When you hear these unfinished or alternate mix versions, it makes you appreciate the final versions we all know and love.

I was excited to hear this after purchasing "Free as a Bird". As usual, the sound quality is above average, but some of the performances are not. Yellow Submarine's new sound-effects mix was too much, and it took away from the song itself. Here, There and Everywhere's new mix wasn't very good either, as it featured only a guide vocal by Paul for the instrumental takes, not a stronger vocal take. I understand that these are meant as a glimpse into the process of creating these masterpiece songs, but surely some better material could have been used.
On the plus side, "Baby's in Black" sounded fantastic, and makes me wish that all of the material from the Hollywood Bowl concerts would be reissued. Overall, not a bad disc. I guess Beatles fans should take what they can get since EMI and Capitol are still withholding some of the most prized Beatles recordings in their archives from CD release.

I bought this CD single back when "Anthology 2" was new in the stores, and the CD single was available as an inexpensive domestic release. I don't know if it's worth the asking list price as an import unless you're a diehard Beatles collector.

The song "Real Love" is definitely one of Lennon's loveliest, and George, Paul, Ringo, and Jeff Lynne did a fine job of fleshing out the original demo into something that indeed sounds like an actual Beatles track. It's also available on "Anthology 2" and it's so good it almost makes you wish that the Beatles had given us more than two "new" songs in the late 1990s. The bonus tracks, however, are a mixed lot. There's a live version of "Baby in Black" from the Hollywood Bowl concerts which helps us to understand why the Beatles nixed plans for an official live album in the 60s, and why the late 1970s "Hollywood Bowl" LP has never been released on CD. It's awful. There's a remix of "Yellow Submarine" that has since been put to shame by the version on the "Songtrack." Finally, there's an alternate version of "Here, There, and Everywhere" that I truly wish had made it onto "Anthology 2" rather than being buried here. It's one of my favorite McCartney ballads.

So, if you're a tried-and-true collector, you're going to want this one. If you're not, you can get the best song here on "Anthology 2"

Even given the tragic circumstances that prevented a full-fledged reunion of the Beatles for the "Anthology" mini-series of the mid-Nineties, "Real Love" is, in the end, no more a BEATLES song than was "(Just Like)Starting Over" for example. Except for George Harrison's definitive slide guitar breaks, this is John Lennon's showcase through and through. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr might well have participated in this recording, but you'd never know it from listening. This isn't to say that it's a bad song...on the contrary, it's as good a Lennon paeon to love as he ever wrote in the late Seventies. But that's the point, really. Never mind that this wasn't the John Lennon who had written "Tomorrow Never Knows" or "Strawberry Fields Forever;" he wasn't even the guy who had written "This Boy," "If I Fell" or "Yes It Is," to name just a few of his love songs from the pre-Pepper days. For better or worse, John Lennon had simplified his songwriting craft considerably by the time of his death, and "Real Love" is planted firmly in that place in time, a time that was long past that of the Beatles. The question that will never be answered, of course, is, would he have made the same changes in his songwriting if there had still been a Beatles after 1970? We'll never know.

The other three songs on this CD are fine if minor inclusions, with "Baby's In Black" particularly standing out as a slice of life from the Beatles USA touring days in 1965.

In 1995, the Beatles began working on their "Anthology" project, and I believe this CD serves as a good preview to the set. You get the newly recorded song, "Real Love," and outtakes plus a live version of "Baby's in Black" from the 1965 Hollywood Bowl concert (which, I might add, was not released on the 1977 Hollywood Bowl record, so it is truly unreleased.) I now own this single on CD and vinyl, just because I love the Beatles. "Real Love" is one of John's best songs ever.