Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Palace of the King of the Birds


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus.  Sandstein  10:23, 16 October 2021 (UTC)

The Palace of the King of the Birds

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Per discussion at WikiProject The Beatles. With an unreliable source and a YouTube clip, we believe it doesn't warrant an article. – zmbro (talk) 14:27, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Albums and songs-related deletion discussions. – zmbro (talk) 14:27, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Music-related deletion discussions. – zmbro (talk) 14:27, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

In discussing the Rupert the Bear soundtrack demo session, Madinger & Easter mention it only in passing: "Many of the musical themes heard here had been around for a while.... 'The Palace of the King of the Birds' (as announced in Paul's narration) appeared as early as the January 1969 Get Back / Let It Be sessions." (Madinger & Easter 2018, p. 239) Despite this, Sulpy and Schweighardt don't mention it at all. I can't find anything else, so I agree that it ought to be Deleted.  Tkbrett  (✉) 14:57, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment It does appear to be one of the more notable unreleased Beatles recordings, in that it has appeared on some lists of "best unreleased" such as this from Far Out Magazine, and this from Vulture, where the instrumental playing of the Beatles is praised. It is covered in Richie Unterberger's The Unreleased Beatles: Music and Film (2006), where it is described as "about as close at the Beatles came to progressive rock jamming - highly uncharacteristic territory for the group to be wandering into, but interesting for precisely that reason." (p.239). The song is mentioned here as a possible candidate for the 50th anniversary reissue of Let It Be, although ultimately it didn't make it. Pawnkingthree (talk) 18:44, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Many thanks Pawnkingthree for that contribution. It's clear to me that this passage of music merits an article on WP, but the name must be changed as per the comments on the article's talk page. Spicemix (talk) 12:46, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
 * @Spicemix - in fact, Pawnkingthree has pointed out that title was mentioned in the 2006 book - so the claim in youtube about the title is not correct. -- Beardo (talk) 18:44, 25 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep - as per Pawkingthree's comments here and addition of further sources in the article. -- Beardo (talk) 18:47, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep Thanks everyone. Spicemix (talk) 19:39, 25 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete. Thanks to PK3 from me also for looking into this further. I've just found an entry (titled "Instrumental") for the track in Sulpy & Schweighardt's Get Back: The Unauthorized Chronicle of the Beatles' Let It Be Disaster, but even with that and any recent additions to the page, I still don't think it's sufficient to allow for an article on Wikipedia. It just seems like trivia for Beatles completists, not a subject for an encyclopaedia. Every minute (almost) of the Beatles' career receives some sort of coverage because they're the most written about act in popular music. But it doesn't mean that every single minor topic that writers cover briefly merits a dedicated article. (For instance, Sulpy & Schweighardt's index contains approximately 90 entries for "Improvisation"s or "Instrumental"s dated between 2 and 27 January '69, and another 16 for "Unknown"s.) I don't think Wikipedia should follow, say, Beatles Bible's lead, or exhaustive Beatles "encyclopaedias" written by Bill Harry or Kenneth Womack, in affording minor items like this such attention. If Unterberger offers a quick comment on the piece, and Vulture and Far Out include it in their listicles, well, so what ...? JG66 (talk) 03:31, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, I'm also unconvinced that it deserves a separate article, which is why I haven't cast a vote yet. It and some of the more interesting outtakes could easily be mentioned in the section on the Get Back sessions at the Let It Be album article. Pawnkingthree (talk) 13:09, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Agreed. This isn't coming across as a song like "Thinking of Linking" or "What's the New Mary Jane". It can easily be discussed in the Let It Be article. – zmbro (talk) 13:29, 26 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Delete per my copied comments above and JG's comments above. The content is so light that it can be merged into the Rupert and the Frog Song article, if needed.  Tkbrett  (✉) 13:00, 26 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep. Passes WP:SIGCOV per sources provided by Pawnkingthree. The delete votes are ignoring GNG policy. If we have multiple independent reviews and scholarly works covering this song it meets our notability threshold for inclusion.4meter4 (talk) 04:44, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
 * But it does not receive "significant coverage", more like passing mentions. All those reliable sources discuss it in the context of either the hours of improvisations, half-songs and spontaneous cover versions played during the Beatles' mostly directionless rehearsals at Twickenham in January 1969, or (as in the Vulture and Far Out listicles) the Beatles' unreleased songs circulating on bootlegs. In other words, it's nowhere on a par in terms of significant coverage with, say, "Thinking of Linking" or "Carnival of Light". And given those two contexts, the subject should be handled in a) an expanded Let It Be album article and/or (and it's something I and others have been suggesting for a while) a new article dedicated to the Beatles' 10 days at Twickenham; or b) an article or list dedicated to the band's recordings available only on bootleg collections. Those are the two areas in which the coverage allows us to approach the subject – per "Presumed" at WP:SIGCOV especially mention there that Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. The only source focusing on "The Palace of the King of the Birds" is Beatles Bible, which is not only non-RS, but also a work designed to celebrate and explore all things Beatles in exhaustive detail. Sources like that typically elevate in importance almost each and every relation or childhood friend of Lennon and McCartney, for instance, but thankfully that sort of fan-trivia approach has been addressed in part on Wikipedia – eg, Jim and Mary McCartney used to have an article here, simply for being Sir Paul's parents, but the page has since been reduced to a section at Personal relationships of Paul McCartney. It's that sort of discernment that's needed with "Palace ..." – same with "Maureen", a song that Harrison is heard playing on the same 6–7 Jan Twickenham tapes, that gets a similar level of discussion in the Unterberger and Sulpy & Schweighardt books, and that is referred to again in a Harrison biography, from memory, because of the apparent significance of Harrison later having an affair with Maureen Starkey.
 * I've started/written several new Beatles-related articles here and I've still got one or two more planned, starting with the band's last official UK concert, at the 1966 NME Poll-Winners show. But this sort elevation of "Palace ..." should be avoided, in my opinion; it has no encyclopaedic value in its own right. JG66 (talk) 04:08, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ASTIG😎  (ICE T • ICE CUBE) 14:35, 1 October 2021 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: One more relist. Needs some more time after minimal participation.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ASTIG😎  (ICE T • ICE CUBE) 15:00, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep Meets WP:GNG with sources presented by Pawnkingthree. They're reliable enough IMV. SBKSPP (talk) 02:18, 9 October 2021 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.