Commonwealth (BDJ Remix)

"Commonwealth" was recorded January 9, 1969, at Twickenham Film Studios, London, England, during the "Get Back/Let It Be" rehearsals.

The lyrics are improvised, as well as the instrumentation, with Paul McCartney ad-libbing on lead vocals, and John Lennon ad-libbing a backing vocal ("yes"). It was never officially released on either a solo Beatle album or as a cover version. The session was captured on film as well, showing how Lennon enjoyed himself, sitting on an amp with Yoko Ono. The film shows that Harrison was did not play on this take, but was discussing with an engineer.

The lyrics mention (Harold) Wilson and (Ted) Heath, who were prime ministers around this time. The focus appears to be on Cabinet minister Enoch Powell, who had delivered his anti-immigrant “Rivers of Blood” speech the previous year, which dealt mainly with Pakistani immigration.
As the song continues, John and Paul touch on Britain’s entry into the European Common Market, which had been denied in late 1968, making a pun out of the phrase “common market.”

Race issues evidently played on McCartney's mind during the Get Back sessions. This theme also occurred in the early lyrics of Get Back, which were not used and replaced by the story of Jo Jo and Loretta Martin in the released version of Get Back. There is only one take of "Commonwealth", indicating that it served to relieve the tedium and depression the Beatles were in, in the early days of January.

It is interesting to hear the Lennon-McCartney composer team in action; On the fly, Lennon changes McCartney's "you're much to wealthy for me' into "you're much too common for me", which is indeed a more powerful lyric.

The songs itself sits somewhere between Get Back and the Ballad of John and Yoko; perhaps could have been released, if they had cleaned up the lyrics and spent some effort on a middle-eight.......
In the beginning, the chord scheme is quite unstable, later on, it becomes more like a regular blues scheme.

Listening to this remix, I feel ever more strongly that Paul's Commonwealth served as 'inspiration' for John's Ballad of John and Yoko. Not just the chords, but also the lyrics share a lot: travel to different countries, names of actual people, returning to England etc. So, after all, The Ballad IS correctly registered as a Lennon/McCartney composition !

This remix was first released on IT IS TO LAFF 3, still available at:

http://www.groovytimewithdjuseo.blogspot.com/2013/06/it-is-to-laff-3-funny-mashups.html