The Beatles - Abbey Road - and in the end

OK, confession time.  Growing up, I couldn't stand the Beatles.  I am just young enough to not remember the excitement of the impending arrival of a new album from the Fab Four, and yet they were ever-present.  I remember their two greatest hits collections coming out (the so-called Red and Blue albums).  Their music rang out in steady streams from every radio.  How boring.  The final straw was probably a kid (who I didn't care for) who collected Beatles stuff and would not shut up about them.  Yawn.  Today, I wish I had my musical act together in elementary school like he did, but at the time...not so much.

The difficulty judging their body of work is obvious: how can one understand the Beatles in the context of a popular music that was utterly transformed by their appearance on the scene?  You can't consider their work outside the mainstream that absorbed everything it could from them and still can't really compare. 

What hyperbole doesn't understate their cultural impact?  One simply cannot hear the Beatles with fresh ears.

With all of this in mind, Abbey Road perfectly summarizes their art and craft.  In a catalog of milestone songs, performances and especially albums, their final statement reaches the pinnacle.  The experiments of song-craft from albums like Revolver and Rubber Soul and production from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band have been fully mastered and assimilated here.

The songs touch on nostalgic early rock and roll and tin pan alley, heavy metal and blue-eyed soul. The production shows off the instantly recognizable individual voices and instrumental contributions as part of a more sophisticated whole.  The band plays with a loose professionalism and joy of spirit despite the sophisticated production.

The album leads off with Come Together, perhaps the heaviest track in their catalog.  Because feels like a final homage to the Beach Boys, their long time rivals from across the pond, with beautiful and startling harmonies.  Something, George's finest song, would become a legitimate standard which none other than Frank Sinatra described as "the greatest love song of the last fifty years".  Ringo contributes the wonderful Octopus's Garden. 

Side two of the original album (yes kids, we used to have to turn them over) consists of a perfect medley of songs we all know by heart but few could name culminating in The End, a perfect statement of the Beatles purpose and worldview.  And finally, Her Majesty, the hidden track on the LP as if we all needed to hear a little joke to lighten the mood after all was said and done.

Let It Be would arrive in record stores the following spring.  But despite some great songs, the Phil Spector sound, uneven material and venomous acrimony on display in the accompanying documentary all felt like a cash-in by Capital Records executives. 


Today Let It Be feels like a sad coda, but in the true chronology of their recording career the Beatles, who had shown us all what could be accomplished if we only believed, had saved their best for last.