Andrew_Hicks's Full Review: Abbey Road by The Beatles
It’s been an internal debate of mine for more than six years now – which Beatles album is my favorite, Sgt. Pepper or Abbey Road? And it all depends on how played-out each album is at that stage of my life. When I wrote the review for Sgt. Pepper a couple months ago, I leaned a little more heavily toward it because Abbey Road had temporarily run its course for me, thanks to a roommate who seemed to play it and the White Album morning through night for two years straight.
A roommate who, on top of that, committed the cardinal sin of trying to learn all the album’s songs as a beginning guitar player, ensuring I’d never again hear songs like “Here Comes the Sun” and “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” without conjuring up mental images of him, cigarette dangling from mouth, trying to pick out the chords with a Carlos Santana look of ecstacy-slash-anguish on his face. Ugh.
Freed of that context, though, I’m paying close attention to Abbey Road right now for the first time in many months and realizing this album has accompanied me through ups and downs for my entire pseudo-adult life. I love every song on Abbey Road, I've loved them for years, and I’ll die loving them. No pothead roommate with an E-Z Beatles guitar chord book could possibly destroy that for me. These are 17 of the best tracks put down on tape by any act in the rock age, the Beatles included, and serve as a fitting end to the legacy they created.
Think about it – in eight short years, the Beatles went from being an obscure club band to being a teenybopper sensation to being movie stars to revolutionizing rock music to diving head-over-heels into drugs and mysticism to stripping back their sound to its acoustic roots to pioneering an early incarnation of freedom rock. As we hear them on Abbey Road, the Beatles have eschewed the ornate, painstaking production of their psychedelic years for more of the grassroots rock on the White Album. This music is less about stylistic experimentation than having a good time.
The album opens with John Lennon’s “Come Together,” which features a bass-guitar groove any aspiring hip-hop artist would flip his lid over. Lennon’s repeated whispers of “Shoot me” are distorted to mere instrumental accompaniment as he weaves his way through several verses of vague, disconnected sing-song description (“He got Ono sideboard / He one spinal cracker”) to the rhythm guitar groove and organ solo.
George Harrison’s “Something” is next, the second-half of a double A-side that went to #1 on the Billboard singles charts. This tender guitar love ballad is so universal it was even covered by Chairman Frank Sinatra at one point, but it resists all impulses of sap with a plaintive lead vocal and lazy, wistful guitar solo. “Something” is by far my favorite Harrison track, Beatles or post-Beatles, and it’s in strong contention for my title of favorite Beatles song of all-time.
Paul McCartney contributes the next two tracks, “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” and “Oh Darling.” The first is a playful novelty song along the lines of “Rocky Raccoon” and “Yellow Submarine,” a piano groove with innate, sublimely amusing storytelling instincts that concern a medical student who dispenses of his personal enemies via the titular blunt object. The latter is a ‘50s-style doo-wop blues ballad with a soulful, heartfelt lead vocal and a raucous bridge. It’s long been a favorite drunken sing-along amongst my varying circles of friends.
The Ringo original “Octopus’s Garden,” naturally, is the weakest track on Abbey Road, but in its context on the album, it works perfectly as long as you don’t try to take it seriously. It’s the amateur honky-tonk of “Don’t Pass Me By” crossed with a drug-induced children’s book atmosphere – if all Ringo wants to do is live under the sea with mollusks, by God, who are we to try and stop him?
“I Want You (She’s So Heavy),” an eight-minute Lennon blues/acid-rock number, is the album’s first centerpiece. His emotional screams and wails are painfully convincing, and the lyrical simplicity of the song (basically repeating the title phrase ad nauseum) only adds to its sinister appeal. Insistent bass guitar licks from Paul, along with omnipresent organ grooving, builds to a four-minute instrumental climax that’s guaranteed to give you sympathetic flashbacks whether you’ve tripped or not.
The mood lightens considerably with another of Harrison’s finest originals, “Here Comes the Sun.” The uptempo acoustic piece calls to mind McCartney’s “Good Day Sunshine,” quickly blowing that piano number out of the water with its musical sophistication and layered production. This is one of those Beatles songs that’s beautiful beyond words, as is the album’s follow-up, “Because.” I prefer the a capella Anthology 3 version, which highlights the triple-tracked harmony vocals from John, Paul and George, but even with the distorted guitar, piano and bass of the album version, the song’s innate beauty and classical composition structure shine through. The wind ain’t the only thing that’s high, buddy.
McCartney strikes back with “You Never Give Me Money,” which sets off the second-side “suite” medley of the album. This track goes through five different musical incarnations, from the beautiful piano ballad opening to the ragtime-lite second verse to the freedom-rock vocals during the bridge. (That one segment of the song no doubt had the future members of the puss-rock group Boston creaming their shorts.) It’s kind of like the movie adaptation of The Green Mile – the writing didn’t merit the epic treatment it got, because there’s really not a lot underneath, but the effort alone ensured it a strong reception. If that makes sense.
That fades into “Sun King,” a meandering guitar-and-bass track that benefits from gorgeous harmony vocals and occasionally slips into Italian lyrics, and in turn, we segue to my favorite three mini-song stretch, beginning with the 66-second long “Mean Mr. Mustard.” Lennon sings about a “dirty old man” to the vibrant accompaniment of Ringo’s tambourine and a bassline provided by a session tuba player. It’s great. Then “Polythene Pam,” an equally short Lennon number about Mustard’s sister, who’s “so good lookin’ but looks like a man.” It’s based around one acoustic-guitar lick, but as transition to “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window,” it more than serves its purpose. That McCartney number is a mid-tempo rocker with prominent bass and layered guitar and a classic sing-along chorus. (“Sunday’s on the phone to Monday / Tuesday’s on the phone to me.”)
The album begins to wind down with McCartney’s “Golden Slumbers,” a quick-fix ballad that has me right until it segues to its chorus (which, for some reason, I always picture Tom Jones singing to a crowd of Vegas panty-tossers), and the anthemic “Carry That Weight,” which is little more than a chorus that then goes on to reprise the piano hook from “You Never Give Me Your Money” with brass overdubs. Then “The End,” which begins as an instrumental showcase, including a rare drum solo from Ringo and dueling guitar work from George and John, and ends with the oft-quoted assertion, “The love you take is equal to the love you make.” It’s as close to a send-off as the Beatles ever gave their fans, if you don’t count the sapfest “The Long and Winding Road” (from the recorded-earlier-but-released-later Let it Be album). And it’s the perfect closer to what I definitely consider the perfect Beatles album.
But it’s not the closer. That honor goes to track 17, “Her Majesty,” a dubiously catchy 21-second novelty number from McCartney whose vocals slowly migrate from the right channel to the left. It’s likely the first “hidden” track in rock history, although its listing on the back of the album probably only served to confound fans who looked for the emotional closure they thought “The End” would provide.
There you have it, the most epic but laid-back Beatles album, filled to the brim with memorable songs that became a part of my inner consciousness so long ago (and so pervasively since) that I can’t imagine a time when I didn’t know them in and out. Abbey Road is, for all tastes, an album of both musical brilliance and ear candy, and album for playing alone and with your friends, on special occasions and ordinary days. While you’re driving or reading. It’s definitely one of my desert-island picks… hell, I may even consider rushing into a burning building to save my copy. And if you don’t understand what I’m talking about, you should buy yourself a copy. You won’t be disappointed.
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