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Abbey Road is the eleventh studio album released by the English rock band The Beatles and their last recorded. Though Let It Be was the last album released before the band's dissolution in 1970, work on Abbey Road began in April 1969. Abbey Road was released on 26 September 1969 in the United Kingdom, and 1 October 1969 in the United States.

Abbey Road is widely regarded as one of The Beatles' most tightly constructed albums, although the band was barely operating as a functioning unit at the time.  Rolling Stone placed it at number 14 on its list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". In 2009, readers of the magazine also named Abbey Road the greatest Beatles album.

Composition and recording

Background

After the near-disastrous sessions for the proposed Get Back album (later retitled and released as Let It Be), Paul McCartney suggested to George Martin that the group get together and make an album "the way we used to",[4] free of the conflict that began following the death of Brian Epstein and carrying over to the sessions for the "White Album". Martin agreed, stipulating that he must be allowed to do the album his way. In their interviews for The Beatles Anthology, the surviving band members stated that, although none of them ever made the distinction of calling it the "last album", they all felt at the time this would very likely be the final Beatles product and therefore agreed to set aside their differences and "go out on a high note".

With the Let It Be album partly finished, the sessions for Abbey Road began in April, as the single "The Ballad of John and Yoko" / "Old Brown Shoe" was completed. In fact, recording sessions of John Lennon's "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" had already started in February 1969 in Trident studios, with Billy Preston on the organ—only three weeks after the Get Back sessions. Photos from these sessions are included in the book Get Back, which came along with the Let It Be album but not in the Let It Be film. McCartney is shaved and Lennon has started to let his beard grow.

Most of the album was recorded between 2 July and 1 August 1969. After the album was finished and released, the Get Back / Let It Be project was re-examined. More work was done on the album, including the recording of additional music (see Let It Be). Thus, though the bulk of Let It Be was recorded prior to Abbey Road, the latter was released first, and Abbey Road was the last album properly started by The Beatles before they disbanded. Lennon was on hiatus from the group and working with the Plastic Ono Band during the September 1969 lead-up to Abbey Road's release, which was effectively the first official sign of The Beatles' impending dissolution.

The two album sides are quite different in character. Side one is a collection of unconnected tracks, while most of side two consists of a long suite of compositions, many of them being relatively short and segued together. The main impetus behind the suite approach was to incorporate the various short and incomplete Lennon and McCartney compositions the group had available into an effective part of the album.

Side one

"Come Together"

The album opener "Come Together" was a Lennon contribution. The chorus was inspired by a song Lennon originally wrote for Timothy Leary's campaign for governor of California titled "Let's Get It Together". A rough version of this can be heard in outtakes from Lennon's second bed-in event in Canada.

It has been speculated that the verses, described by Lennon as intentionally obscure, refer cryptically to each of The Beatles (e.g. "he's one holy roller" allegedly refers to the spiritually inclined George Harrison); however, it has also been suggested that the song has only a single "pariah-like protagonist" and Lennon was "painting another sardonic self-portrait".  The song was later the subject of a lawsuit brought against Lennon by Morris Levy because the opening line in "Come Together"—"Here come old flat-top"—was admittedly lifted from a line in Chuck Berry's "You Can't Catch Me".

"Come Together" was later released as a double A-side single with "Something".  In the liner notes to the Love album Martin described the track as a personal favourite.

"Something"

The second track on the album later became Harrison's first A-side single. Basing the first line of the song on "Something in the Way She Moves" from James Taylor's 1968 Apple Records album James Taylor, Harrison wrote "Something" during the The Beatles sessions.  After the lyrics were refined during the "Let It Be" sessions (tapes reveal Lennon giving Harrison some songwriting advice during its composition), the song was initially given to Joe Cocker, but was subsequently recorded for Abbey Road. "Something" was Lennon's favourite song on the album, and McCartney considered it the best song Harrison had written. Frank Sinatra once commented that "Something" was his favourite Lennon-McCartney song (sic) and "the greatest love song ever written".  The song was released as a double A-side single with "Come Together".

