Abbey Road (1969)
Album: Abbey Road
Artist: The Beatles
Original Release Date: 9/26/1969
Approx. Purchase Date: Summer-Fall 2009
Format: CD
Amount of Stars: N/A
Length: 47 min, 17 tracks
Favored Tracks: “Something”, “Octopus’s Garden”, “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”, The Abbey Road Medley.
I need to start off this review by explaining the history of me and The Beatles. It wasn’t until very recently that I “got” The Beatles. I’d always held up The Who, Led Zeppelin, and the Rolling Stones as better groups, either to be different or because my dad’s available Beatles material is low. Of course throughout my life I knew The Beatles were automatically the greatest. But I didn’t really know. And I could make lists of my favorite The Beatles songs and afterwards say, “It’s really too bad that I had to leave off ‘Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey’ but I could only do 10.” Truthfully, I really didn’t have a favorite The Beatles song. I always just reordered the same list of songs everybody knows and likes and ones on The Beatles (The White Album) which was the only one my dad had on CD. I always knew about their music and heard a lot of their songs on things, but I never really studied them. Then they released those overpriced remastered CDs that I remember a lot of old heads complaining about. Even though they were kinda expensive, I had mad Borders coupons, and I was going through a period where I wanted to listen to stuff that was psychedelic, so I bought Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band and went from there into a full on The Beatles phase. Of all the ones I ended up purchasing, Abbey Road turned out to be my favorite. It was the third CD I ended up buying. I’d already studied the history of The Beatles extensively on the internet by this point, but I stayed away from this album partially because I didn’t want spoilers and partially because I thought I already knew enough about it considering the front half was stacked with songs I knew, but couldn’t tell you what album they were from. So I’ll split this review into two sections. One containing “Come Together” through “Here Comes The Sun” and the other containing my thoughts on the rest of the album, songs I hadn’t heard before.
Always hilarious.
“Come Together” This track provides great musicianship coupled with a wacky recitation of what sounds like an odd list of conditions. All walrus gumble aside, the infectiousness of the bass and the groove or whathaveyou makes it enjoyable. Nowadays, when I put the album on I usually skip to the middle and this ends up coming after “Her Majesty” but I always listen through because of the instrumental performance. I’d long ago considered this one of the worst guitar solos of all time because of the simplicity and what I perceived as lack of effort. That is different now. I mean… what else would he have played?
“Something” One of my favorite songs before listening to the album. I’ve always been a fan of George Harrison’s contributions to The Beatles. The whole composition and arrangement is well thought out and makes up the most perfect love song ever written by the British.
“Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” This was once one of my favorites. I remember I had it on a mix CD back in high school and enjoyed listening to it because it was silly. But now I can’t help but imagine John, George, and Ringo rolling their eyes and groaning as Paul leads them through yet another take of one of his silly songs. But Paul is nothing without his silly songs.
“Oh! Darling” I don’t know if this is an R&B standard or not, but it should be. That about sums it up.
“Octopus’s Garden” My first encounter with this song was Sesame Street, of course. The next time I’d heard it was before a rehersal for a play I was in. People were listening to the version from the Cirque Du Soleil Love soundtrack during a break. They played the vocal part overtop one of the The Beatles’ songs with a string arrangement… I think it was called “Goodnight” or something… and that sounded cool. Anyways, it has always been one of my favorites. People hate on it because Ringo wrote it or whatever, but it holds up against the best of the McCartney silly songs collection. And give the little man some damn credit! This song alone proves he always deserved to be a Beatle.
“I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” Another Beatles song that I originally heard as a cover. The version I was familiar with was on Parliament/Funkadelic guitarist Eddie Hazel’s solo album Game Dames and Guitar Thangs. It made me very excited to finally hear the original The Beatles version and they did not disappoint. It is weird for me to imagine this came out in 1969. This is one of the many songs I listen to and say to myself “Wow. I wonder what it would have been like to hear something like this when it just came out, before metal existed.” It gives me the good kind of goosesbumps when they go into that crazy outro, in 2009. I can’t imagine what it would have done to people in the 60’s and 70’s.
“Here Comes The Sun” Besides being one of my favorite pretty acoustic guitar riffs of all time (not to mention one of the hardest to learn) the thing that really sells this one is the Moog. For the longest time I never actually “listened” to this song. Pre-2009 me did not appreciate this song nearly enough. Once I actually concentrated on listening to it, it was as if I heard it for the first time. I noticed this weird Manheim Steamroller sound that was being used modestly in a way Manheim Steamroller wouldn’t dream about. That was the Moog and it brought me a new appreciation for the song. God what a beautiful instrument.
So, back to the first time I ever listened to this CD. I listened to these four tracks all the way through, and then also “Because” (which I thought was going to be the “weird sitar one” of this album, but due to the moog and the musicianship it succeeds when I have the patience to listen to it). Up until this point I had never heard what truly makes this album The OFFICIAL Best The Beatles Album of All Time. And that is the “Abbey Road Medley”. I’ve heard criticism of it saying it’s lazy songwriting to smash a bunch of unfinished songs into a medley and call it a day. But I was silent and undistracted for the next 16 minutes of 9 songs. I envisioned it being performed theatrically. No story, just Paul being Paul and playing piano the whole time and the rest of The Beatles wearing silly costumes and doing silly British things, singing the record. The story they weave from “You Never Give Me Your Money” through “Her Majesty” (aka the greatest mistake ever made) is the story of the end of one of the greatest things of all time. And that is end of The Beatles. No matter what infighting or ego went into the making of this record, throughout listening I couldn’t help but think of them happy together making music one last time, all while there’s a confidence that the end of something great is coming fast. That is why it is the best of their work together.
Packaging/Bonus Features: That looks pretty nice doesn’t it? This may have been a little bit like the original LP. I don’t know, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. But there’s lots of pictures of The Beatles standing around nature, looking bored, from the photoshoot that happened for the album. And there’s a few paragraphs of “analysis” in the booklet. Overall I hate this packaging because it is a driving hazard. During that period of 2009 when I bought mad The Beatles albums, switching discs was a bitch. I also hate when they wrap a disc in cardboard and say “this will not get scratched or broken” and they kind of get stuck in there so you need two hands to change discs. So that’s my biggest gripe with these reissues, nothing purist about it. When you put the disc in your computer you can watch a short video of pictures moving around while audio clips from The Beatles and related peoples back in the day go on. It’s pretty boring and non-essential and you can easily get more information from Wikipedia, but The Beatles are important I guess and they deserve their bonus features.
FUTURE: The only John Mayer album worth owning, The Headphone Masterpiece, UnDun, some Cyndi Lauper, and something from Dave’s Record Collection.
