Saturday, September 30, 2017

Mary Hopkin's Second Apple Single

Sometime in early February 1969, Paul McCartney wrote a lovely song intended to be recorded by Apple artist Mary Hopkin for her second single. The first single being "Those Were The Days". Instead of pulling another song off of her debut Apple LP "Postcard", an original was written and then a demo was recorded for her.
The name of the song is "Goodbye". The demo consists of Paul on acoustic guitar and vocals. The song was most likely recorded at Paul's home in London on his own recording equipment from 7 Cavendish Avenue in London. The tape was most likely brought over to Dick James' Nothern Song publishing offices and was pressed on an acetate.
The acetate came under the hammer and sold at an auction back in 1981. As a result of this, the demo can be heard on bootlegs such as "File Under: The Beatles" (LP) and "Not For Sale"(LP and CD) as well as "Acetates" (CD). I remember when the "Anthology" series was commercially released and there was a discussion with other fans about why this particular demo was not on those disc - probably due to the fact that it was technically a solo performance. The song is credited to "Lennon/McCartney" although it is obviously a Paul song.
The commercial single with full band was released on April 07 1969 as Apple 1806. "Goodbye" was the A-side and "Sparrow" being the B-side. Both labels have full Apples. It came in a nice picture sleeve with a tear running down Mary's cheek. An excellent coupling.

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