"Something" became the first Beatles number one single that was not a Lennon–McCartney composition; it was also the first single from an already released album.

"Maxwell's Silver Hammer"

"Maxwell's Silver Hammer", McCartney's first song on the album, was first performed by The Beatles during the Let It Be sessions (as can be seen in the Let It Be documentary).

According to Geoff Emerick's book, Here, There and Everywhere, Lennon said the song was "more of Paul's granny music", and refused to participate in the recording of the song.

"Oh! Darling"

When recording "Oh! Darling", McCartney attempted recording only once a day. He said, "When we were recording 'Oh! Darling' I came into the studios early every day for a week to sing it by myself because at first my voice was too clear. I wanted it to sound as though I'd been performing it on stage all week."  Lennon was of the opinion that it was the type of song that he would've sung the lead on, remarking that it was more his style. On the Anthology 3 album, Lennon can be heard singing the lead on an ad-libbed verse regarding the news that Yoko Ono's divorce from Anthony Cox, her previous husband, had just come through.

"Octopus's Garden"

Ringo Starr wrote and sang one song for the album, "Octopus's Garden", his second (and last) solo composition released on a Beatles album. It was inspired by a trip to Sardinia aboard Peter Sellers' yacht that occurred when Starr left the band for two weeks with his family during the sessions for The Beatles. While there, he composed the song, which is arguably his most successful writing effort. While Starr had the lyrics nearly pinned down, the song's melodic structure was partly written in the studio by Harrison (as can be seen in the Let It Be film), although Harrison gave full songwriting credit to Starr. (Harrison and Starr would later collaborate on Starr's solo singles "It Don't Come Easy" and "Photograph").

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

"I Want You (She's So Heavy)" is a combination of two somewhat different recording attempts. The first attempt occurred almost immediately after the "Get Back/Let It Be" sessions in February 1969 and featuring Billy Preston on keyboards. This was subsequently combined with a second version made during the "Abbey Road" sessions proper, and when edited together ran nearly 8 minutes long, making it The Beatles' second-longest released song ("Revolution 9" being the longest). Perhaps more than any other Beatles song, "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" reveals a pronounced progressive rock influence, with its unusual length and structure, repeating guitar riff, and white noise effects; the "I Want You" section has a straightforward blues structure. It also features one of the earliest uses of a Moog synthesiser to create the white-noise or "wind" effect heard near the end of the track. During the final edit, as the guitar riff and white noise effect continues on and on, Lennon told engineer Emerick to "cut it right there" at the 7:44 mark, creating a sudden, jarring silence which concluded side one of Abbey Road. The final overdub session for "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" would be the last time all four Beatles worked in the studio together.

Side two

"Here Comes the Sun"

"Here Comes the Sun" is Harrison's second song on the album and one of his best-known; it was written in Eric Clapton's garden while Harrison was absent from an Apple board meeting. While not released as a single, the song has received frequent radio airplay since its release.

"Because"

"Because" features a Moog synthesiser, played by Harrison. The chords in the song were inspired by Ludwig van Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata", in a roundabout way: Lennon said he "was lying on the sofa in our house, listening to Yoko play Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata' on the piano. Suddenly, I said, 'Can you play those chords backward?' She did, and I wrote 'Because' around them."  "Because" features three-part harmonies by Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison, which were then triple-tracked to sound like nine singers.

Medley

The climax of the album is the 16-minute medley consisting of several short songs, both finished and unfinished, blended into a suite by McCartney and Martin. Most of these songs were written (and originally recorded in demo form) during sessions for The White Album and the Get Back/Let It Be sessions.

