Abbey Road: Song by Song

Author: Marvin J Markus http://www.musicbyday.com/tag/the-beatles/

Abbey Road was the last studio album The Beatles recorded. There's some confusion over this bit of trivia because Let It Be was released in 1970 and Abbey Road was released in 1969. But Let It Be had actually already been recorded, it had just been shelved due to the band being unhappy with it. It wasn't until Abbey Road had already been recorded and released that the band hired Phil Specter to "salvage" Let It Be with his production work.

Abbey Road was a huge critical & commercial success. It remains one of The Beatles most popular albums to this day.

Abbey Road has also been critically acclaimed. For example it was ranked #14 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the top 500 albums of all time. And it's currently ranked as the 2nd best album of all time by the users of the Rate Your Music website.

Track By Track:

#1 "Come Together"

This is one of the most well known songs on the album. Complete with John Lennon's signature vocal and weird lyrics, George Harrison's great lead guitar licks, and Paul McCartney's swampy bass part that really puts the song over the edge.

It's one of The Beatles coolest sounding songs, but strangely enough - it's also one of their songs that's been ruined the most in cover versions. In fact I've never heard a cover version of "Come Together" that wasn't awful.

A disturbing bit of trivia about "Come Together" is that John Lennon is actually saying "shoot me" during the little musical breaks between the chorus and the verses. That lyric always gets to me a little bit considering Lennon's fate in 1980.

2. "Something"

"Something" is another one of the best known songs on the album. It was written and sung by George Harrison and is one of his signature songs.

Frank Sinatra once famously commented that "Something" was his favorite Lennon-McCartney song. I'm not sure if that was an insult aimed at Lennon-McCartney or if Sinatra really didn't know the song was written by George Harrison & not Lennon & McCartney.

3. "Maxwell's Silver Hammer"

A somewhat disturbingly childlike tale of a serial killer, "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" is one of The Beatles songs has both it's detractors and it's supporters. Among it's detractors was apparently John Lennon who is said to have despised the song (which was written & sung by Paul McCartney.)

The song is one of the first to feature the Moog synthesizer.

4. "Oh! Darling"

While Lennon hated McCartney's "Maxwell Silver's Hammer," he loved his "Oh! Darling." In fact he was so enamored with the song that he wanted to sing lead on it.

5. "Octopus's Garden"

Ringo sings lead on this one. He also wrote the song (with some help from George Harrison although Ringo Starr is credited as the only songwriter.) It's basically a rewrite of "Yellow Submarine" which The Beatles had recorded 3 years earlier.

6. "I Want You (She's So Heavy)"

This epic, mostly instrumental, track finishes off side one of Abbey Road in grand fashion with it's amazing white noise buildup trick which blows my mind every time I hear it.

It really features some of The Beatles most interesting innovative work musically.

7. "Here Comes The Sun"

This is another George Harrison classic which is the perfect follow up to "I Want You" in the CD/iTunes/iPod format and the perfect opener to side two in the old vinyl LP format. The song, like "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" features the Moog synthesizer.

8. "Because"

This stunning song features some of The Beatles most beautiful harmonies. Lennon, McCartney, & Harrison's vocals were triple tracked to make them sound like 9 voices.

The chords of the song were inspired by Ludwig van Beethoven's classic piano piece "Moonlight Sonata."

The song also features the Moog synthesizer.

#9 "You Never Give Me Your Money"

This was the first song of side two's medley. Some of the melodies heard in this song were echoed later in track 15 "Carry That Weight."

While the song is just the beginning of side two's medley, it's really a medley in and of itself as it contains a few very different sounding sections that sound stitched together.

#10 "Sun King"

This beautiful slow motion song features more beautiful harmonies from Lennon, McCartney, & Harrison. The song's lyrics include words from different languages, both real and imagined.

#11 "Mean Mr. Mustard"

This short Lennon ditty leads directly into the next "Polythene Pam" and mentions "his sister Pam" in the lyrics.

#12 "Polythene Pam"

"So good looking but she looks like a man." This is a great rock n roll track that clocks in barely over a minute long.

#13 "She Came In Through The Bathroom Window"

"Polythene Pam" segues smoothly into this song which starts off with it's title as the first lyric. It's one of my favorite songs on the album.

#14 "Golden Slumbers"

The lyrics to this song were actually taken from a 17th century poem by Thomas Dekker. But the music was composed by Paul McCartney.

#15 "Carry That Weight"

The chorus of this song features all four Beatles. One part of the song references the melody/lyrics from "You Never Give Me Your Money."

#16 "The End"

Features a drum solo by Ringo Starr (the only drum solo on any Beatles song) and short lead guitar solos by McCartney, Harrison, and Lennon - one after the other, in that order. They go through that sequence twice before the final "And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make."

#17 "Her Majesty"

This 23 second acoustic guitar ditty by Paul McCartney was originally intended to go between "Mean Mr. Mustard" & "Polythene Pam" but they had decided to leave it off the album. It was actually tacked on to the album at the end by sound engineer by mistake, but The Beatles decided they liked the mistake and left it on the album.

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