"The group (The Beatles) should get together and make an album 'the way we used to do it'" - Paul McCartney
Now to this critically-revered album. The Beatles "final album" that wasn't and for many their best.
After the tense, fractious recording sessions that resulted in the rejection of the material subsequently used on the Let It Be album that would be released the following year, The Beatles decided to give it one more try and “get back to recording like they used to do” i.e. having a modicum of fun while doing it, as opposed to sniping, griping and often engaging in full-on confrontation. To a certain extent it worked, to another extent it didn’t.
For example, John Lennon was said to have had no time for the “side two” pastiche of short, unfinished tracks running together that is now revered as a work of genius. He felt the songs were too short and incomplete and the whole effect was somewhat half baked. I have to say I agree with him. The reason it works in retrospect is because we are all used to those songs and how they run into each other and we know it back to front, therefore we like it. However, I have always been frustrated by the fact that the songs finish just as I am starting to enjoy them. I have to say that I would have preferred to have listened to all the songs in a much fuller longer version. Just imagine Mean Mr Mustard, Polythene Pam or, particularly, Sun King as fuller, lengthier songs. Why, they may have had a different bridge in the middle of them, or different verses, or guitar solos. An intriguing thought.
Lennon also, apparently, wanted one side to be comprised of his own songs, and another side of McCartney’s songs. This is not surprising as so many of their albums had songs which were clearly being from one or other of the song writers, as opposed to dual efforts. The writing credit of “Lennon-McCartney” had long since ceased to be relevant, let’s be honest. On the other hand, though, he had also said he wanted the songs to be mixed around, “chocolate box” style, as they always had been, so he was a bit mixed up as to what he wanted. Then, of course, there was the constant presence of Yoko Ono in the studio.
So, what songs did these sessions result in?
Lennon’s opener, Come Together, with its "here come old flat top" lyric borrowed from Chuck Berry’s You Can’t Catch Me and his own I Am The Walrus-style “ju ju eyeball” stuff was a shuffling, rhythmic, Southern States bluesy number that perfectly summed up the weirdness of the times and also the sexual freedoms hinted at, saucily, in the title “come together, right now, over me”, like something from a hippy orgy.
George Harrison’s now timeless classic, Something, was arguably his finest song, ironically originally written for Joe Cocker. With beautiful lyrics and melody, it was a stunning love song, covered by many, many artists, including Frank Sinatra, who famously and erroneously credited it to Lennon and McCartney.
The same plaudits cannot be given to Maxwell's Silver Hammer, however, a thoroughly bizarre song that supposedly fitted McCartney's penchant for writing “songs for grannies” in its delivery and twee melody, yet it had dark lyrics about a man murdering a woman by bludgeoning her with his silver hammer. Just very, very odd indeed. Maybe The Beatles' oddest song, and that includes I Am The Walrus.
McCartney’s Oh! Darling was a 50s style rock 'n' roll ballad, a song that Lennon would have appreciated, albeit seven years or so earlier. It sits a little uncomfortably on the album, to be honest. The less said about Ringo Starr’s Octopus's Garden the better, so I won’t.
True to its title, I Want You (She's So Heavy) was possibly the most credible and heavy “rock” number The Beatles ever did. A mix of “progressive rock” progressions and changes and blues chords, it was a lengthy pleasure to those of us who wanted The Beatles to actually sound like a proper rock band for once. It was the last ever track the group would record in the studio with all of them playing together. Perhaps aptly, it ended abruptly, as indeed did The Beatles.
Another George song that became an all-time classic. Here Comes The Sun is impossibly catchy and summery. Everybody loves it and rightly so. Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel had a fine hit with it in 1976. Because is a convincing love song from Lennon to Yoko and is the last full song on the album before the “medley”. It starts with the most fully realised track, McCartney’s plaintive rocker You Never Give Me Your Money, which was almost a full track, to be honest. It possibly should have stood alone.
Sun King was melodic and appealing, with definite airs of Fleetwood Mac's Albatross and Lennon singing in cod-Spanish near the end, while Mean Mr. Mustard found John griping at a "mean old man".. God knows what Polythene Pam was about, but it rocks (albeit briefly). These last two tracks definitely would have benefitted from being longer.
Although She Came In Through The Bathroom Window was said to be a McCartney song, it is so Lennon-esque. Golden Slumbers was the medley's most beautiful moment, by far. Again, it should have gone on much longer. Although the medley functions well, and we all are familiar with its flow, I would much have preferred all the songs to be fully-formed. They were all good enough to justify lengthening. Carry That Weight was the singalong conclusion to Golden Slumbers that morphed into The End, featuring The Beatles' only drum solo and McCartney's moving "the love you make" sign-off.
Her Majesty was just plain silly, wasn't it? It also has to be mentioned that the album ended on a throwaway piece of "wittiness" here, the sort of thing The Beatles could never resist doing and something that always damaged their credibility, for me. Cut the "funny" asides and just fucking well rock, for God's sake.
To reiterate what I was saying earlier regarding the medley. They all run perfectly well in to each other, I have to admit. So, to want them in longer versions is a bit churlish, because we all pretty much love them the way they were presented, but it is something that has always given me food for thought - "what if Abbey Road's "Medley songs" had been longer? A bit like what if Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska songs had been full band versions? What if Another Side Of Bob Dylan had been electric? Music always throws up plenty of "what ifs".
So, "and in the end", that was it, in effect the final Beatles album. As I said, the medley side worked because everybody became familiar with it. It is what it is. It is unique and most appealing for it. It makes Abbey Road a different and special album. Considering the circumstances and prevalent feelings from the time it was recorded it is remarkable that it was so good. For that we should be grateful but it is still, for me, a bit of an odd album of bits and pieces from disparate composers. Despite what many, many people have said over many, many years I don't believe it to be a work of genius, just a happy string of coincidences - a time and a place.
The 2019 Remix, overseen, as with Sgt Pepper and The White Album, by George Martin's son, Giles Martin is, like the previous two, an improvement but not something that makes the album sound outstandingly different from its original. This is a good thing. What it does give you, however, is a fuller, warmer sound, particularly on Paul McCartney's bass lines and Ringo Starr's impressive drums. It is just a more substantial sound, for me. I do not want to hear a familiar album changed out of hand, but a bulking out of the sound is fine by me but I accept that others may not agree, and I understand why.
The Super Deluxe Edition also contains some nice, bassy, rocking alternative versions of non-album tracks like The Ballad Of John And Yoko and Old Brown Shoe, a storming I Want You (She's So Heavy), (once they get going) and some of the tracks from the medley are considerably beefed-up too. As I have said many times, I much prefer The Beatles when they showed that they could actually rock. You Never Give Me Your Money is given extended sonic gravitas here too. Something is nice to hear in stripped back acoustic style but I do prefer the lushness of the eventual version.
Anthology 3 also contains an excellent, almost funky version of She Came In Through The Bathroom Window featuring some fine wah-wah guitar. I wish they had included this on the final album.
There are also impressive alternative versions of Oh Darling and Here Comes The Sun and the later to be Badfinger hit Come And Get It as well as The Long One, which was the first version of the medley. It puts Her Majesty, incongruously, in the middle. I prefer the eventual version, which was far more cohesive.
