Abbey Road (album)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
| Abbey Road | ||
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| LP by The Beatles | ||
| Release | September 26, 1969 | |
| Recorded | Abbey Road April 20 - August 18, 1969 |
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| Genre(s) | Rock | |
| Length | 44:09 | |
| Label | Apple, Parlophone, EMI | |
| Producer | George Martin | |
| Professional reviews | ||
| The Beatles chronology | ||
 Yellow Submarine (1969) |
Abbey Road (1969) |
 Let It Be (1970) (UK) ----  Hey Jude (1970) (US) |
Abbey Road is the last-recorded, next-to-last released, and, some music critics say, greatest album by The Beatles; it was released on September 26, 1969 in the UK and October 1, 1969 in the US. It was produced and orchestrated by George Martin for Apple Records.
Contents |
Genesis of the album
After the near-disastrous sessions for the proposed Get Back album (later retitled Let It Be for release), Paul McCartney suggested to producer George Martin that the Beatles get together and make an album "just like the old days... just like we used to", free of the conflict that began with the sessions for The Beatles (aka the White Album). Martin agreed if the band would be "the way they used to be", and the final result was this album. The two album sides are quite different in character, in order to please both McCartney and John Lennon individually; side one (to please Lennon) was a collection of single tracks, while side two (to please McCartney) contained one long medley of short compositions that segued together.
Songs
John Lennon
"Come Together", the album opener, was written by Lennon originally for Timothy Leary's 1969 campaign for governor of California, and released as a double-A-side single along with Something. Lennon was later sued by Morris Levy for stealing the guitar riff and line "Here comes old flat-top" from the Chuck Berry song "You Can't Catch Me." "I Want You (She's So Heavy)", conceived in part with Yoko Ono, is a combination of two unfinished Lennon songs and at over 7 minutes long, it is the second longest released Beatles song ("Revolution 9" being the longest). It also features one of the earliest uses of a Moog synthesizer. "Because" also features a Moog synthesizer (which was played by Harrison). The chords in "Because" are based on Ludwig van Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" played backwards.
Paul McCartney
Paul's first song on the album, "Maxwell's Silver Hammer", is about a hammer-wielding murderer and was originally from the Let It Be sessions as seen in the Let It Be documentary. Before recording "Oh! Darling", McCartney sang the song many times, to get his voice to sound strained, as if he had been performing it all week.
George Harrison
"Something" was George Harrison's first A-side single with the Beatles. Originally written during the White Album sessions, the first line is based on the James Taylor song "Something in the Way She Moves." It was originally given to Joe Cocker, but then recorded by The Beatles for Abbey Road. "Something" was Lennon's favorite song on the album and Frank Sinatra's favorite love song. "Here Comes the Sun" is Harrison's second song on the album and one of his most well-known songs. It was influenced by the Cream song "Badge" (which was co-written by Harrison).
Ringo Starr
Ringo wrote and sang one song for the album, "Octopus's Garden." It was inspired when Ringo took a vacation from recording and went to the seashore. Whilst there, he composed the song, which became his most successful writing.
The Medley
The climax of the album is a sixteen-minute medley consisting of several short songs, both finished and unfinished, tagged together by McCartney. They appear on the B-side and many consider it to be the best single album side of all time. Most of these songs were written (and originally recorded in demo form) during sessions for The Beatles (also known as the White Album) and Let It Be. McCartney's "You Never Give Me Your Money" (based loosely on The Beatles' financial problems with Apple) leads off the long suite, followed by three Lennon compositions, "Sun King" (which, along with "Because" from earlier on the album, showcases Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison's overdubbed harmonies), "Mean Mr. Mustard" (written during The Beatles' trip to India), and "Polythene Pam", followed by four McCartney songs, "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window" (written after a fan came into Paul's residence literally through the bathroom window), "Golden Slumbers" (based on Thomas Dekker's 17th-century poem), "Carry That Weight" (one of the few songs to feature harmony vocals from all four Beatles), and the ironic and fitting climax, "The End", featuring the first and only Starr drum solo to make it to tape (in its original album form), as well as alternating blistering lead guitar solos from Lennon, McCartney and Harrison (an alternate version with Harrison's lead guitar solo played against Starr's drum solo appears on the Anthology 3 album).
The song "Her Majesty", tacked on the end, was originally part of the side two medley. McCartney did not like the way the medley sounded with "Her Majesty" included, so he had the medley re-edited to remove it. However, second engineer John Curlander had been instructed never to throw out anything the Beatles created, so he placed it at the end of the medley after 20 seconds of silence. The Beatles liked this seemingly random effect and left it on the album. On some versions of the LP cover, "Her Majesty" is not listed; however, it is shown on the record label. If you listen closely, you can hear the last note of "Mean Mr. Mustard" at the start, because "Her Majesty" was supposed to follow it in the medley. Some consider it to be the first true hidden track on an album.