"You Never Give Me Your Money" is the first song of the Abbey Road medley. It was written by McCartney and based on his feelings towards Allen Klein and what McCartney viewed as Klein's empty promises.  It slowly and quietly follows into "Sun King" (which, like "Because", showcases Lennon's, McCartney's, and Harrison's overdubbed harmonies), "Mean Mr. Mustard" (written during The Beatles' trip to India), and "Polythene Pam" (contributed by Lennon). These in turn are followed by four McCartney songs, "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window" (written after a fan came into McCartney's residence literally through the bathroom window), "Golden Slumbers" (based on lyrics from Thomas Dekker's 17th-century poem, but not the music of a song based on the poem), "Carry That Weight" (featuring chorus vocals from all four Beatles), and the climax, "The End".

"The End" is notable for featuring Starr's only drum solo in The Beatles' catalogue (the drums are mixed across two tracks in "true stereo"—in a similar way to the studio single version of Get Back). Normally, even though mixes were in stereo, the drums were mixed in mono, locked together with other instruments and often panned hard left or right in the stereo "picture". Fifty-four seconds into the song, before the famous last line, which is played over piano chords, are 18 bars (or measures) of guitar solo: the first two bars are played by McCartney, the second two by Harrison, and the third two by Lennon, then the sequence repeats.  Each has a distinctive style which McCartney felt reflected their personalities: McCartney's playing included string bends similar to his lead guitar work on "Another Girl" from the Help! album; Harrison's was melodic with slides yet technically advanced and Lennon's was rhythmic, stinging and had the heaviest distortion. Immediately after Lennon's third solo, the piano chords of the final part of the song begin. The song ends with the memorable final line, "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make".

An alternative version of the song, with Harrison's lead guitar solo played against McCartney's (with Starr's drum solo heard in the background), appears on the Anthology 3 album.

"Her Majesty"

"Her Majesty", tacked on the end, was originally part of the side two medley, appearing between "Mean Mr. Mustard" and "Polythene Pam". McCartney disliked the way the medley sounded when it included "Her Majesty", so he had the medley re-edited to remove it. However, second engineer John Kurlander had been instructed never to throw out anything, so after the group left the recording studio that day, he picked it up off the floor, spliced 14 seconds of red leader tape onto the final mix reel, and then spliced in "Her Majesty" immediately after the leader tape. The box of the album's master reel bore an instruction to leave "Her Majesty" off the final product, but the next day when Malcolm Davies at Apple received the tape, he (also trained not to throw anything away) cut a playback lacquer of the whole sequence, including "Her Majesty". The Beatles liked this effect and left it on the album. Original US and UK pressings of Abbey Road do not list "Her Majesty" on the album's cover nor on the record label, making it a hidden track.

"Her Majesty" opens with the final, crashing chord of "Mean Mr. Mustard", while the final note of "Her Majesty" remained buried in the mix of "Polythene Pam". This is the result of "Her Majesty" being snipped off the reel during a rough mix of the medley. The cut in the medley was subsequently disguised with further mixing although "Her Majesty" was not touched again and still appears in its rough mix, except on The Beatles: Rock Band where the final note has been restored.

Imagery

The front cover design, a photograph of the group traversing a zebra crossing, was based on sketched ideas by McCartney and taken on 8 August 1969 outside EMI Studios on Abbey Road. At around 11:30 that morning, photographer Iain Macmillan was given only ten minutes to take the photo whilst he stood on a step-ladder and a policeman held up the traffic.

In the scene, the group walk across the street in single file from left to right, with Lennon leading, followed by Starr, McCartney, and Harrison. McCartney is barefoot. With the exception of Harrison, the group are wearing suits designed by Tommy Nutter.  To the left of the picture, parked next to the zebra crossing, is a white Volkswagen Beetle motor-car which belonged to one of the people living in the block of flats across from the recording studio. After the album was released, the number plate (LMW 281F) was stolen repeatedly from the car. In 1986, the car was sold at auction for £2,530 and in 2001 was on display in a museum in Germany.  The man standing on the pavement to the right of the picture is Paul Cole (c. 1911 – 13 February 2008), an American tourist unaware he had been photographed until he saw the album cover months later.


