E.P. - Magical Mystery Tour

Magical Mystery Tour - Front Cover	Magical Mystery Tour - Rear Cover
Magical Mystery Tour - Inside Front Cover	Magical Mystery Tour - Inside Rear Cover

Label	Parlophone
Catalogue No.	SMMT 1 - Stereo Version MMT 1 - Mono Version
Country of Origin	England
Release Date	8th December 1967
U.K. Chart Detail :	Entry Date : 13th December 1967 Highest Position : 2 Weeks in Chart : 12 Weeks
The Tracks :	RECORD 1 Side 1     Side 2 Magical Mystery Tour     I Am The Walrus Your Mother Should Know         ("No you're not" said Little Nicola) RECORD 2 Side 1     Side 2 The Fool On The Hill     Blue Jay Way Flying
Detail :	The Beatles thirteenth official E.P. In the U.K. the "Magical Mystery Tour" soundtrack was released as a special double E.P. package. It contained two 3 track E.P.'s and was advertised as being complete with; "A 32 page full colour book packed with exclusive pictures, a strip cartoon of the original story, plus the words to the songs in the show !" It's original cost was 19s 6d (19 shillings and sixpence ... which was just short of One Pound Sterling). The eagerly anticipated release, had advance orders in Britain of over 400,000, and by mid-January 1968 had sold 600,000, so not surprisingly it did very well in the National chart. It immediately entered the singles chart, and shot to No.2 ... being kept off the top slot by "Hello Goodbye". In fact, in Britain's top music weekly newspaper, the Melody Maker, it DID reach number 1 ... knocking "Hello Goodbye" off the top for one week from 13th January 1968. Clearly the E.P. set would have topped the E.P. chart, but this had actually been abandoned as a separate chart just 6 days before it's release ! Musically, the most interesting fact is that it included the Beatles first instrumental, "Flying". Which was also the first track to list all four names as joint writers. "Magical Mystery Tour" was also the first Beatle E.P. to be issued in Mono AND stereo, and the mono version is now deleted. First pressings had around the edge of the label, the words stating the rights of the publishers starting with "The Gramophone Co. Ltd." and across the press-out centre the words, "sold in U.K. subject to resale price conditions, see price lists" are present. Also the tax code of "KT" can be seen in the centre label of one side of each disc. It had a gatefold picture sleeve, with a full booklet, and a blue lyric sheet. The singles were housed in white inner sleeves. Re-pressings were made in the early 1970's, with the only difference being , no "Sold in the U.K. ...". And a further pressing was made in 1973, which added a boxed EMI logo, and it had a yellow lyric sheet !