Happy 40th Birthday, Abbey Road!

The last few weeks have witnessed a deluge of Beatle related media interest, and little wonder given that Apple Corps, the company set up by the Beatles 1967, finally got around to digitally re-mastering the bands entire catalogue, and that the band themselves have become video game stars.
Surely, many people must be asking; “Won’t the Beatles just go away?” seemingly not.
In fact such has been the success of Apple Corps under the captain-ship of the late Neil Aspinall, these days ‘The Beatles’ are as much brand as they are band. However, before we close the Beatle scrapbook on a year which began with the 40th anniversary of the Apple rooftop gig, the last time the band performed together in public, there is one more anniversary of note; September 26th sees the 40th anniversary of the release of the Beatles last recorded studio album, Abbey Road.
The final Beatles album is a conundrum in itself. The album belies the relationships between the band members at the time; written and recorded amidst arguably popular music’s most bitter and vicious of divorce proceedings. How then, does the record look and sound so fresh and positive, so effervescent? The answer according to the legend is simple; the collective knowledge that this was the final curtain, allowed the band to put the daggers down and ‘get back’ to what they truly did best, making music. For a little while, business meetings, publishing squabbles, and managerial contracts were forgotten; no punches would be thrown at each other, or each others wives, and any bricks that would soon be thrown through each others living room windows were placed, temporarily, back into the boots of cars.
The recent 40th anniversary of Iain Macmillan’s famous photograph gracing the cover of the album reminds us that there are actually two ‘Abbey Road’s’; the songs and the album cover itself. Possibly more iconic than the Sgt Pepper’s album cover two years previously, the image of the four Beatles on a zebra crossing has received homage from artists such as Booker T and The MG’s, The Red Hot Chill Peppers, Phil Collins, Paul McCartney himself, as well as Sponge Bob Square Pants and The Simpsons.
The album packaging adds greatly to the evident optimism reflected on the songs within, and yet at the same time offers some suggestive pictorial evidence of the end itself for the group. Much has been written about the cover photograph, such as the four walking away from Abbey Road Studios (then called EMI Studios, and renamed after the release of the album) perhaps representing the bands finale. Indeed if we were to borrow some fanciful observations from the ‘Paul is dead’ believers, we could even discern that the dress code of all four members, John – Minister, Ringo – Undertaker, Paul – Deceased, George – Gravedigger, represents a funeral not for the supposedly dead McCartney, but rather for the band itself.
One thing that is evident about this record is its refusal to date; unlike the psychedelic rock sounds of Revolver or Sgt Peppers, these songs don’t fit as easily into the context of the Beatles ‘1960’s sound’, they sound different, more tightly constructed, with a glossy production which leaps out of the speakers, even after 40 years.
Lennon’s opener ‘Come Together’ is an exhilarating rocker, featuring his trade mark Lewis Carroll influenced, nonsense-verse styled lyrics. During the opening bars, and the verse restarts, Lennon can clearly be heard whispering ‘Shoot Me’ behind the drum and bass parts. Although possibly a reference to his heroin habit, perhaps he had premonitions of his own fate. The previous year he recorded a track on the ‘White Album’ with a chorus exclaiming ‘Happiness is a Warm Gun (Bang Bang, Shoot Shoot), and during his last interview on December 8th 1980, only hours before his death, he was asked, “How do you think you’ll go?”, to which he replied; “I’ll probably be popped off by some loony”. The individual performances by all four are dazzling. McCartney’s effortlessly cool bass sliding up the fret board, the perfect partner to Starr's busy hi-hat and tom-tom phrases, his drums sounding louder and more refined than on any previous Beatle recording. During the Playboy interviews of 1980, Lennon positively beamed with pride; “It’s my favourite Beatles [Lennon] track… […]…I’d buy it.”
