ONLINE EXCLUSIVE
''I thought perhaps we should have a contest to see who could spot everything we used,'' says George Martin. ''No one would ever get them all.'' Martin is talking about the soundtrack -- made up entirely of music by the Beatles -- for the new Cirque du Soleil show, Love, opening at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas on June 30th.
The show marks the first time that the Beatles have authorized their recordings for a theatrical production. When given the assignment, Martin, with help from his son Giles, set out to assemble the ultimate Beates mixtape, using ''a tremendous number of snippets, from hundreds of songs'' to create 27 new pieces of music, all mixed for a supercharged surround sound.
''It's going to be great,'' said Ringo Starr in an interview last year. ''He's George, and he knows us, he knows where the music is, he knows where the bodies are on the tapes.''
In early May, eight weeks before the show's opening, Giles Martin gave Rolling Stone an exclusive listen to the complete score of Love. Here are his comments on each of the tracks:
Overture: ''BECAUSE'' -- just the vocal track, with bird effects.
''This plays with the lights still up, to get the audience into the mood.''
Then the lights come down to the sound of the ''endless piano chord'' from ''A Day in Life'' played backwards, the opening chord from ''A Hard Day's Night,'' the Abbey Road drum solo, all over audience screams recorded at Shea Stadium, leading into
Track 1: ''GET BACK'' -- ending with strings from ''Glass Onion,'' with ''Hello Goodbye'' mixed in
''We wanted to start with the Abbey Road drum solo because it's bombastic and the Beatles are so often not thought of as a rock band. So we went and did a big rock opening -- it was great to create a sort of live Beatles experience.''
Track 2: ''ELEANOR RIGBY'' -- with a newly structured string intro
''All the songs are the same, not changed. You don't think about anything but what will be right for the Beatles -- my dad has the ability to say, 'if we were doing this then, this is how we would do it.'
Fades into the guitar from ''Julia,'' a piece of ''Strawberry Fields Forever,'' the strings from ''A Day in the Life''
Track 3: ''I AM THE WALRUS''
''People ask about unreleased material -- the fact is, pretty much all of it has been released, and what hasn't, you go, 'ooh, do we really want to put that out?' ''
Track 4: ''I WANT TO HOLD YOUR HAND''
Track 5: ''CAN'T BUY ME LOVE''
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