7: SHE’S LEAVING HOME (Take 1 – Instrumental)
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band Special Edition (2017)
LP TWO:
Side A:
1: BABY, YOU’RE A RICH MAN (Takes 11 and 12) – previously unreleased
2: ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE (Rehearsal for BBC broadcast) – previously unreleased
3: THE FOOL ON THE HILL (Take 5 – Instrumental) – previously unreleased
4 I AM THE WALRUS (Take 19 – Strings, brass, clarinet overdub) – previously unreleased
Side B:
1: HEY BULLDOG (Take 4 – Instrumental) – previously unreleased
2: GOOD NIGHT (Take 10 with a guitar part from Take 5)
The Beatles (‘White Album’) Special Edition (2018)
3: WHILE MY GUITAR GENTLY WEEPS (Third Version – Take 27)
The Beatles (‘White Album’) Special Edition (2018)
4: (YOU’RE SO SQUARE) BABY I DON’T CARE (Studio Jam)
The Beatles (‘White Album’) Special Edition (2018)
5: HELTER SKELTER (Second Version – Take 17)
The Beatles (‘White Album’) Special Edition (2018)
6: I WILL (Take 29)
The Beatles (‘White Album’) Special Edition (2018)
7: CAN YOU TAKE ME BACK? (Take 1)
The Beatles (‘White Album’) Special Edition (2018)
8: JULIA (Two Rehearsals)
The Beatles (‘White Album’) Special Edition (2018)
LP THREE:
Side A:
1: GET BACK (Take 8)
Let It Be Special Edition (2021)
2: OCTOPUS’S GARDEN (Rehearsal)
Let It Be Special Edition (2021)
3: DON’T LET ME DOWN (First Rooftop Performance)
Let It Be Special Edition (2021)
4: YOU NEVER GIVE ME YOUR MONEY (Take 36)
Abbey Road Special Edition (2019)
5: HERE COMES THE SUN (Take 9)
Abbey Road Special Edition (2019)
6: SOMETHING (Take 39 – Instrumental – strings only)
Abbey Road Special Edition (2019)
Side B:
1: FREE AS A BIRD (2025 Mix) – new mix
2: REAL LOVE (2025 Mix) – new mix
3: NOW AND THEN – 2023 Single + The Beatles 1966-1970 (‘Blue Album’) (2023)
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