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Magical Mystery Tour

1967 studio album by The Beatles; US Edition

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 16, 2026
Entity authorityQ60676411 ↗
Source-derived summary

Magical Mystery Tour is a record by the English rock band the Beatles that was released as a double EP in the United Kingdom and an LP in the United States. It includes the soundtrack to the 1967 television film of the same title. The EP was issued in the UK on 8 December 1967 on the Parlophone label, while the Capitol Records LP release in the US and Canada occurred on 27 November and features an additional five songs that were originally released as singles that year. In 1976, Parlophone released the eleven-track LP in the UK.

When recording their new songs, the Beatles continued the studio experimentation that had typified Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) and the psychedelic sound they had pursued since Revolver (1966). The project was initiated by Paul McCartney in April 1967, but after the band recorded the song "Magical Mystery Tour", it lay dormant until the death of their manager, Brian Epstein, in late August. Recording then took place alongside filming and editing, and as the Beatles furthered their public association with Transcendental Meditation under teacher Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

The sessions have been characterised by some biographers as aimless and unfocused, with the band members overly indulging in sound experimentation and exerting greater control over production. McCartney contributed three of the soundtrack songs, including the widely covered "The Fool on the Hill", while John Lennon and George Harrison contributed "I Am the Walrus" and "Blue Jay Way", respectively. The sessions also produced "Hello, Goodbye", issued as a single accompanying the soundtrack record, and items of incidental music for the film, including "Flying".

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Magical Mystery Tour” as 1967 studio album by The Beatles; US Edition. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Magical, Mystery and Tour.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1967, 1976, 1966—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1967-11-27. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Magical, Mystery and Tour providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Magical Mystery Tour”, the useful work is to connect “1967 studio album by The Beatles; US Edition” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q60676411. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1967, 1976 and 1966.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Magical Mystery Tour”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Magical Mystery Tour primary sources, Magical Mystery Tour archive and Magical research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Magical Mystery Tour”?
  2. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Magical Mystery Tour” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.