The Beatles - Abbey Road
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Free Music Notes for Abbey Road
Free Music Review: Abbey Road
Hit: 5 Stars
ESSENTIAL ALBUM!!! One of rock's greatest albums by the Fab Four. It's one of my personal favorites & it's a rare thing when I don't play it. The album hit #1 on the charts & deservedly so. Without a weak moment, this album flows from beginning to end; the Beatles once again proving their prowess in the studio. This was actually the last album that the Beatles recorded but, due to the untimely disappearance of Phil Spector, Let It Be was the last album released.
Abbey Road had two incredible hits released from it, "Come Together" which topped the charts #1 & "Something" which peaked at #3 (what???). Somewhat of a surprise was that wasn't a McCartney penned tune released as a single, though Sir Paul tried everything he could to get "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" released as one. But, let's face it, as light as the song sounds, mass murderers isn't great subject manner for lyrics. "Oh! Darling" was the song that should have released as a single. It's in 6/8 time & is a kind of throwback to old rock 'n' roll. McCartney's vocals on this song are some of the grittiest he ever recorded. "Oh! Darling" was one of the best album tracks on any Beatles album. "Octopus's Garden", written by Ringo, is non-essential. Then, what was side 1 on the vinyl record, closed with Lennon's "I Want You (She's So Heavy)", a great bluesy riff & solid vocals makes this a must-hear song. With it's heavy riff-laden slow fadeout makes it a perfect song ending that side of the record. This part of the album was a concession to Lennon's desires to record a straight ahead rock album.
The other side of that coin is that side two was to be McCartney's side with his desire to make a more continuous rock-suite, this didn't quite happen but many of the songs do segue from one to the next. This side began with Harrison's "Here Comes the Sun". It's one of his best songs & could have been released as a single. "Because" is a slow song with a lot of three part harmony. It's some of their best harmony work ever recorded. It's amazing in light of the fact that when each one recorded his vocal, the other two weren't even present. The proper part of the rock suite begins with "You Never Give Me Your Money". This theme would recur on a later song on Abbey Road; this is where McCartney began incorporating this idea into his music, he would use it time & again in his solo recordings. "Sun King" follows next & was originally titled "Here Comes the Sun King", Lennon used some faux foreign language words to give it the feel that he wanted. Two more Lennon fragments follow, "Mean Mr. Mustard" & "Polythene Pam". Both have humorous lyrics, the latter one I found to be very comical. Lennon was a master of lyrics, able to be humorous & insightful at the same time. A McCartney song is next, "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window", it's a nonsensical title but the line "she could steal but she could not rob" is a classic. "Golden Slumbers" is a beautiful McCartney composition though he did nick some of the lyrics from a 400 year old poem by Thomas Dekker. "Carry That Weight" follow & is a great singalong, the musical & lyrical theme from "You Never Give Me Your Money" is repeated here. What was listed as the final song in the initial Abbey Road release is "The End". The title is a prophetical one & one of the most adventurous things they ever did. We get a short drum solo from Ringo, the only one that was recorded, there's an incredible three guitar lead where McCartney, Lennon & Harrison take turns playing their riffs, then we get to the slow ending. Lennon commented on the line written by McCartney, "the love you take is equal to the love you make", Lennon thought that was one of the best lyrics that McCartney ever wrote. This is all followed by "Her Majesty" the shortest Beatles song recorded. It was really a throwaway but was saved by an engineer & spliced on to the end of "The End" because it had been instructed to never throw away anything that had been recorded.
Unless you're from somewhere else (say, a galaxy far, far away) then you've heard this album. One of the most creative pieces of music in the annals of rock 'n' roll!
Free Music Review: Had it before, got it again
Hit: 5 Stars
I had originally lost this album, sometime after my 12th birthday, so I bought it again 10 years later because I realized that it was ranked near the top in my list of Favorite Beatles Albums.Free Music Review: The greatest farewell album from a band in rock and roll history hands down
Hit: 5 Stars
The Beatles' swan song Abbey Road was released in October of 1969.
The album was recorded at a time of great turmoil in the band as guitarist John Lennon was fighting a crippling heroin addiction and wanted to make avant-garde music with his then new wife Yoko Ono. As a result, bass player Paul McCartney takes command and the result, and arguably the band's greatest triumph.
