It used to be shapes, but now it's colour.
Martin Scorsese has white teeth.
Peter Fonda has a neck.
It's the old days, everyone is safe, there is one chin to every young person, the world explodes in colour, everyone smokes to their heart's content and nobody ever comes down.
It is The Beatles: Magical Mystery Tour Revisited.
Magical Mystery Tour is a double EP and LP by the English rock band The Beatles, including a six-song soundtrack to the 1967 film of the same name.
The Beatles: Magical Mystery Tour Revisited is a documentary about the film of the same name.
There are some good bits on TB:MMTR.
There is this pretty girl, clearly on acid, being asked how she feels.
"I can't use colour - I can do everything."
"What do you mean everything?" the interviewer asks.
"Everything, everything ... oh. I, ... it used to be shape but now it's colour."
It was an interview in black and white. That was it, really.
It was all about black-and-white television, and the move to colour.
TB:MMTR is on Prime on Monday, October 29.
The story, really, is about the Beatles exploring psychedelic drugs, youth, and the sort of freedom it should be the right of every young person to explore.
With masses of money and adulation, and plenty of time on your hands, why wouldn't you make a film?
And why wouldn't you make a psychedelic film?
I would.
TB:MMTR, presented by British person Paul Gambaccini, is a programme revealing the story behind the making of Magical Mystery Tour.
The documentary also examines the group's activities during 1967 before they spent most of the final four months working on Magical Mystery Tour.
It does so in part with words that fly out at you on the screen.
It was a momentous year for the Beatles, apparently. In February, they issued Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever. In June, they released Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. They performed All You Need Is Love on the first global television show linking five continents by satellite.
They met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in an unfortunate incident, before coming to their senses.
Then, their manager, Brian Epstein, died. Then, they began filming Magical Mystery Tour.
In TB:MMTR, you will see some of the Magical Mystery Tour.
It was broadcast on the BBC on Boxing Day, 1967. That was insanely early in the history of everything becoming modern.
The whole thing is put in perspective by Peter Fonda, Martin Scorsese, Paul McCartney and George Harrison in 1993. They all took acid.
I resent reality as much as the next man. TB:MMTR will give you a break. Enjoy it.
- Charles Loughrey
