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The Beatles · S10 E4
The Medley
Side two of Abbey Road: a 16-minute suite from Sun King to The End. Fragments stitched into something seamless, and the line 'the love you take is equal to the love you make'
Summer 1969. Paul McCartney arrives at Abbey Road with a stack of song fragments, none of them finished, and a crazy idea: stitch them all together into one continuous piece of music that fills the entire second side of the album.
"Golden Slumbers / Carry That Weight / The End" (Paul McCartney, live). Paul still performs the Abbey Road medley at every concert, and it still brings the house down decades later. "Carry That Weight" is about the burden the Beatles will carry for the rest of their lives, and "The End" contains the only three-way guitar battle in the band's catalogue. Hearing Paul sing "the love you take is equal to the love you make" live, to tens of thousands of people, proves the medley was built to last forever.
The End, The Beatles (1969)
The guitar solo section is a relay race: Paul plays two bars, then George, then John, and they cycle through three times. Each guitarist has a completely different style, and you can hear them trying to outplay each other without stepping on anyone's toes. Ringo's drum solo beforehand is characteristically modest, just eight bars, because he refused to play anything longer. Listen for the final piano chord after the last vocal line: it hangs in the air for a moment, and then there's silence.
Sources
Lewisohn, Mark. "The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions." Hamlyn, 1988.
Emerick, Geoff. "Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles." Gotham Books, 2006.
The Fragments
None of these songs could stand alone. "Sun King" dissolves into fake Italian, "Mean Mr. Mustard" and "Polythene Pam" are character sketches John wrote in India but never finished, and "She Came In Through the Bathroom Window" started as a joke about fans breaking into Paul's house. George Martin's genius was hearing how they could flow into each other, crossfading one fragment into the next until the seams disappeared.
Sources
MacDonald, Ian. "Revolution in the Head." Chicago Review Press, 2005.
The Beatles. "The Beatles Anthology." Chronicle Books, 2000.
“We put all these songs together because none of them were finished. But when we stuck them together, something happened. It was like making a quilt.”
— Paul McCartney
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The Last Line
Paul writes the final lyric the Beatles will ever record together: "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make." It's a Shakespeare-style couplet, and Paul later said he was consciously trying to write something that sounded like it had always existed. George Martin called it one of the wisest things Paul ever wrote.
Sources
Miles, Barry. "Many Years From Now." Secker & Warburg, 1997.
Martin, George. "All You Need Is Ears." St. Martin's Press, 1979.
The Medley
You Never Give Me Your Money, The Beatles (1969)
The opening of the medley, and Paul's bitter commentary on the business disputes tearing the Beatles apart. "You never give me your money, you only give me your funny paper" is aimed directly at Allen Klein, the manager John, George, and Ringo had chosen over Paul's objections. The song shifts through three completely different sections: a mournful piano ballad, an uptempo rock section, and a dreamy coda with chirping crickets. It's a miniature Abbey Road inside Abbey Road.
You Never Give Me Your Money, The Beatles (1969)
"Out of college, money spent, see no future, pay no rent." Paul layers his frustration with the Klein situation inside a song that keeps changing shape, moving from self-pity to nostalgia to a kind of desperate optimism. The line "one sweet dream came true today" is thought to refer to Linda Eastman, who Paul married in March 1969. The song's constant shifting between moods and tempos gave George Martin the idea for the medley structure that would define Abbey Road's second side.
In the guitar solo relay in 'The End,' what is the playing order?
While John and Paul fight over the band's future, George quietly writes a love song for Pattie Boyd that Frank Sinatra will call the greatest love song of the past fifty years. "Something" is about to make the quiet Beatle impossible to ignore.
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