Scandal (Album)

***Scandal*** is an unfinished album by the British-American rock band the Beatles that was planned for release in 1975. It was to be a twenty-track double LP that commented on the political issues of the world, particularly the Watergate scandal. After *Scandal* was submitted to EMI Studios, it was rejected due to multiple “blatant controversies”. The Beatles had to scrap the album and release a downscaled version, Symphony No. 16, on March 13, 1975.

Over the next decades, few of the original Scandal tracks were officially released, and the project came to be regarded as one of the most "legendary" unreleased albums in music history, followed closely by The Beatles’ own “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Heart. club Band”. In 2024, as Giles Martin was searching for tapes of the Symphony No. 16 sessions for the 50th anniversary deluxe edition of Symphony No. 16, he had come across the original Scandal album, untouched from 1975. *The Scandal Sessions*, a compilation of the original Scandal album with studio outtakes and tracks was released on the 50th anniversary of *Symphony No. 16* in 2025.

## Overview

In 1974, the political and economic climates were becoming increasingly tense. Nearly all of the Beatles were affected - John Lennon had trouble gaining citizenship in the United States, while George Harrison, Denny Laine, and the McCartneys constantly faced drug busts, real or otherwise. When the band reconvened at Abbey Road Studios, they all felt a sense of disappointment and fear for the current state of the world. They decided to use their fame and influence to make their opinions known.

What they created was an album full of heavy, angry songs, highly unusual for a band who had spread messages of peace and love. This album, titled *Scandal*, was sent to EMI Records for approval, but ended up being rejected, as many of the songs were deemed too controversial. Lennon and Harrison fought to have the album released, but their efforts were in vain.

The Beatles, returned to the studio, threw out lyric sheets, erased tapes, and started over. The only remnants of this purge would turn up in the released album as sections of the opening medley (primarily "Scandal"), and the backing tracks to 'Soily' and 'Let It Down'. The songs "Back Off, Boogaloo" and "John Sinclair" would later appear on *Earth & Mars*. Curiously, the album would have featured the single "Live and Let Die," which was originally set to appear on *Everybody Out*.

## Controversies

### "Too Many People"

* The opening was miss-quoted as "Piss-off cake", which was seen as a vulgarity.
* The track as a whole was taken as a "bitter' attack on record executives.

### "Steel And Glass"

* The track was interpreted as an attack on The Beatles' and Lennon's former business manager, Allen Klein.
* Lennon admitted to a Detroit radio station, during an interview in 1983, that he reused "licks" from a certain song, in response to the interviewer bringing up the similarity of "Steel and Glass", and what he was wondering could be a second part to the Paul McCartney dig "How Do You Sleep?"

### "Well Well Well"

* This song was a comment on the then-current "women's liberation movement."
* EMI took the lyric "she looked so good I could eat her" as evidence of Lennon having a "cannibalistic impulse."
* The mention of a revolution was interpreted as a call to an "uncivil uprising."

### "The Sue Me, Sue You Blues"

* This song was inspired by the lawsuit battles of Lennon against the Beatles from 1969 to 1972, and the "McAvoy Incident" lawsuit of 1970.

### "Woman Is The N\*gger Of The World"

* As obviously noticeable by the title, the track used the ethnic slur "N\*gger" as a metaphor of woman's rights, which landed the track controversy, and aided the accusation that the Beatles of being racist.
* The song comments on the "woman's suffrage" movement, that was previously commented on in the track "Well Well Well".

### "A Working Class Hero (Is Something To Be)"

* The track is a commentary on the public school system, the upper-class and society in general.
* The lyrics use the expletive "fucking" twice.

### "Scandal (Riot In Cell Block #9)"

* The track is a sound collage featuring multiple sound clips from news coverage and interviews of the "Watergate" scandal of United States President Richard M. Nixon, stating the band's opinion on the matter.

### "Back Off, Boogaloo"

* The track was interpreted as a general statement on politics, although Harrison and Starr have stated multiple times that it is not so.

### "John Sinclair"

* The song advocated for the release of American poet John Sinclair, who had been imprisoned for offering marijuana to an undercover policewoman. Sinclair was released three days after the song's release on *Earth & Mars*.
* The lyrics mentioned the Vietnam War, a glorified and disputed topic at the time, along with the CIA's alleged sale of marijuana without equal punishment.
* The word "gooks," an ethnic slur aimed at Vietnamese people, appears in the lyrics, further aiding the accusation that The Beatles were racist.

### "Give Ireland Back To The Irish"

* This song was a protest on the "Bloody Sunday" massacre when British soldiers shot 26 innocent civilians during a protest against the "Troubles" Northern Ireland conflict. The song condemns the actions of the United Kingdom on that day, and the conflict in general.

### "God"

* The song is considered too controversial and blasphemous due to lyrics such as "God is a concept by which we measure our pain", "I don't believe in Bible", "I don't believe in Jesus", "I don't believe in Hitler", "I don't believe in Kennedy", and many more.

