A guy travelled through time and found an unreleased Beatles album

One of the greatest things about prolific musicians is their tendency to record a lot of material that tends to go unreleased.

While many fans might just want to get their hands on everything that’s available, an archive of unreleased material usually means plenty of music long after the artist hangs up their instruments.

Over the years, we’ve seen acts like the Sex Pistols release far more compilation albums than their sole studio record, while Tupac Shakur has likely released more ‘new’ material during his death than while he was alive.

But still, there are plenty of recordings that we’re dying to get our hands on and would do anything to achieve that goal. In fact, one avid Beatles fan was so keen to hear a new record, that he decided to travel through space and time just to do so.

Wait, what?

As we know, The Beatles have a legacy as being one of, if not the, most influential musical groups in history. First forming back in 1960, the group’s songs, lyrics, and albums have become an integral part of human culture, with John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr becoming household names.

However, despite their musical talents, it wasn’t always smooth sailing for the Fab Four. In fact, by August of 1966, the band had played their last tour after growing frustrated at an inability to be heard by their screaming crowds.

While the band were solely a studio band for the remainder of their existence, this too proved troublesome as the years went by, and their personal relationships soon grew somewhat strained.

During the recording of The White Album, in fact, Ringo Starr temporarily quit the band, during which time Paul McCartney performed drums on ‘Back In The U.S.S.R.’.

By 1969 however, things were getting rather troublesome for the group as they faced more in-fighting and managerial issues. Sadly though, this would all come to a head by April of 1970, when Paul McCartney announced his departure from the group.

Paul McCartney’s exit from The Beatles signalled the end of a musical era

Since The Beatles’ breakup, fans have been holding on for the release of new material in any form, which was something a group like this had plenty of.

While fans saw received a collection of single-only releases by way of the Past Masters compilations, the studio archives were pored over for the release of the Anthology series between 1995 and 1996.

However, as the years have progressed, more and more studio rarities have turned up, though fans still lamenting the fact that infamous rarity ‘Carnival Of Light’ is still yet to have an official release.

But what if we didn’t have to pine for new releases? What if instead of actually breaking up in 1970, a seperate universe exists where the Fab Four never actually split up? Sounds absolutely ridiculous, right? Well, then you’ve clearly never heard of James Richards.

The Beatles’ ‘new’ album

Back in 2009, almost 40 years since the breakup of The Beatles, a mysterious website named ‘The Beatles Never Broke Up’ appeared online.

The site existed to share audio of an album that author James Richards claims was recorded by The Beatles, years after their supposed split.

“On Sept. 9, 2009 I experienced something that I still am having trouble believing happened to me,” Richards explained. “I came into the possession of a cassette tape containing a Beatles album that was never released.”

“In fact, not only was it never released but it was recorded many years after they broke up.”

Richards claimed that he came across the album while on a drive to his house in Livermore, California. While driving, he stopped to let his dog answer the call of nature, until he found himself tripping over a rabbit hole while chasing his pet.

James Richards claimed that when he awoke, he was met by a strange man named Jonas, an interdimensional “tourist”, who supposedly found our storyteller unconscious while visiting from a parallel Earth and decided to lend a hand.

“Normally he said he doesn’t take outsiders through a portal but in my case he thought I needed urgent help,” Richards explained.

Image of The Beatles’ Everyday Chemistry

While visiting with Jonas, the pair supposedly got talking on the topic of music, and Richards was shocked to learn that a number of bands from our universe existed in this parallel universe as well, including The Beatles.

“When their name got brought up Jonas mentioned that his brother just got back from seeing them perform at a concert recently,” he explained. ‘Which I gave a weird look to and said “you mean they are still together?’, and he said yea.”

“I then told him about how they broke up in our world and that John & George passed away, apparently in his world they are all alive, healthy and on tour still.”

