All You Need Is Love

About

About “Our World“, from Wikipedia:

Our World was the first live multinational multi-satellite television production. National broadcasters from fourteen countries around the world, coordinated by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), participated in the program. The two-hour event, which was broadcast on Sunday 25 June 1967[a] in twenty-four countries, had an estimated audience of 400 to 700 million people, the largest television audience up to that date. Four communications satellites were used to provide a worldwide coverage, which was a technological milestone in television broadcasting.

Creative artists, including opera singer Heather Harper, film director Franco Zefferelli, conductor Leonard Bernstein, sculptor Alexander Calder and painter Joan Miró were invited to perform or appear in separate live segments, each of them produced by one of the participant broadcasters. The most famous segment is one from the United Kingdom starring the Beatles performing their song “All You Need Is Love” for the first time. […]

The Beatles’ segment

As the broadcast took place at the height of the Vietnam War, the Beatles were asked to write a song with a positive message. They topped the event with their debut performance of “All You Need Is Love”. They invited many of their friends to the event to create a festive atmosphere and to join in on the song’s chorus. Among the friends were members of the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Marianne Faithfull, Keith Moon and Graham Nash.

Although Our World was originally recorded and transmitted in black-and-white, for its use in the 1995 TV special The Beatles Anthology, the Beatles’ performance on the program was colourised, using colour photographs taken at the event as a reference. The sequence opens in its original monochromatic format and rapidly morphs into full colour, conveying the brightly coloured flower power and psychedelic-style clothing worn by the Beatles and their guests that was popular during what was subsequently dubbed the “Summer of Love”. […]

It was a professional shoot. I remember camera crews and a lot of colourful people. It was psychedelic and all the rest of it, but the BBC filmed it in black and white! If we’d have known that, we’d have filmed it ourselves.

Neil Aspinall – From “The Beatles Anthology” book, 2000

In 1995 for the “Beatles Anthology” TV specials, the original footage was colourised and subsequentially issued as a promo video to promote the Anthology albums. In 2015, it was later issued on the Beatles “1+” DVD & Blu-ray.

Last updated on April 4, 2023