Track two is Harrisons magnum opus; ‘Something’. Conceded to be the best song on the album by Lennon, heralded as the greatest love song ever written by Frank Sinatra, and covered by greats such as; Smokey Robinson, James Brown, Tony Bennet, Ray Charles, Elvis Presley and Sinatra himself among others, Harrison had finally stepped out of the shadow of Lennon-McCartney. Rumoured to have been written about his failing relationship with his wife, the actress and model Pattie Boyd (about whom his friend Eric Clapton would later write ‘Layla’ and ‘Wonderful Tonight’) ‘Something’ is a beautiful love song, swaying from sighs of resignation to the optimism and hope of the dramatic and upbeat middle eighth; “You're asking me will my love grow?”, “I don’t know, I don’t know” Harrison screams in response. The middle eighth takes off, and floats majestically into Harrison’s tender guitar solo, augmented by rousing strings, before being brought back to earth gently for the final reprise of Harrison’s dilemma. Again, the musicianship is magnificent. McCartney’s bass is more lead guitar than bottom backing, adding significantly to the mood of the song. Starr’s drumming is inspired, with just the right amount of expressive fills, nothing overdone. While Harrison’s solo is his finest to grace a Beatle track. His first Beatles ‘A’ side, the track won him an Ivor Novello award, and hit the number one spot in America, although it only peaked at number four in his native Britain. The lyric “He shoot Coca-Cola” on the single's other A-side (the aforementioned ‘Come Together’) earned it a BBC ban for inappropriate product-placement.
McCartney’s first track on the album, according to the running order, is a hit and miss affair. ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ tried the group's collective patience during the Let it Be sessions, with McCartney’s fastidious attempts at perfecting, what the others deemed a joke track. Indeed McCartney’s snigger during the “...Writing fifty times...” line is allegedly the result of Lennon mooning him from the control room. That said, rivals must have looked on with envy. It’s a measure of the group’s talent and diversity when a track viewed by the majority of the band as a mere annoyance could still be so insanely catchy.
McCartney gets down to business proper with ‘Oh Darling’, a noisy little rocker in the style of a fifties doo wop classic. Complete with trade mark harmonies, wild piano and some nifty chaos on the drums from Starr, ‘Oh Darling’ allowed McCartney to roll out his ‘Little Richard’ voice once more. His vocal is without doubt the most impressive on the album. Is McCartney declaring dependence on his new wife, or is his ‘Darling’ the group he’s been with for the past thirteen years and can’t fathom life without? The lyric “If you leave me, I’ll never make it alone” seems to provide an uncanny prophecy. Its author suffered a bout of deep and dark depression following the group’s demise.
‘Octopus’s Garden’ has more depth and sincerity than is initially obvious. One of Starr's rare compositions, the song has some interesting drumming, pretty jangly guitar from Lennon, and more than enough country and blues styled guitar parts thrown in from George to allow it to hold its own. With its meaning described as ‘cosmic’ and ‘peaceful’ by Harrison, are the lyrics a subconscious attempt at wishing away the troubles? ‘We could be warm, below the storm’. Despite its light and disposable vibe, the sound effects constructed to make the backing vocals sound submerged are pure inspiration.
‘I Want You (She’s so heavy)’, a dark and noisy affair only Lennon could produce, provides, along with ‘Come Together’, the perfect counterweight to the rest of the albums material and saves it from sounding lightweight or banal. To quote George Martin, “John was the vinegar to Paul’s virgin olive oil”. The track could be interpreted as an extension of his desperate pleas for Ono to reciprocate his love and devotion, which he first set forth in ‘Don’t Let Me Down’.
The second of Harrison’s two tracks on the album is the joyously optimistic ‘Here Comes the Sun’. Where ‘Something’ is bitter-sweet and downbeat with a flurry of optimism, ‘Here Comes the Sun’ is unashamedly prophetic and optimistic. Unfortunately, the bright message of ‘its [going to be] alright’ is aimed not at the band, but at the authors future beyond the Beatles. This is indeed an assertion of independence and optimism from a man who when once asked what it was like to be a Beatle, replied; “I don’t know, what’s it like not being a Beatle?”
Starr again provides some song-saving drumming, providing the glue on the daring middle eighth and gelling incredibly well with handclaps to land the track back down perfectly in time for the last verse. Harrison’s moog synthesizer and up front acoustic guitar help to pull this record sonically out if its sixties context and, ‘All You Need Is Love aside, little else in the Beatles catalogue can match this for sheer positivity.
