| "The Palace of the King of the Birds" | |
|---|---|
| Instrumental by the Beatles | |
| Recorded | 6, 7 and 9 January 1969 (Twickenham Film Studios) |
| Studio | Twickenham Film Studios, London |
| Genre | Instrumental, ambient rock, blues jam |
| Length | Various (extended improvisations) |
| Songwriter | Lennon – McCartney – Harrison – Starkey [a] |
"The Palace of the King of the Birds", also circulated as "The Castle of the King of the Birds", is an instrumental by the English rock band the Beatles. Written and performed collaboratively during the early Let It Be /Get Back film sessions, it was developed across several extended improvisations on 6 January, 7 and 9 January 1969 at Twickenham Film Studios. [1] [2] [3]
Development of the instrumental took place during the first week of filming at Twickenham, a period marked by extended improvisations and informal experiments alongside rehearsals of new material.
The 6 January rendition is the longest, circulating in collectors' circles as a fourteen-minute jam with organ, guitar figures and light percussion. The 7 and 9 January versions are more compact explorations of the same atmospheric idea. [4]
McCartney revived the piece nearly a decade later during sessions for the unreleased Rupert/ Rupert the Bear soundtrack project, recording a short version commonly referred to as "The Castle of the King of the Birds". This 1978 cue, prepared with Wings, remains unreleased but appears in session logs for the project. [5]
Director Peter Jackson excerpted the Twickenham instrumental for the end credits of Episode 1 of the 2021 Disney+ documentary The Beatles: Get Back . In the credits, the cue is generically attributed to Lennon/McCartney/Harrison/Starkey, consistent with the project's practice of crediting session-derived material by group authorship. [6] [7]
The instrumental is characterised by slow, elegiac organ passages from McCartney, with Harrison and Lennon providing fluid, blues-coloured guitar lines and Ringo Starr maintaining light rhythmic support.
Critics have highlighted the track's unusually atmospheric quality for the Beatles at this stage. Richie Unterberger described it as "particularly elegiac" and noted that its extended, progressive-rock-like feel placed it outside the band's typical stylistic boundaries. [8] Writing for Vulture , David Marchese called the elements "beautifully considered" and likened the mood to the psychedelic calm of "turn-off-your-mind-relax-and-float-downstream". [9]
The 9 January Twickenham line-up is generally given as: [3]
Although never officially released, "The Palace of the King of the Birds" is one of the better-known instrumentals from the January 1969 sessions. It appears regularly in critical surveys of unreleased Beatles material and gained renewed visibility through its inclusion in Get Back (2021). [9] [7]
Notes this idea later surfaces in McCartney's 1978 Rupert work.