THE BEATLES PLAY THE RESIDENTS / THE RESIDENTS PLAY THE BEATLES (1977)

A great single consisting of two tracks. The A-side is a hilarious Frankenstein-like collage of snippets of Beatles records (sampling before the sampler was invented) which works very well indeed. The flip side is a mournful, ugly stab at "Flying", this being the only track The Residents could find that was credited to all four Beatles. A John Lennon quote; "please everybody, if we didn't do everything we could have done we tried", is used in both tracks, from the man himself and, on "Flying", sarcastically yelled out by the singing Resident. "WE TRIED, WE TRIED, HA HA HA!!!" It came to the notice of Ralph records that hardcore Beatles collectors were buying this as it featured their heroes even if in a less than respectful light. I hope they enjoyed what they heard.