The Beatles' Abbey Road

It was 50 years ago today! The Beatles released Abbey Road on this day in 1969 in the UK. (It was released in the US a few days later, October 1.)

A new version of Abbey Road is supposed to come out tomorrow, and I'm looking forward to it after listening to the revelatory remixes of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and the White Album by George Martin's son Giles, who's made even the 2009 remasters of those albums sound like demo tapes by comparison.

Abbey Road was the last studio album the band ever recorded, although it was released before Let It Be. Abbey Road was such a great breakthrough for the Beatles that it's shocking to think they had already privately broken up by the time it was released. Beatles fans will always disagree over what's their best album, but Abbey Road is a strong contender. Better production techniques make it the best-sounding Beatles record — the only one that feels like it could have come out in the middle of the '70s. There's a new warmth and richness to the guitar tones.

George Harrison reached his songwriting peak on Abbey Road. That he was still limited to his usual 2 songs per album only highlighted that he was no longer a "third" songwriter but a true equal to John Lennon and Paul McCartney; his songs were "Something" and "Here Comes the Sun." George's memorable guitar solo on "Something" is the instrumental part of the song that's most often commented on, but Paul's bass line throughout the song was also vital, almost a counterpoint to the singing. It was George's first and only song on a Beatles single that wasn't just a B-side: "Something" was released with John's "Come Together" as a double "single," which went #1 in the US and other countries.




"Come Together" starts the album on a dark note, with the band sounding united as they play a primal, minimalistic hook that fuses guitars, bass, and drums; every instrument feels essential, especially Ringo's repeated fill. Eerily, John starts each repetition of the hook by saying: "Shoot me!"

How many albums are so full of great songs with so little filler? "Oh! Darling" takes the style of Fats Domino but goes further, with wonderful screaming by Paul and drumming by Ringo.




"I Want You (She's So Heavy)" is by John, who gives up his typical verbosity and sings the title of the song and just a few other words over and over, out of a seemingly obsessive craving. The song builds up a massive wall of guitars playing an epic, Led Zeppelin-like riff that feels like it could go on forever until it's suddenly interrupted by a song that could hardly be more different: "Here Comes the Sun."




The meditative "Because" has John, Paul, and George singing every line together. John said he was listening to his wife, Yoko Ono, playing Beethoven's "Moonlight" Sonata, asked her to play the chords backwards, and then wrote "Because" around that. The actual chords to "Because" aren't the same as the Moonlight Sonata's first movement played backwards or forwards, but you can still feel how the spirit of Beethoven touched Lennon. [ADDED: My mom, Ann Althouse, remembers listening to Abbey Road, especially "Because," with my dad.]




The famous "Abbey Road medley" starts out with one of the Beatles' most underrated songs: "You Never Give Me Your Money," which is like a little medley in itself, going from Paul singing the title alone at the piano, to old-school rock with a honky-tonk piano and lyrics of economic struggle ("Out of college, money spent, see no future, pay no rent…"), to a slower and more poignant section ("But oh, that magic feeling, nowhere to go…"), to a guitar solo by George that kicks things into a higher gear, goes through multiple key changes, and leads to a more energized Paul: "One sweet dream! Pick up the bags, get in the limousine!" What comes next, when the major key briefly switches to a quieter minor passage, is to me one of the most subtly emotional moments in the whole Beatles' oeuvre, and it's all the more moving for being so fleeting: "Soon we'll be away from here. Step on the gas, and wipe that tear away."




The end of the Abbey Road medley is … "The End," which starts out sounding like a hard rock song by Paul, but turns into a showcase for every band member: first a drum solo (the only time the usually unpretentious Ringo ever played one in a Beatles song), followed by dueling guitar solos by the other 3. Then, with the same abruptness as the switch from "She's So Heavy" to "Here Comes the Sun," hard rock gives way to musical theater, and the Beatles close out the album with a gorgeously orchestrated aphorism that seems to sum up a whole band based on the idea of love.