The famous photograph
"At some point the album was going to be titled Everest, after the brand of cigarettes I used to smoke," recalls Geoff Emerick. The idea included a cover photo of The Beatles in the Himalaya, but by the time the group had to take the photo, they decided to call it Abbey Road and take the photo outside the studio on August 8, 1969. That cover photograph has since become one of the most famous and most imitated album covers in recording history. The cover also supposedly contains clues adding to the "Paul Is Dead" phenomenon: Paul is barefoot, out of step with the others, and holds a cigarette in his right hand, though he is left handed, and the car license plate "281F" supposedly referred to the fact that McCartney would be 28 years old if he was still alive. (While the "I" in "28IF" is actually a "1," it is hard to tell on the cover. As an aside, Paul was only 27 at the time of Abbey Road's release, though some take this to mean he would have been 28 "if" he had lived despite the fact that McCartney has supposedly been dead for years at this point.) The four Beatles on the album cover, according to the "Paul is Dead" myth, represent Jesus (John, long-haired and bearded, dressed in white), the Undertaker (Ringo in a black suit), the Corpse (Paul, in a suit but barefoot--like a body in a casket), and the Gravedigger (George, in jeans and a denim work shirt). The man standing on the pavement in the background is Paul Cole, an American tourist who was unaware that he was being photographed until he saw the album cover months later.
One imitation cover came with a unique tribute. Booker T. & the M.G.'s, famed soul combo, covered most of the songs on the Abbey Road in their 1969 album McLemore Avenue, named after the street address of the Stax records studio. The Red Hot Chili Peppers have also imitated the album cover, on their The Abbey Road E.P., with the band appearing nude, apart from tactfully placed socks. McCartney himself revisited the famous album cover for his live album Paul Is Live.
The photo has also made the particular zebra crossing at Abbey Road a popular tourist site, and each day visitors can be seen posing in the popular position, in spite of the fact that the road is still in normal use.
Cover versions
- One month after Abbey Road's release, George Benson recorded a cover version of the album called The Other Side of Abbey Road.
- As mentioned above, in 1970 Booker T. & the M.G.'s recorded McLemore Avenue which covered the Abbey Road songs and has a cover photo which mimiced the Abbey Road cover. Stax Records was located at McLemore Avenue.
- In 1998, Phil Collins covered the medley "Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End" for the George Martin/Beatles tribute album In My Life.
- Aerosmith has a particularly famous cover of "Come Together", recorded for the film version of The Beatles' earlier album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
- The Legendary Pink Dots covered a tiny snippet of "Here Comes the Sun" in the song "I Love You In Your Tragic Beauty".
- In addition, there is a cover of "Golden Slumbers" by Ben Folds for the "I Am Sam" soundtrack of Beatles covers.
- Elliott Smith covered the song "Because" on the "American Beauty" soundtrack.
- Tenacious D have also been known to include the "You Never Give Me Your Money" part of the medley in their live performances.
- Dream Theater covered the "Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End" medley as part of their 1988 "Xmas Demos".
- TransAtlantic also covered a large portion of the Abbey Road medley, as well as some other Beatles songs, on their Live in Europe DVD, which was released in 2003.
- Trey Anastasio has covered the medley from "Mean Mr. Mustard" through "The End" with his band 70 Volt Parade. The first performance of this took place at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom on May 13, 2005.
- Coroner covered "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" as the closing track to their 1991 album Mental Vortex.
- On their album Paul's Boutique, the Beastie Boys use the guitar and drum solo from "The End" as the background to their song "Egg Man"
Accolades
In 1997 Abbey Road was named the 12th greatest album of all time in a 'Music of the Millennium' poll conducted by HMV, Channel 4, The Guardian and Classic FM; it received the same ranking in a 1998 poll of Q magazine readers. In November 2003, it was named the 13th best album of the rock era by a Rolling Stone poll of critics, journalists, and others in the industry. Also in 2003, the TV network VH1 named it the 8th greatest album ever.
In November 2004, it was named the 14th best album by Rolling Stone.
Track listing
- All tracks written by Lennon-McCartney, except where noted.
Side one
- "Come Together" - 4:20 SAMPLE (188k)
- "Something" (Harrison) - 3:03 SAMPLE (160k)
- "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" - 3:27
- "Oh! Darling" - 3:26
- "Octopus's Garden" (Starkey) - 2:51
- "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" - 7:47
Side two
- "Here Comes the Sun" (Harrison) - 3:05 SAMPLE (162k)
- "Because" - 2:45
- "You Never Give Me Your Money" - 4:02
- "Sun King" - 2:26
- "Mean Mr. Mustard" - 1:06
- "Polythene Pam" - 1:12
- "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window" - 1:57 SAMPLE (163k)
- "Golden Slumbers" - 1:31
- "Carry That Weight" - 1:36
- "The End" - 2:19 SAMPLE (148k)
- "Her Majesty" - 0:23
- One cassette tape version in the US had "Come Together" and "Here Comes The Sun" swapped so that Harrison's composition actually opens the album. All subsequent versions (including the CD) have restored the track listing to its original order.
Release history
| Country | Date | Label | Format | Catalog |
| United Kingdom | September 26, 1969 | Apple Records | LP | PCS 7088 |
| United States | October 1, 1969 | Apple, Capitol Records | LP | SO 383 |
| Worldwide reissue | October 10, 1987 | Apple, Parlophone, EMI | CD | CDP 7 46446 2 |
| Japan | March 11, 1998 | Toshiba-EMI | CD | TOCP 51122 |
| Japan | January 21, 2004 | Toshiba-EMI | Remastered LP | TOJP 60142 |
External links
| The Beatles | ||||||
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Band members: John Lennon - Paul McCartney - George Harrison - Ringo Starr Early members: Pete Best - Stuart Sutcliffe Management: Brian Epstein - Apple Records Production: George Martin - Geoff Emerick See also: History of the Beatles - Discography - Bootlegs - Long-term influence - Beatlemania - Beatlesque - Fifth Beatle - Paul Is Dead rumours - British Invasion - Breakup - Classic rock era |
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