Track listing

Side on


1. "Come Together"  Lennon 4:20
2. "Something" (George Harrison) Harrison 3:03
3. "Maxwell's Silver Hammer"  McCartney 3:27
4. "Oh! Darling"  McCartney 3:26
5. "Octopus's Garden" (Richard Starkey) Starr 2:51
6. "I Want You (She's So Heavy)"  Lennon 7:47

Side two


1. "Here Comes the Sun" (Harrison) Harrison 3:05
2. "Because"  Lennon, McCartney and Harrison 2:45
3. "You Never Give Me Your Money"  McCartney 4:02
4. "Sun King"  Lennon, with McCartney and Harrison 2:26
5. "Mean Mr. Mustard"  Lennon 1:06
6. "Polythene Pam"  Lennon 1:12
7. "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window"  McCartney 1:57
8. "Golden Slumbers"  McCartney 1:31
9. "Carry That Weight"  McCartney with Lennon, Harrison and Starr 1:36
10. "The End"  McCartney 2:05
11. "Her Majesty"  McCartney 0:23



Released 26 September 1969
Recorded 22 February – 20 August 1969 EMI, Olympic and Trident Studios, London
Genre Rock
Length 47:23
Label Apple
Producer George Martin


(https://en.wikipedia.org)

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"Wasn't Born to Follow", also known as "I Wasn't Born to Follow", is a song written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King. Goffin wrote the lyrics and King provided the music. The song was first recorded by the Byrds on their 1968 album, The Notorious Byrd Brothers. King's short-lived band the City also recorded the song for their 1968 album, Now That Everything's Been Said. It has also been covered by many other artists, including the Monkees, the Lemon Pipers, Dusty Springfield, and as a solo recording by King. The Byrds recording was featured in the 1969 film Easy Rider and was released as a single in the UK and Germany in the same year as a result.

The Byrds version

Byrds producer Gary Usher acquired "Wasn't Born to Follow" before it was released or recorded by anyone else through his connections at the Screen Gems production company and his personal acquaintance with Carole King. The Byrds recorded the song on November 30, 1967, as one of the last songs recorded in the sessions for The Notorious Byrd Brothers album.[4] The band's lead guitarist Roger McGuinn sings the lead vocal, and the band are augmented by Red Rhodes on pedal steel guitar and Clarence White on guitar. As Byrds' drummer Michael Clarke had left the group during the recording of the album, Jim Gordon, who also performed on the City's version, plays drums. The album recording ends with the sound of a door slamming.

Rogan points out that the Byrds revamped King's melody and also added some "starting" effects, including the juxtaposition of White's country-style guitar playing and "a cascade of exotic phrasing." According to Allmusic critic Thomas Ward, the Byrds play the song "with supreme modesty" in recognition of "beauty of the purest forms of American music." Perone regards the Byrds' recording as the "definitive version of the song." Perone suggests that "Wasn't Born to Follow" takes on extra poignancy on the album due to its placement right after the anti-military draft song "Draft Morning," suggesting that "the singer was not born to follow the sheep (draftees) into slaughter."

While McGuinn was writing the theme song for the film Easy Rider, its star and producer Peter Fonda also wanted to include two songs from The Notorious Byrd Brothers in the film ("Wasn't Born to Follow" and "Draft Morning"). In the end, only "Wasn't Born to Follow" was used, accompanying the two bikers riding through the mountains and taking a hitchhiker to a commune. The song was used in the film to express "the search for America."

CBS Records in the United Kingdom took advantage of the song's prominent use in the film and released "Wasn't Born to Follow" as a single on September 26, 1969, in the unfulfilled hope of scoring a fluke hit. It was also issued as a single in Germany. "Wasn't Born to Follow" was not released as the A-side of a single in the U.S., but it did appear on the B-side of some copies of the single release of the title song from the film, "Ballad of Easy Rider".