After being shown Jonas’ collection of cassette tapes, James Richards claimed that this individual had a handful of tapes, with a store-bought cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band looking slightly different, but boasting the same songs as Earthly copies.

Apparently, cassette tapes of The Beatles are popular in other dimensions, too.

“The other 6 Beatles tapes he had were all like somebody recorded them onto a blank cassette for him and wrote the song titles on a card slipped in the case,” Richards explained. “A couple of the album titles written on the tapes I recognized but there were about 4 that I had never heard of before.”

“He played a few songs from one of them, which was totally surreal to hear Beatles music that was never made (at least in our world). We talked about it a little bit, he said a girl made the tapes for him while he was in upper school (what they call high school). She was a huge fan of them and wanted him to listen to them.”

However, after being informed he was not allowed to take back any souvenirs to his own universe, Richards claims he sneakily shuffled the tapes around, pocketing one of them, and then bidding his farewells to Jonas, only to arrive back on Earth with what was ostensibly an unreleased Beatles album.

The proof

“Well, that’s all well and good,” you say, “but where’s the proof?” Well, that’s the beauty of it all! See, James Richards not only possessed the foresight to grab something to prove his story, but he also managed to rip a copy of the tape to his computer for us all to hear.

Yes, this means that we have the ability to hear The Beatles album titled Everyday Chemistry, with tracks like ‘Soldier Boy’, ‘Sick To Death’, and ‘Mr Gator’s Swamp Jamboree’ available for your listening pleasure.

Of course, if you do give it a listen, you might start to realise that many parts of the record sound familiar. That’s because the album itself is actually composed of numerous portions of solo projects from Beatles members.

Ingenious in its concept, the album sees songs such as Wings’ ‘Band On The Run’ pairing with George Harrison’s ‘When We Was Fab’ to form part of album opener ‘Four Guys’. While it’s not exactly up to the standards of Danger Mouse’s The Grey Album, it’s an intriguing listen nonetheless.

Give a listen to The Beatles’ Everyday Chemistry

Of course, the strangest part of this story is that, as unbelievable as it sounds, there’s actually no way for us to disprove the tale. After all, who are we to say that the man who calls himself James Richards didn’t travel through space and time, to a universe where he claims ketchup is purple and The Beatles still exist?

A since-deleted FAQ from Richards’ website also saw him interacting with doubters and naysayers as he too tried to make sense of the situation. While he rejected the idea it was a cover band performing the songs due to reasons of “ultra strict copyright” in this different universe, Richards also noted that he’s not even sure when the album was supposed to have been recorded.

Likewise, when confronted with the fact that the record consists of solo material from The Beatles’ members, Richards had a rather feasible explanation at the ready:

“The only conclusion I can come up with is even though in the alternate universe The Beatles hadn’t broken up, that didn’t mean their future music ideas disapeared [sic],” he explained.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if in the alternate dimension when The Beatles were songwriting they brought melodies and lyrics they had in their head to the songwriting table and hashed them out with the rest of the group, where as in our dimension they didn’t have the other band members’ influences.”

The truth

Alright, we get it, the chances of James Richards having actually travelled to another dimension and bringing back nothing but a nonexistent Beatles album is pretty low, but it’s quite an intriguing story.

It plays into the idea of hearing more music from our beloved bands that have fallen by the wayside, reuniting with deceased members to create tunes that we would never have heard in our own world. On paper, it’s an appealing concept, and it’s easy to see how people would get caught up in.

Most likely, the man who goes by the name James Richards is something of a budding (or quite accomplished, really) musician who used an archival collection Beatles music and some recording software to create his own album.

However, if we start looking at this story through the eyes of ‘facts’, ‘logic’, and other metaphorical wet blankets, then we’re never going to be able to enjoy the story of some piece of Beatles music that we were never supposed to hear, are we?

Instead, let’s give old mate James Richards the benefit of the doubt for a few minutes, listen to some interesting music, and raise a glass to a man who dared to give us what we’ve always dreamed of.