Abbey Road starts with John's "Come Together" which is a great rocker. Lead guitarist George Harrison's "Something" follows and was the huge hit from the album and is a classic even today. Paul strikes twice with the humorous "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" and the ballad "Oh Darling". Drummer Ringo Starr turns up some comic relief with "Octopus' Garden" before the first half ends with Lennon's epic "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" which is a heady piece of music (even if you are not on drugs, especially the ending).
George's classic "Here Comes the Sun" kicks off the album's second half before going into the harmony induced "Because". Paul's "You Never Give Me Your Money" follows and is a great rocker. Next is three great short songs from John which were the surreal "Sun King", the funny "Mean Mr Mustard" and "Polythene Pam" before giving way to Paul's "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window". The "Golden Slumbers"/"Carry That Weight"/"The End" medley is the greatest album closer ever and was Paul's baby. The "Her Majesty" was thrown in at album's end as a curveball.
Today, this album is the second best selling Beatles single length disc while The White Album is technically the best seller and for good reason, the songs work well together.
Abbey Road went to #1 like every other album.
No wonder Paul, George and Ringo love this album while Lennon hated it for reasons I can't fathom why.
I have gone through copies of this album since first buying this in May of 1995.
Highly recommended!
Free Music Review: My favourite Beatles album
Hit: 5 Stars
I've been an avid fan of the Beatles for 20 years, and this is my favourite album. George Harrison really shines on it. You Never Give Me Your Money - Th End sequence is just sheer brilliance. Golden Slumbers still makes me cry every time I listen to it - even though it says "do not cry" :-)Free Music Review: Q: Why Did The Beatles Cross The Road?
Hit: 5 Stars
(A: Because the Himalayas were too far away.)
Abbey Road was the last album Beatles made before their breakup, but it was my introduction to their music, not to mention the first real pop record I can remember digging out of my parents meager vinyl collection. Probably it's nostalgia that makes it my favorite, but heck if the hair on the back of my neck doesn't stand at attention after all these years when I drop the needle and John whispers "shoot me" and the bass peaks and slides down that cascading tom fill. Don't even bother listening to any cover versions of Come Together. None comes close to the exhalation of pure swamp mojo that permeates the original.
And that sums up what I love about Abbey Road. It's the Beatles album that showcases the refined outcome of nearly a decade of constant adventures in arrangement and instrumental sound and style on the part of both the group and their production team. It's a studio album that's named after a studio, with a literally pedestrian front cover and a blurry back shot of a woman's bum passing swiftly by -- no time left for pretension or wild experimentation, just final statements to made (and a bit of fun to be had) before the members got on with their separate lives. The sense of closure and movement is palpable.
Listen for George's aching slide solos against John's garage blues rhythm guitar, for Paul's inventive and melodic bass work played with a tone like an engine warming, for Ringo's ability to guide the listener through the wild tempo and meter changes in the medley without making us feel like we've entered the land of Prog. Listen for how George Martin takes a brand new instrument, the Moog modular synth, and threads it naturally into the mix (those rising and brightening layers of texture on the repeated refrain "Sun, sun, sun, here it comes" in Here Comes The Sun are all Moog), and to the intricacy of his string arrangement on the verse of Golden Slumbers.
The best pure songwriting belongs to Harrison, who outdid himself with Something (my millennium pick for "most inspired and unforced use of key change on a bridge") and Here Comes the Sun, though Come Together and You Never Give Me Your Money come in as close seconds, and the only real clinker for me is Maxwell's Silver Hammer.
Lyrically, the half-described characters in the medley are intriguing: Lennon's sneering pictures from the fringe - a ne'er-do-well in his fifties heckling the royal family at a parade, the body-suited poster-girl/boy for London's growing freak scene - sit across from McCartney's struggling working squares in She Came in through the Bathroom Window. And the buildup of The End contains the one sensible piece of advice in the band's notoriously preachy catalog. "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make." A realistic equation to ride out on, after each member has shed their studio polish and left the stage with a jubilant rawk solo from the old Hamburg days and the screen is fading out in a sunset wash of strings and guitar.
And then there's Her Majesty. A beautiful little accident. A reminder that somewhere, someone is still strumming an acoustic guitar and hatching a plot to get drunk and kiss the queen. The tape runs out and the door closes.