Abbey Road is an early example of an album with an unlisted "hidden" song at the end: "Her Majesty," performed only by Paul. It was supposed to go in the medley, after "Mean Mr. Mustard," but Paul was unsatisfied with his song and decided against it. The Beatles later heard the album with "Her Majesty" tacked on at the end, ending on the unresolved note that was supposed to segue into "Polythene Pam," because a studio engineer didn't know where else to put the song. The Beatles liked this effect, so they left the album that way — flawed and yet perfect.

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

It was 50 years ago today!

The Beatles released their seminal concept album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, on June 1, 1967. (Well, that's what many sources say, although Wikipedia says it was released on May 26 in the UK and June 2 in the US.)

Comments on some of my favorite songs from the album:

“With a Little Help From My Friends” has one of my favorite bass lines ever. Part of what’s great about it is that it’s so simple, so easy to play. This band wasn’t about showing off the individual members' ability to play their instruments; it was about them coming together to bring us a seemingly endless stream of ideas (musical and otherwise), and allowing us to bring our minds in tune with theirs. Ringo Starr gave what many would call his finest vocal performances on this song; his usually modest baritone suddenly switches to a triumphantly soaring tenor high note at the end. One nice thing about Beatles songs sung by Ringo is that he had great backing vocalists in John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

“She’s Leaving Home” might seem overly sentimental or corny, but I don't mind that. The lyrics are wonderfully detailed; someone (I forget who) remarked that you don't normally hear the word "clutching" on a rock album. I love the interaction between Paul and John in the chorus, representing the main character's mother and father, respectively: Paul sings the title in falsetto, while John adds his distraught questions/comments in a lower register. I also love how a line that would seem prosaic on paper, “Waiting to keep the appointment she made,” becomes wound up with an exciting sense of possibilities as a result of the quivering vibrato of the strings. (Unusually for the Beatles, the orchestral instrumentation was arranged not by George Martin but by Mike Leander.) The wordplay of the father's hapless line, "We gave her everything money could buy/Bye bye," brings back the theme of the early Beatles hit "Can't Buy Me Love," while showing how much the band has matured.

"Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" is a strange John song based on a 19th-century poster, which switches midway into a waltz overlaid with kaleidoscopic calliope music, thanks to George Martin carrying out John's instructions to conjure up a circus so vividly you can “smell the sawdust.”

The album's only song by George Harrison, “Within You Without You," is the spiritual centerpiece of the album — a beautiful merger of Indian and Western classical music. (Cultural appropriation? Yes please!)




After the reprise of the album's title song, which would feel to someone hearing the album for the first time like it must be the last song, the sound of the audience fades out as the band starts playing an encore, "A Day in the Life" — the artistic pinnacle of this album if not the whole band. It starts in a dream-like state as John sings about disconcerting imagery (with outstanding drumming by Ringo), before being interrupted by an orchestra with each instrument chaotically sliding from a low, quiet note to a high, loud note.

That crescendo segues into a more relaxed, upbeat section in which Paul sings about his everyday actions with a melody that has some resemblance to John’s but in a different key and more choppy (staccato) and repetitive, which fits the mundane lyrics (“woke up . . . drank a cup . . .”). In contrast, John’s melody has a legato, drawn-out quality more evocative of dreaming.

A seemingly mundane detail in Paul's section is that he “had a smoke,” which at first calls to mind a man having his first cigarette of the day as he sets out in the morning, but then takes on a druggy meaning when he says he “went into a dream.” At that point, Paul sings in a more legato, John-like style over a disorienting sequence of chords, during which we have a hard time telling what key we're in (this is effective regardless of whether the listener knows music theory), eventually leading to John repeating the first line of the song ("I read the news today . . ." — which now feels like one more detail about the ordinary morning from Paul's section).

After John's last line (one of the defining statements of '60s rock: "I'd love to turn you on"), the orchestral crescendo happens again, and the song abruptly ends on a loud, sustained piano chord in the same key as Paul’s section, seemingly closing the album by bringing us firmly back to reality. There's one more surprise . . . before we're left to contemplate the genius we've just heard.

The Beatles' Revolver turns 50

50 years ago today, on August 5, 1966, the Beatles released Revolver, an artistic breakthrough for the band which many would call the greatest rock album of all time.

