The last record on which all four Beatles recorded together, it is as famous for its music as for its iconic cover photo. Although the group released one more album, Let It Be, in 1970, most of its songs were recorded before Abbey Road’s. So the recording sessions for Abbey Road, done in the famous Abbey Road Studios, were the last in which all four members participated.
Origins of Abbey Road
The idea for Abbey Road came from Paul McCartney. After the unpleasant studio sessions for Let It Be, with bitter arguments taking place between the band members, McCartney suggested to the group’s regular producer, George Martin, that they make an album “the way we used to do it.” Martin agreed if the Beatles allowed him to produce it in “the old way,” with no interference from John Lennon. The atmosphere was better, but there were still arguments, especially over the presence of Lennon’s wife, Yoko Ono. Lennon and Ono had a car accident during the sessions. The doctor recommended that Ono stay in bed. Lennon installed a bed in the studio.
Compromise Album
The album was a compromise between the different ideas of Lennon and McCartney. Lennon wanted a traditional album with unrelated songs. McCartney and Martin preferred a thematic approach, similar to the record Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Lennon said he wanted his songs on one side and McCartney’s on the other. In the end, famously, the first side had unrelated songs by Lennon and the second a medley of songs edited as a single track. Lennon later said that McCartney’s songs were “music for the grannies.”
Mixed Reaction
The album had mixed reviews at first. The New York Times called the music “nothing special”. Life magazine said it was “not one of the Beatles’ great albums.” Rolling Stone, however, compared it to Sgt. Pepper. On the other hand, Abbey Road was a huge success with the public. It was number one in the UK for seventeen weeks and for twelve weeks in the USA. Over the years, critics slowly began to praise the record. It is now considered to be one of the Beatles’ best albums, and some critics call it one of the greatest records of all time.
Iconic Cover
Abbey Road is also famous for its cover. The photo of the four band members walking across the zebra crossing outside the Abbey Road Studios is one of the most imitated images in the history of popular music. Local police stopped the traffic and gave photographer Iain Macmillan ten minutes for his work. Macmillan took just six photos, and McCartney made the final choice. These days, the council has to repaint the wall by the crossing every three months to cover up fans’ graffiti. The street sign was regularly stolen until the council put it out of reach on the wall, and in 2011 a company installed a camera there that live-streams footage of the crossing to anyone who wants to watch it.
‘Paul is Dead’
The cover was also used to support one of the strangest stories in popular music. In 1969, there was a rumour that Paul McCartney had died and his place occupied by a lookalike. According to some people, Abbey Road’s cover supported this theory; they said that the Beatles were walking out of a cemetery in a funeral procession: Lennon, dressed in white, was a religious figure; Starr, dressed in black, was the undertaker; McCartney, out of step, was the barefoot corpse; and Harrison, dressed in denim, was the gravedigger.
Love Letter
Recording finished on August 20th, the last day on which all four Beatles were in the studio together. The last song on the album, The End, finishes with the line, “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make”. The track has Starr’s only drum solo and also features guitar solos from the other three Beatles. Neil McCormack of The Daily Telegraph called it the Beatles’ “last love letter to the world.”
Lennon vs. Mccartney
Abbey Road is famous musically for several reasons. The album has George Harrison’s best songs, ‘Something' and ‘Here Comes the Sun’. It also contains a sixteen-minute medley of eight short songs blended together through the genius of McCartney and Martin. Frank Sinatra called ‘Something’ “the greatest love song ever written.” For years he thought it was by Lennon and McCartney. Abbey Road also has probably the best example of McCartney’s so-called “granny music”, ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’. Lennon hated it and refused to play on it! ‘Octopus’s Garden’ is Ringo Starr’s second and last solo composition. The album also has Starr’s only drum solo, on The End. Starr hated drum solos but the group persuaded him to suffer for fifteen seconds. Abbey Road has a famous hidden track, ‘Her Majesty,’ not listed on the cover, which appears twenty seconds after the end of the medley.