Unique moments in cultural history No. 372
'Abbey Road' by the Beatles is such a strange and almost accidental creation that it always makes me stop and think. It's also fascinating to me because the whole is so much different than the pieces. It's one of those albums that always offers something different.
The first piece of weirdness is in it's placement. Although it was recorded after 'Let it be', it was released before it, even though it was the actual last Beatles album recorded which adds a level of artistic frisson as it was, in many ways, far beyond the messiness of LIB and was a return to form, for one last time, which was the whole purpose.
The Beatles as an entity had been crumbling for some time and for many reasons (Brian's death, John's growth as an artist and activist) had reached a crossroads with the over-ambitious recording shenanigans of 'Let it be', wherein they decided to record the process of making an album and everything that it entailed in a proto-type version of one of today's reality tv shows, except that that was actually real and therein lay the problem. They were falling apart, obviously and almost irrevocably and it was all laid bare there on the soon abandoned film project of LIB. The album itself was messy with John and Paul mainly using it as a sounding board for directions of future solo projects and the absence of George Martin as producer lending a distinctly chaotic air to a group of people and a huge pile of recordings that were not being dealt with as they were produced and not being re-recorded as they should have been to clear up mistakes and perfect various tracks into final versions.
'Let it be' almost did that to the Beatles. The bad feelings and chaos that resulted ended up with the group falling apart and it was only when pushed to the brink that they realised that this was it and that it had ended badly. None of them wanted this and so it was discussed and agreed that they would get back together for one album and do it properly, this time recruiting George Martin and agreeing to let him be in charge of putting the album together. What was amazing here is that they could all see that the end was inevitable but were able to put the fractious working atmosphere of 'Let it be' behind them and keep it together for long enough to put together a truly exceptional and remarkably structured album and send the Beatles off with a happy finale that looked at everything that they had been, where they had come from and left us with a snapshot of a band at it's creative height calling it quits and going their separate ways .
The other really fascinating thing about 'Abbey Road' is that despite the inclusion of so many fantastic and (now) classic tracks, it's not a collection of pieces but rather a single work of many different chapters or like a quilt with different pieces seamlessly stitched together to make one incredible overall work.
None of the songs on AR work even half as well when taken out of context. Like the earlier 'Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' abandoned theme so AR presented an ambitious idea of unity and looking at music in a different way, especially taking the idea of previous Beatles albums and using various techniques and approaches that this one could differ from them. With side one, the unity is more thematic with the songs representing how LIB could and should have been if a single strong creative producer had been in charge with Martin taking the many disparate strands and weaving them together into something remarkable. The sudden cut-off point at 7:44 minutes of 'I want you (she's so heavy)' into sudden silence is almost a cut point of the Beatles career and suddenly we're into the last run and with the beginning of side two all the way to the end, we're experiencing something different as the Beatles and Martin stitch many tiny songs together with the continuing royal and sun-like imagery abounding and creating one amazing shimmering tapestry of sound that coasts across genres and moods to reach a very definite end-point with the last lyrics on 'The End' effectively closing off an era.
The triumphant optimisim of many of the songs is fascinating, especially as the reassuring 'Here comes the sun' seems to be telling the fans as well as George himself that it'll all be ok after the Beatles and that life will go on and to look towards the future. 'Because' , with it's stunning harmonies and orchestration is another hopefuly look ahead with the Beatles and Martin musing on where life will take them next. As this flows into the patch-work pieces, we know that whilst the Beatles are moving on, the world of music has been irrevocably changed forever and that these last few pieces celebrating this legacy together are not a cause for sadness but rather a chance to celebrate with them in enjoying where popular music has gone and the part that the Beatles themselves played in such changes. MacCartney's 'granny music' as Lennon once deemed Paul's foray's into 1920's structures and tunes would prove to be a direction that he would explore alongside his more 'rocking' pieces with solo work and wings in the future. Harrison would continue to concoct progressive rock pieces of guitar beauty and perfect production whilst Ringo would go on to enjoy pure rock and roll with country tinged pop providing him with a few nice juicy hits in the early 1970's.
John Lennon would do whatever he wanted, whenever and with whomever. His experimentations in music didn't always make for the prettiest sounding songs but the genius of John was that he could pull out crowd pleasers at any time as well as doing his more activist/psychological/avant garde pieces. Never satisfied with the same thing, John would continue to go back and forth from hardcore full-on teddy boy rock, deep south grungy blues right through to production drenched harmony perfect songs like 'Imagine', 'Woman' and 'Watching the Wheels go round'.