(https://en.wikipedia.org)

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Walls and Bridges is the fifth studio album by John Lennon. It was issued by Apple Records on 26 September 1974 in the United States and on 4 October in the United Kingdom. Written, recorded and released during his 18-month separation from Yoko Ono, the album captured Lennon in the midst of his "Lost Weekend". Walls and Bridges was an American Billboard number-one album and includes two hit singles, "Whatever Gets You thru the Night" and "#9 Dream". The first of these was Lennon's first number-one hit in the United States as a solo artist, and his only chart-topping single in either the US or Britain during his lifetime.

The album was certified silver in the UK, and gold in the US.

Background

In June 1973, as Lennon was about to record Mind Games, Ono decided that she and Lennon should separate. Yoko suggested that he take their personal assistant, May Pang, as a companion . Lennon soon moved to California with Pang, and embarked upon an eighteen-month relationship with Pang he would later refer to as his "Lost Weekend".  While Lennon and Pang were living in Los Angeles, John took the opportunity to get reacquainted with his son, Julian, whom he had not seen in four years. Lennon and Pang had planned to record an album of rock 'n' roll oldies with producer Phil Spector, but after these sessions broke down due to an alcohol-fueled party atmosphere, Lennon and Pang returned to New York and Spector disappeared with the session tapes. Still in the mood to make music, Lennon decided to record a new album of original material.

Recording sessions for Walls and Bridges began in June, 1974 at Record Plant East. Musicians included friends Jim Keltner on drums, Klaus Voormann on bass, Jesse Ed Davis on guitar, and Arthur Jenkins on percussion.

Walls and Bridges has a variety of musical stylings and many of the lyrics make it clear that Lennon both enjoyed his new-found freedom and also missed Ono. "Going Down On Love", "What You Got", "Bless You" address his feelings toward Ono. "Steel and Glass" included a sinister riff borrowed from "How Do You Sleep", Lennon's audio argument with Paul McCartney from the Imagine album, though the digs this time were directed at former Beatles manager Allen Klein. "Scared" is a haunting track exploring Lennon's fear of aging, loneliness and the emptiness of success. It also included the seemingly prophetic lyric: "Hatred and jealousy gonna be the death of me."

The album also includes some of Lennon's most uplifting songs, namely its two singles "Whatever Gets You thru the Night" (which features Elton John on piano and backing vocals) and "#9 Dream". "Whatever Gets You thru the Night" reached #1 in the US the same week that Walls and Bridges hit the top of the LP charts. Losing a wager he made with Elton about the single's commercial potential, Lennon appeared at John's Madison Square Garden show on 28 November, performing Lennon's current #1 hit together. In addition, The Beatles' "I Saw Her Standing There" and "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds", Elton John's new single with Lennon on backing vocals, were also played to an uproarious audience. This was Lennon's last major live performance.

Other notable tracks include "Beef Jerky", a Stax-inspired instrumental (the only instrumental to appear on a Lennon solo album), the first track written for the record, "Surprise Surprise (Sweet Bird of Paradox)" for May Pang, and "Nobody Loves You (When You're Down and Out)", written in 1973[6] and remembered by Lennon in an interview for Playboy magazine in September 1980: "I wrote 'Nobody Loves You (When You're Down and Out)' during that time (the Lost Weekend). That's how I felt. It exactly expresses the whole period. For some reason I always imagined Sinatra singing that one. I don't know why. It's kind of a Sinatraesque song, really. He would do a perfect job with it. Are you listening Frank? You need one song that isn't a piece of nothing. Here's one for you, the horn arrangement and everything's made for you. But don't ask me to produce it".