1. The first song on the album, "Taxman," is by George Harrison, but Paul McCartney deserves a lot of credit for both the classic bassline and the manic lead guitar. Paul's guitar solo (which, unusually, is heard twice in the song) seems to have been influenced by George's growing interest in Indian classical music, and foreshadows the vocal melismas in George's next song on the album, "Love You To" (the last word of each verse in that song — "meeeeee" — evokes the middle of the "Taxman" guitar solo).




2. The Beatles had previously used a string quartet in "Yesterday," but the second song on Revolver, "Eleanor Rigby," was the first time they used no instruments other than strings and voice. It's also one of the earliest Beatles songs to focus on specific characters beyond the standard personal pronouns (you/I/she/he), paving the way for "Penny Lane," for instance. With its themes of loneliness, religion, and death, "Eleanor Rigby" was a shockingly weighty and profound song for a band that used to be best known for teen-oriented pop songs like "I Want to Hold Your Hand."






3. The Beatles used backwards guitar for the first time in John Lennon's "I'm Only Sleeping."




4. George's second song on the album, "Love You To" wasn't the Beatles' first use of sitar (which was in "Norwegian Wood"), but it was their first song with only Indian instruments and voice.




5. John was generally very critical of Paul, but they both agreed that "Here, There, and Everywhere" was one of Paul's best songs.




6. "Yellow Submarine" — a song so colorful and childlike it gave rise to an animated movie.




7. "She Said, She Said" features a brilliant use of shifting time signatures: the song starts in the standard rock 4/4 (when singing about the present), then switches to a 3/4 waltz once he sings about "when I was a boy . . ." I don't have a link to the album version (I assume you own it or can stream it), but Ringo Starr's drumming on this song is some of his best.




8. John's acidic "She Said, She Said" is nicely juxtaposed with Paul's ebullience in the next song on Revolver, "Good Day Sunshine."




9. George and Paul brilliantly harmonized their guitar parts on John's "And Your Bird Can Sing."




10. "For No One" is one of my very favorite Beatles songs. Paul perfectly fused lyrics to music here. The slow, methodical chord changes in the verse reflect the singer's dwelling on the breakup and trying to analyze things from every possible perspective. Then the emotional intensity is heightened by the shift to a minor key in the chorus ("and in her eyes you see nothing . . .").




11. In his book Revolution in the Head: The Beatles Records and the Sixties, Ian MacDonald calls "Dr. Robert" "one of The Beatles' most incisive pieces." MacDonald explains:

Concerning a New York doctor who habituated his socialite clients to narcotics by mixing methedrine with vitamin shots, the song shifts key evasively, stabilising only in its middle eight — an evangelical sales-pitch backed by pious harmonium and warbling choirboys. Lennon's caustic vocal . . . is matched by McCartney's huckstering harmony in fourths ('he's a man you must believe') and by Harrison's double-tracked guitar, with its unique blend of sitar and country-and-western.

12. "I Want to Tell You" is George's third and last song on Revolver. George usually had a maximum of two songs per album; this is the only time George got three songs on a normal-length Beatles album. (The White Album had four, but it was a double album.)




13. "Got to Get You Into My Life" is an outstanding Paul song in a Motown vein.






14. The last song on Revolver, "Tomorrow Never Knows," is one of the most startling in the Beatles' whole catalog. The basic song is unusually simple for the Beatles: there's just one melody (no vocal harmonies), one drum beat, and two chords repeated over and over. That kind of minimalism was rare in 1966. The lyrics are the most blatantly drug-inspired of any Beatles song: "Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream . . . Listen to the color of your dream . . ."

What's truly ground-breaking about the recording is the tape loops which each Beatle made at home and brought to the studio to be added to the mix. Ian MacDonald lists the five loops (most of which were speeded up): (1) a seagull-like sound, which is actually Paul laughing; (2) an orchestra playing a chord; (3) a Mellotron (a precursor to the synthesizer) played on the "flute" setting; (4) a Mellotron played on the "strings" setting; and (5) a sitar. The song also includes a backwards, cut-up version of the guitar solo from "Taxman." MacDonald observes that the loops are played "in cross rhythm, invit[ing] the audience to lose its time-sense in a brilliantly authentic evocation of the LSD experience."




Here are the original tape loops in isolation, one after another (not as they're heard on the record):