30: Abbey Road
Posted on | July 25, 2009 | 3 Comments
When fishing for Beatles-related Blogathon topics, someone on Tumblr asked me to write about my favorite Beatles album and why it’s my favorite.
My favorite Beatles album is, hands down, Abbey Road. It’s a little difficult for me to explain why, though, without just screaming “medley!” over and over again.
But let’s get to basics, first. The album opens with pure Lennon. It houses two of George Harrison’s three best Beatles compositions. Oh Darling! is a great track, and I am a humongous fan of I Want You (She’s So Heavy). The stuff is so good that even Maxwell’s Silver Hammer doesn’t ruin it!
Then comes Because. Some people claim it’s a part of the medley, some say it’s wholly separate. I call it a prelude. You Never Give Me Your Money is where it really starts for me.
Every time I hear the Abbey Road medley, I’m transported back to the first time I ever heard it. Sitting there in my little tiny dorm room at 17, the album already had me hooked. You Never Give Me Your Money is just an awesome song, period. Then there’s the calm of Sun King, followed up by the raucousnes of Mean Mr. Mustard and Polythene Pam. But wait, what’s happening here? It’s like all of these songs are connected! They all have their own tracks on the CD, but some bleed into each other. What’s going on? Are they doing this on purpose? I think they are, but I’m not really sure what’s happening . . .
And then, after the general excellence that is both She Came in Through the Bathroom Window and Golden Slumbers, it happens. Carry That Weight, and the horns reprising You Never Give Me Your Money start up. And I realized that it was on purpose, and this is all one giant piece, and got the general feeling that I was listening to the most awesome piece of music ever created. Every time I listen to the medley, and those horns come in, I still get a little chill that goes up my spine.
And then there’s The End. That’s it right there, isn’t it? The perfect end to the Beatles’ miraculous career. Abbey Road is the final Beatles album. It was the last recorded, it was intended to be their swan song. It pissses me off like nobody’s business that Let It Be is always treated as the last Beatles album, that Abbey Road gets squished out of its rightful place, and that, barring the pointlessness of Her Majesty, they aren’t usually seen as signing off as it was intended, with their final words of wisdom:
And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.
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3 Responses to “30: Abbey Road”
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July 26th, 2009 @ 12:13 am
The medleys are pretty amazing…every time I listen to the album, I think “Damn – this is beautiful”.
Oh! Darling is one of my all-time favorite Beatles songs. It’s so simple, but so…emotional, so urgent. And I’m a sucker for the screamy-singing
July 26th, 2009 @ 12:23 am
Ahhh! I love it. This is hands down my favorite too. I have a tattoo on my back. That medley…I swear it was amazing first time. Heard it 3 times through….just amazed. Gonna go listen to abbey road now. Thanks!
July 26th, 2009 @ 12:27 am
I used to make mix tapes for myself, and I did one of which I am still especially proud….because it was not common practice to physically edit cassette tapes to achieve what I did. One had to be lightning-quick with the pause button or risk failure.
“I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” ends, of course, in the middle of a crescendo of white noise, as John had the physical tape cut at that point. “Fly Like An Eagle”, by The Steve Miller Band, starts with a similar white noise blanket. On one mix tape, I butted the two together.
It was striking, odd, and pleasant; the heavy guitar stopped but the white noise carried on, empty, until the Miller guitar lead kicked in to open “Fly Like An Eagle”.