Info
Which version you heard depends on where you lived, and this is where that is settled.
15 tag types · 175 values
One recording can be a British single, an American album track, a mono mix that differs audibly from the stereo one, and a compilation cut from 1988 that a generation grew up on instead. This category holds the history around the music: what was issued where and in which mix, whose song it had been before theirs, whether it went down in one take or twenty, whether a second version exists, and which of the unofficial families it belongs to, the twin songs, the ones written in India, the character studies, the granny music-hall pastiches. Fewer than half of their recordings reached both countries the same way: 97 did, and the rest were scattered across fourteen American albums that never existed in Britain.
Why do the American Beatles albums have different tracks?
Because Capitol rebuilt the British albums for its own market, dropping songs, adding singles and issuing records that never existed in Britain at all. The release pages keep the two countries apart and follow a recording from the session to the single, the album, the charts and every reissue after.
Good places to start: Twin songs, Motown, Number one US and Two versions.
Release
How a recording reached the public: as a single or an album track, in Britain or America, in which mix, on whose label and through which publisher.
How the song was commercially released
How a recording came out in America, which is often on a different album, on a different date and in a different order from Britain.
Which official mixes exist for a song, and whether the mono and the stereo are different records or the same one twice.
The label that issued the recording, which changed with the country and with the year the band owned their own.
The music publishing company that held the copyright for the song's composition
Recording & origin
Whose song it was before theirs, and how it was captured: one take, twenty, live, or twice over.
The American musical sub-scene or genre that the original cover song came from
How the recording was captured rather than what is on it: in one take or twenty, live, revived years later, or issued in two versions.
Song classification
The unofficial families a song belongs to, whether it is an original or a cover, and how long it runs.
Unofficial groupings of songs that feel of a kind, gathered the way a fan would gather them rather than by genre.
Reception
What it did in the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, and what it has done in the fifty years since.
What the record did in the British and American charts, and the awards and certifications that followed.
Notable cultural significance, awards, or legacy
Timeline & tracklist
The catalogue by year, by album and by running order, for reading it in the order it happened.
The album the song appears on
Special position on an album