During one of his frequent visits from England to see his father during this period, eleven-year-old Julian Lennon attended recording sessions and together they recorded a casual cover of the oldie "Ya Ya", which Lennon tacked onto the end of Walls and Bridges with the credit: "Starring Julian Lennon on drums and Dad on piano and vocals". Lennon also sends a message to publisher Morris Levy who was expecting this Lennon release to be the oldies album (see Rock 'n' Roll) at the beginning of the track: "Let's do sitting in the lala and get rid of that!" which infuriated Levy. Pang recalled later the younger Lennon was disappointed when he heard the recording would make the album, telling his father "If I'd known, I would have played better".

In addition to reestablishing a relationship with Julian, Lennon mended fences with the other Beatles during this period. Walls and Bridges is filled with musical nods to the group. In the opening track, Lennon sings "somebody please, please help me". On "Surprise Surprise", Lennon utilises the coda of "Drive My Car" substituting the "beep beep yeahs" with "sweet sweet love". In response to McCartney's Lennon-esque track, Let Me Roll It on the Band on the Run album, Lennon took the guitar riff note for note and incorporated it into "Beef Jerky".

Cut from the album at the last minute was a track called "Move Over Ms. L", one of Lennon's harder rockers which would eventually appear as the B-side to the single "Stand By Me" the following year – the only example of a Lennon B-side not already available on an album.

The album's elaborate jacket featured childhood drawings done by Lennon and a series of interchangeable faces. Walls and Bridges also had a popular ad campaign created by Lennon called "Listen To This..." (button, photo, sticker, ad, poster, t-shirt and, in New York City, a huge poster plastered on the rear of 2,000 city buses).

A television commercial featuring a voiceover from Ringo Starr depicted the album jacket in its many 'photo flap' faces. Lennon would return the favour and do the voiceover for the commercial for Starr's Goodnight Vienna album.

Reception

Walls and Bridges was an American Billboard #1 album, it attained gold-selling status in the US, and top ten success in the UK, reaching #6. Along with John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and Imagine, Walls and Bridges is among Lennon's most highly regarded solo albums, and it does indeed have its devout followers. Ringo Starr called it "the best album in the past five years" in a 1974 Melody Maker interview.

Shortly after its release, Lennon personally mixed a true quadrophonic version of the album ("for the 20 people who buy quad," he joked in his infamous 1974 WNEW radio interview in New York). These mixes highlight many of the percussive and orchestrative textures that were not as prominent on the stereo version.

Walls and Bridges was released in a remixed and remastered form in November 2005, though four of the original tracks: "Old Dirt Road", "Bless You", "Scared" and "Nobody Loves You" were not remixed. The remastered version featured an alternate cover. This new cover retained Lennon's signature and hand-written title, but used one of the portraits Bob Gruen took for the album instead of Lennon's childhood drawing. The bonus tracks for the reissue include "Whatever Gets You thru the Night" performed live with Elton John, a previously unreleased acoustic version of "Nobody Loves You (When You're Down And Out)" and a promotional interview with Lennon.

Track listing

All songs written and composed by John Lennon, except "Old Dirt Road", by John Lennon and Harry Nilsson and "Ya Ya", by Lee Dorsey/Morris Levy/Clarence Lewis/Morgan Robinson

  1. "Going Down on Love" – 3:54
  2. "Whatever Gets You thru the Night" – 3:28
  3. "Old Dirt Road" – 4:11
  4. "What You Got" – 3:09
  5. "Bless You" – 4:38
  6. "Scared" – 4:36
  7. "#9 Dream" – 4:47
  8. "Surprise, Surprise (Sweet Bird of Paradox)" – 2:55
  9. "Steel and Glass" – 4:37
  10. "Beef Jerky" – 3:26
  11. "Nobody Loves You (When You're Down and Out)" – 5:08
  12. "Ya Ya" – 1:06


26 September 1974
Recorded    June – July 1974
Genre    Rock, pop rock
Length    46:02
Label    Apple/EMI
Producer    John Lennon


(https://en.wikipedia.org)

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