### "Imagine"

* Similar to the reasoning of "God", "Imagine" was deemed blasphemous the lyric "Imagine there's no heaven, it's easy if you try." and many other anti-war and anti-materialistic messages.
* "Imagine" would later be released as a single in 1975 and reach No. 1 on the *Billboard* Hot 100 charts.

### The album artwork

* The album cover depicts two beetles having sexual intercourse, which was deemed as vulgar.

## The Scandal Tour

Main article: The Scandal Tour

After receiving the rejection letter from EMI, a furious John Lennon had the idea to perform a surprise tour on the following week, in which the band would perform the entire album live.

In order to keep the shows a secret, the band used pseudonyms throughout the whole scheduling process - Dr. Winston O’Boogie (Lennon), Percy Thrillington (McCartney), Hari Georgeson (Harrison), Billy Shears (Starr), Suzy R. Thrillington (Eastman) and Richard Cory (Laine). The band would preform under the name, "The Scandalous Six".

On March 1, 1975, the "Scandalous Six" took the stage at Wembley Arena and played the whole Scandal album. During the concert, all of the band members wore false glasses, noses, mustaches and sometimes wigs, and in all future instances when the show were spoken about, they insisted that they were not the Scandalous Six.

“*That’s obviously not me. See the mustache?*” - Linda McCartney, after being questioned by a reporter the day after the show.

The entire Wembley show was recorded on tape, and kept in John Lennon’s possession until his death in 1985, before being handed to George Harrison. Several other recordings from the other shows were relentlessly bootlegged over the decades, and for 50 years were thought to be the only available audio of the Scandal album in full.

In 1998, three of the songs - Steel & Glass, Give Me Love, and Scandal (Riot On Cell Block #9) - were included on Anthology 4. On Symphony No. 16’s 50th anniversary, in 2025, the whole Wembley concert was remastered and released officially to the public featuring never before seen footage of the band playing live.

## The Scandal Sessions

### Producer

Giles Martin

After EMI rejected The Beatles would-be 16th studio album, The news highly angered and disappointed The Beatles, who, as history had long suggested, went back and erased everything to start anew. However, recently, it was discovered that history had been wrong.

Producer Giles Martin, who had been remixing The Beatles' catalogue for the past 8 years now, made a remarkable discovery while searching the vaults at EMI in 2024. He had gone into the vaults looking for outtakes and such for the remix of 'Symphony No. 16'. What he found, however, was piles and piles of dusty tapes that hadn't been touched in decades. Upon listening back to the tapes, it was quickly apparent that Martin had just stumbled upon one of the greatest finds in music history. As it turned out, The Beatles had, in reality, accidentally erased only demos and outtakes, the exact opposite of what Giles had been looking for. This left the original 'Scandal' exactly how it was sent to EMI, forgotten to history.

Now, officially presented for the first time in history, with input from the surviving members of the band, *The Scandal Sessions* is an attempt to reconstruct what *Scandal* could have been. As no official track list has been found, the surviving band members had to go off of memory alone. Paul McCartney said "It's incredibly close to how we had it, I think. It's almost as if we've snatched it right out of the seventies."

Also found was proof of the long-fabled sessions between the Beatles and the Beach Boys. "Riot In Cell Block #9" came from a mostly-instrumental jam session between the two bands, with news castings and political speeches on top. This leads researchers to believe this is where the name 'Scandal' came from. The album is dedicated to the late, Linda McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Denny Laine, whose compositions 'God' and 'Give Me Love', respectively, had been widely bootlegged and praised as some of their finest works. Critics praised 'The Scandal Sessions' across the board, saying it 'breathed new life into a band over 60 years old'. Rolling Stone awarded it 'The Best Reissue Of The Year' for 2025, while the album won a Grammy award for 'Best Historical Album'.

## Tracks

Reconstructed track listing by Paul McCartney and Giles Martin.

**Side One**

1. "Too Many People" (McCartney) - 5:07
2. "Let It Down" (Harrison) - 5:00
3. "Steel And Glass" (Lennon) - 5:40
4. "1882" (McCartney) - 6:33

**Side Two**

1. "Well Well Well" (Lennon) - 6:01
2. "The Sue Me, Sue You Blues" (Harrison) - 4:43
3. "Soily Company" (P. McCartney-L. McCartney) - 3:56
4. "Woman Is The N\*gger Of The World" (Lennon) - 5:19

**Side Three**

1. "Mumbo Jumbo" (McCartney) - 4:04
2. "A Working Class Hero (Is Something To Be)" (Lennon) - 3:57
3. "Scandal (Riot In Cell Block #9)" (Leiber-Stoller) - 3:44
4. "Back Off, Boogaloo" (Starkey) - 3:12
5. "John Sinclair" (Lennon) - 3:55
6. "Give Me Love" (Harrison) - 3:34

**Side Four**

1. "Give Ireland Back To The Irish" (McCartney) - 4:29
2. "God" (Lennon) - 4:01
3. "Live And Let Die" (McCartney) - 4:58
4. "Imagine" (Lennon) - 3:04
5. "Coda" (Lennon-McCartney-Harrison-Starkey-Laine-Eastman) - 1:08
6. "Awaiting On You All (Revisited)" (Harrison) - 2:51