If you haven't listened to Abbey Road in a long time or somehow never listened to it then it's time that you did. Give it a try and see what you think- and let me know.
The first piece of weirdness is in it's placement. Although it was recorded after 'Let it be', it was released before it, even though it was the actual last Beatles album recorded which adds a level of artistic frisson as it was, in many ways, far beyond the messiness of LIB and was a return to form, for one last time, which was the whole purpose.
The Beatles as an entity had been crumbling for some time and for many reasons (Brian's death, John's growth as an artist and activist) had reached a crossroads with the over-ambitious recording shenanigans of 'Let it be', wherein they decided to record the process of making an album and everything that it entailed in a proto-type version of one of today's reality tv shows, except that that was actually real and therein lay the problem. They were falling apart, obviously and almost irrevocably and it was all laid bare there on the soon abandoned film project of LIB. The album itself was messy with John and Paul mainly using it as a sounding board for directions of future solo projects and the absence of George Martin as producer lending a distinctly chaotic air to a group of people and a huge pile of recordings that were not being dealt with as they were produced and not being re-recorded as they should have been to clear up mistakes and perfect various tracks into final versions.
'Let it be' almost did that to the Beatles. The bad feelings and chaos that resulted ended up with the group falling apart and it was only when pushed to the brink that they realised that this was it and that it had ended badly. None of them wanted this and so it was discussed and agreed that they would get back together for one album and do it properly, this time recruiting George Martin and agreeing to let him be in charge of putting the album together. What was amazing here is that they could all see that the end was inevitable but were able to put the fractious working atmosphere of 'Let it be' behind them and keep it together for long enough to put together a truly exceptional and remarkably structured album and send the Beatles off with a happy finale that looked at everything that they had been, where they had come from and left us with a snapshot of a band at it's creative height calling it quits and going their separate ways .
The other really fascinating thing about 'Abbey Road' is that despite the inclusion of so many fantastic and (now) classic tracks, it's not a collection of pieces but rather a single work of many different chapters or like a quilt with different pieces seamlessly stitched together to make one incredible overall work.
None of the songs on AR work even half as well when taken out of context. Like the earlier 'Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' abandoned theme so AR presented an ambitious idea of unity and looking at music in a different way, especially taking the idea of previous Beatles albums and using various techniques and approaches that this one could differ from them. With side one, the unity is more thematic with the songs representing how LIB could and should have been if a single strong creative producer had been in charge with Martin taking the many disparate strands and weaving them together into something remarkable. The sudden cut-off point at 7:44 minutes of 'I want you (she's so heavy)' into sudden silence is almost a cut point of the Beatles career and suddenly we're into the last run and with the beginning of side two all the way to the end, we're experiencing something different as the Beatles and Martin stitch many tiny songs together with the continuing royal and sun-like imagery abounding and creating one amazing shimmering tapestry of sound that coasts across genres and moods to reach a very definite end-point with the last lyrics on 'The End' effectively closing off an era.
The triumphant optimisim of many of the songs is fascinating, especially as the reassuring 'Here comes the sun' seems to be telling the fans as well as George himself that it'll all be ok after the Beatles and that life will go on and to look towards the future. 'Because' , with it's stunning harmonies and orchestration is another hopefuly look ahead with the Beatles and Martin musing on where life will take them next. As this flows into the patch-work pieces, we know that whilst the Beatles are moving on, the world of music has been irrevocably changed forever and that these last few pieces celebrating this legacy together are not a cause for sadness but rather a chance to celebrate with them in enjoying where popular music has gone and the part that the Beatles themselves played in such changes. MacCartney's 'granny music' as Lennon once deemed Paul's foray's into 1920's structures and tunes would prove to be a direction that he would explore alongside his more 'rocking' pieces with solo work and wings in the future. Harrison would continue to concoct progressive rock pieces of guitar beauty and perfect production whilst Ringo would go on to enjoy pure rock and roll with country tinged pop providing him with a few nice juicy hits in the early 1970's.
John Lennon would do whatever he wanted, whenever and with whomever. His experimentations in music didn't always make for the prettiest sounding songs but the genius of John was that he could pull out crowd pleasers at any time as well as doing his more activist/psychological/avant garde pieces. Never satisfied with the same thing, John would continue to go back and forth from hardcore full-on teddy boy rock, deep south grungy blues right through to production drenched harmony perfect songs like 'Imagine', 'Woman' and 'Watching the Wheels go round'.
If you haven't listened to Abbey Road in a long time or somehow never listened to it then it's time that you did. Give it a try and see what you think- and let me know.