The very last track recorded for Abbey Road, and the last track the four Beatles ever recorded together was Lennon’s ‘Because’, a surreal trip through stirring images of nature, which sounds as much the work of Yoko Ono as it does her husband. Nine voices in all make up the complex harmony which Lennon/McCartney/Harrison all admired in retrospect, and are accompanied by a harpsichord, guitar and synthesiser playing the reverse chords of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata.
In ‘You Never Give Me Your Money’, McCartney is the first to broach the painful issues confronting the band. The track, more suite than song, meanders (not unlike ‘Something’) from resigned sadness and dissatisfaction to relief and optimism; ‘Oh that magic feeling, nowhere to go’, ‘One sweet dream came true today’, and ‘Step on the gas and wipe that tear away’. McCartney was admitting defeat and facing a future without his pals. The song begins the final ‘long medley’ that winds up the album, although not before running through multiple styles and going out with a loud bang. Lennon’s ‘Sun King’, toys with Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Albatross’, while throwing more images of happiness and high spirits into the overall mix, before fading into ‘Mean Mr Mustard’; and the record is off on the home straight.
Mean Mr Mustard is a throwback to the tongue and cheek pop that made Sgt Pepper’s great which plods along carelessly before bursting into the huge acoustic chords of ‘Polythene Pam’. Lennon reverts to the very thick scouse accent his Aunt Mimi tried so hard to knock out of him, while the drums, bass and acoustic guitars all collide perfectly to make for a chaotic and thunderous romp through the bands working class days in Liverpool, complete with Yeah, Yeah Yeah’s stolen from ‘She Loves You’, a throwback to fresh faced days of innocence. Seamless and a pure joy are the meeting of ‘Polythene Pam’ and ‘She Came in Through the Bathroom Window’, another electrifying rocker and the subject of sneaky kleptomaniac female fans, who’ll stop at nothing for a piece of McCartney.
‘Golden Slumbers’ announces intermission with a gentle piano and vocal intro by McCartney, putting his own melody to a seventeenth century nursery rhyme. Starr’s bursting drums pave the way for one of McCartney’s most emotional and hair raising vocals yet; before Starr’s continual pounding drops us into ‘Carry That Weight’, complete with a reprise of ‘You Never Give Me Your Money’. In ‘Carry That Weight’ a group chorus declares that whatever they do from here on as individuals, they are all going to ‘carry that weight’ of being Beatles with them forever, nothing they do as solo artists will eclipse their careers over the past seven years.
This is it, ‘The End’, time for one last jam; Starr breaks his own rule and finally commits a loud and raucous drum solo to tape, his lead is picked up by his band mates who each slam their way through three, two-bar guitar solos’ in rotating order of McCartney-Harrison-Lennon in a heavy rock ’n’ roll crescendo (which is surely the inspiration for the end sequence of the Stone Rose’s ‘I am the Resurrection’) echoing their roots, before finally winding it all up with a little ‘Beatles’ wisdom; “and in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make”, pretty simple really.
McCartney’s previously discarded segment, ‘Her Majesty’ makes a comeback from the cutting room floor, echoing Lennon’s two fingered salute to the British establishment six years earlier, and thus, after opening the Beatles recording career with the energetic ‘1-2-3-FAW!’ of ‘I Saw Her Standing There’, McCartney bookends the Beatles career on tape…or does he? Less than one year later, ‘Let it Be’, the album he would come to detest was released, and the last track on side two fades out with John Lennon getting the last word; “I’d like to thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves, and I hope we passed the audition”
Abbey Road might not be the best album by the best band of all time, but it’s certainly in the top three. The albums pioneering of 16 track recording consoles, synthesisers, compressors, and limiters opened the door for the recording of ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ and subsequently the birth of prog rock, and without its bright and positive character the Beatles career might have ended on the more gloomy and chaotic ‘Let it Be’.
If you have the album, play it loud this September 26th. If you don’t have it go out and buy it, It’s essential listening.
Happy 40th birthday, Abbey Road