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"Free as a Bird" is a song originally composed and recorded in 1977 as a home demo by John Lennon. In 1995 a studio version of the recording, incorporating contributions from Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, was released as a single by The Beatles, 25 years after their break-up and 15 years after the death of Lennon. The single was released as part of the promotion for ''The Beatles Anthology'' video documentary and the band's ''Anthology 1'' compilation album. For the ''Anthology'' project, McCartney asked Lennon's widow Yoko Ono for unreleased material by Lennon to which the three remaining ex-Beatles could contribute. "Free as a Bird" was one of two such songs (along with "Real Love") for which McCartney, Harrison, and Starr contributed additional instrumentation, vocals, and arrangements. Jeff Lynne of Electric Light Orchestra, who had worked with Harrison on Harrison's album ''Cloud Nine'' and as part of the Traveling Wilburys, was asked to co-produce the record. The music video for "Free as a Bird" was produced by Vincent Joliet and directed by Joe Pytka; from the point of view of a bird in flight, it depicts many references to Beatles songs, such as "Strawberry Fields Forever," "Penny Lane", "Paperback Writer", "A Day in the Life", "Eleanor Rigby" and "Helter Skelter". "Free as a Bird" won the 1997 Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and was The Beatles' 34th Top 10 single in the United States. The song secured the group at least one Top 40 hit in four different decades (1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s). == Origins == McCartney, Harrison and Starr originally intended to record some incidental background music, as a trio, for the ''Anthology'' project, but later realised, according to Starr, that they wanted to record "new music".〔''The Beatles Anthology'' DVD 2003 (Special Features: Recording Free as a Bird and Real Love - 0:00:50–0:01:04) Starr talking about the idea of recording incidental music for the Anthology project.〕 According to Harrison, they had always agreed that if one of them was not in the band, the others would never replace them and, "... go out as the Beatles", and that the "only other person that could be in it was John."〔''The Beatles Anthology'' DVD 2003 (Special Features: Recording Free as a Bird and Real Love – 0:01:25–0:01:46) Harrison talking about their agreement that if one of them wasn't there, they could be not replaced, and that only Lennon could be the fourth Beatle.〕 McCartney then asked Ono if she had any unreleased recordings by Lennon, so she sent him cassette tapes of four songs.〔''The Beatles Anthology'' DVD 2003 (Special Features: Recording Free as a Bird and Real Love - 0:02:07-0:02:17) Starr talking about McCartney asking Ono for unreleased songs by Lennon.〕 "Free as a Bird" was recorded by Lennon in 1977, in his and Ono's Dakota building apartment in New York City, but was not complete. Lennon introduced the song on the cassette by imitating a New York accent and saying, "Free—as a boid" (bird).〔〔 The other songs were "Grow Old With Me", "Real Love", and "Now and Then". Ono says that it was Harrison and former Beatles road manager Neil Aspinall who initially asked her about the concept of adding vocals and instrumentation to Lennon's demo tapes. Ono stated: "People have said it was all agreed when Paul came over to New York to induct John into "The Rock And Roll Hall of Fame", but it was all settled before then. I just used that occasion to hand over the tapes personally to Paul." McCartney went to Ono's home after the induction ceremony at the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame to listen to, and receive, the Lennon demo tapes; he recalls the meeting with Ono: She was there with Sean ... and she played us a couple of tracks. There were two newies on mono cassettes which he did at home ... ()o I checked it out with Sean, because I didn't want him to have a problem with it. He said, "Well, it'll be weird hearing a dead guy on lead vocal. But give it a try." I said to them both, If it doesn't work out, you can veto it. When I told George and Ringo I'd agreed to that they were going, "What? What if we love it?" It didn't come to that, luckily. I said to Yoko, "Don't impose too many conditions on us, it's really difficult to do this, spiritually. We don't know, we may hate each other after two hours in the studio and just walk out. So don't put any conditions, it's tough enough."〔Du Noyer, Paul, "They Were the Most Brilliant, Powerful, Lovable Pop Group on the Planet ... But Now They're Really Important", ''Q'' Magazine, December 1995, in 〕 During an interview for the ''Anthology'' project, McCartney revealed that he was surprised to learn that Lennon's demos of "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love" had already been released and were well known by Lennon fans.〔〔''The Beatles Anthology'' DVD 2003 (Special Features: Recording Free as a Bird and Real Love – 0:02:17–0:02:28) McCartney talking about how Lennon versions of "Free As A Bird" and "Real Love" were released and heard by fans even before the surviving ex-Beatles had heard them.〕 Starr admitted that when he first listened to the recording he found it very emotional.〔''The Beatles Anthology'' DVD 2003 (Special Features: Recording Free as a Bird and Real Love – 0:02:28–0:03:10) Starr talking about how emotional the recordings were.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Free as a Bird」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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