It was the Fab Four’s final recording. It is their 187th song. But, according to a noted Fabs expert, it’s “shit”.
Beatles scholar Ian Macdonald has given us his verdict on the last missing piece of the greatest band of all time’s oeuvre. The following excerpt is taken from Macdonald’s new revised edition of “Revolution in the Head: The Beatles’ Records and The Sixties” (“the most sustainedly brilliant piece of pop criticism and scholarship for years” according to Q Magazine).

[187] SMILIN’ IN A LAND OF DREAMERS (Lennon-McCartney)

McCartney - vocal, guitar; Lennon – vocal, backing propaganda; Harrison - vocal, elastic band; Starr – vocal, organ; Martin – background anecdotal radiation
Uncredited - 18 violins, 4 violas, four cellos, four candles, harp, 3 trumpets, another harp, 5 gold rings, 14 female voices, 400(?) child voices.
Recorded: 11th April 1970

Recorded on the day after the Beatles finally split after a prolonged period of cooling relations (though it was only in 1974 that Harrison’s grandparents and Starr’s children were at last dug out of the frozen food section of the supermarket in Lennon’s Weybridge mansion), the song’s genesis is as witlessly absurd as its title (derived like [31] A HARD DAY’S NIGHT and [77] TOMORROW NEVER KNOWS from a saying of Starr’s).
The Beatles’ phones were being tapped by an increasingly paranoid Phil Spector, unaware that the group had split, just as McCartney and George Martin were unaware that Spector was preparing the Let it Be tapes for release. Utilising the dubious “skills” of eccentric electronics technician “Magic Alex” Mardas, Spector was able to confect a song from the four members of the band’s eavesdropped-upon telephone lines and create a “live mix” on a standard 4-track recording system. He was aided by the knowledge (perhaps supplied by Lennon) that all the Beatles were by now literally phoning in their performances and, indeed, appearances and would thus be in the habit of phoning the studio in the morning and not replacing the receiver until they could be bothered to wage-enslave someone for that purpose alone.
Conceptually and sonically, then, SMILIN’ IN A LAND OF DREAMERS is, in a sense, an inadvertent, creative conference call. This leads to some interesting and sometimes chilling effects – for instance, the audible flicking off and on of the safety catch of Spector’s .357 Magnum revolver (Smith & Wesson Model 27) and the consequent sharp intake of breath of an aircraft hangar full of terrified children. Occasionally one feels that one is listening to the sound of Western civilisation self-harming.
As to the actual meat of the song, each Beatle contributes a discrete gobbet. Not since [96] A DAY IN THE LIFE had the division of creative labour within the group been made so explicit on one single record.
It is Lennon who begins. Summoning up the demons he perhaps thought he had sardonically slain in [139] YER BLUES, he howls “Chairman Mao riding a cow! Chairman Mao not riding a cow! Come on!” over and over again as Yoko Ono (in her only appearance in the Beatles canon) cries uncontrollably. Lennon later leaves off this mantra to harmonise with her, sobbing and beating what sounds like a wife. At this low time in his life, Lennon and Yoko were spending their days injecting heroin into piles of Maoist leaflets using a syringe woven specially by Salvador Dali out of saffron threads and pure cynicism.
Next is McCartney’s surprisingly brief interlude. His disillusionment with what the Beatles had become is audible in the listless, almost asinine strumming on the acoustic guitar. However, we are offered a glimpse of the future and the consolations of domestic stability as he sings that “out of Linda’s window, there’s a sunny honey tree! I’m all right” to a melody that would make molasses wince.
Harrison’s section makes for deeply painful listening. His reason and all his ability obviated by “microchip butties” (an invention of his comprising a bap marinated in liquid LSD, the soggy bread then being injected direct into the taker’s brain by an Indian), Harrison twangs an elastic band, droning “it’s OK for some…for some it’s OK…some have it alright…and…they’re…OK.” It is almost impossible to describe how unhappy an experience listening to this music provides.
Although it provides what little melody the song contains, Starr’s contribution is perhaps even more dispiriting. “Got my winkle in my hand and it’s wrapped in streamers! I’m smilin’ in a land of dreamers!” he chuckle-sings, whilst percussively slapping his own penis (with his left or right hand or with a combination of both? It isn’t clear, although some interesting sonic modulations are engendered by the hardening and softening of the organ). Towards the end of the song, he can be heard practicing saying “Stateside” in a transatlantic accent (he was to make frequent use of this in his subsequent solo career). Then as the track fades, Starr’s slapping returns (he was to make frequent use of this in his subsequent solo career).
Throughout the track, far in the aural distance, George Martin can faintly be heard talking to the World Service for 39 hours straight (without food or water, and with only three or four breaths, it was later claimed) about just exactly at your own pace George just let the memories come what it was like working with the Beatles (indeed, at 39 hours, SMILIN’ IN A LAND OF DREAMERS is the second longest song in the Beatles’ canon – just 3 minutes shorter than [167] I WANT YOU (SHE’S SO HEAVY)). SMILIN’ IN A LAND OF DREAMERS is shit.