The "Best" Beatles Album — Was It Abbey Road?

What was the "best" Beatles album? It seems like just about every new album by the Beatles was deemed "the best one yet" when it first came out. Looking back, every Beatles fan has his or her own favorite. I think most people would find their own personal favorite in the following list:

• Rubber Soul
• Revolver
• Sgt. Pepper
• The Beatles (The "White Album")
• Abbey Road

In this series of posts, I'm taking a look back at all five of those. In the previous post, it was the "White Album." Right now, it's ...

Abbey Road

Abbey Road, appearing in the early fall of 1969, was the Beatles' eleventh studio album. There would be just one more, Let It Be, which appeared in 1970. (The Let It Be LP was actually recorded earlier than Abbey Road, under the working title Get Back. In the U.S. but not in the U.K., there was an intervening LP, Hey Jude, a 1970 collection of non-album singles and B-sides.)

The recording sessions for Abbey Road were the last in which all four Beatles participated.

The album cover for Abbey Road itself became iconic:

Notice that no words or other identifying information was printed on the front of the album. The album title and name of the band were on the back:

There were 17 tracks on Abbey Road. Side One:

1. Come Together — The title of this U.S. chart topper (#4 in the U.K.) was both sexual and a swipe at the violent antagonisms occurring in the world at the time. "Come Together" became one side of a "double A-side" single with "Something" on the reverse side.
2. Something — Many think this song to be George Harrison's finest for the Beatles. It went to #2 on the U.S. charts. Frank Sinatra once commented that it was his favorite Lennon–McCartney (sic) composition and "the greatest love song ever written."
3. Maxwell's Silver Hammer — Ian McDonald, in Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties, called this Paul McCartney song "the cheery side of a homicidal maniac." John Lennon — who along with Yoko Ono was still recovering from injuries sustained in an auto accident in Scotland — did not participate in its recording.
4. Oh! Darling — Paul had trouble getting his voice to come out rough enough on this song he wrote. John later said,  "'Oh! Darling' was a great one of Paul's that he didn't sing too well. I always thought I could have done it better – it was more my style than his. He wrote it, so what the hell, he's going to sing it."
5. Octopus's Garden — This song was one of the two Beatles numbers written and sung by Ringo Starr. (George helped in the studio with the finishing of the song.) Ringo had spent two weeks on Peter Sellers's boat off the Sardinia coast when he briefly left the Beatles during the White Album sessions. He got the idea for wanting to be "under the sea" then, to escape the group's mounting hostility.
6. I Want You (She's So Heavy) — There's "a three-minute descent through repeated guitar chords" in the outro of this song written and sung by John, and then an abrupt ending. The initial vocal part, with the bluesy "I Want You" lyric and also the "She's So Heavy" lyric, comes before that. There's a nice guitar solo in the middle of it all, which I assume George provided. This is one of the "heaviest" songs the Beatles ever did.

Side Two:

1. Here Comes The Sun — This excellent song by George is one of the lightest, happiest Beatle songs. George played acoustic guitar, harmonium, and Moog synthesizer on this one, thanks to multitrack recording ... The Moog synthesizer was invented in the early 1960s. Says Wikipedia, it "began to gain wider attention in the music industry after it was demonstrated at the epochal Monterey International Pop Festival in June 1967." It became a staple of popular music recording in the years following 1969.
2. Because — George also played Moog synthesizer on this song that was written by John. John, Paul, and George sang in harmony on this one, and each voice was "overdubbed" twice to make a total of nine voices, as heard by the listener. John wrote the song after hearing Yoko Ono play an adagio sostenuto movement of Beethoven's "Moonlight" piano sonata.
3. You Never Give Me Your Money* — This Paul song begins the medley portion of Abbey Road. The medley was "conceived by McCartney and producer George Martin as a finale for the Beatles' career," says Wikipedia. Paul wrote the song "when he was staying with new wife Linda in New York in March 1969, shortly after the Get Back sessions that ultimately resulted in [the Let It Be album]. The song "documented the financial and personal difficulties facing the band."
4. Sun King* — This is the first of three songs in the medley that were written by John. The other five medley songs were written by Paul, with no songs in the medley attributable to George. The "lush multi-tracked vocal harmonies [were] provided by Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison," says Wikipedia. 
5. Mean Mr Mustard* — John wrote this song while attending the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Transcendental Meditation sessions with the other Beatles. He had based it on a newspaper article about a miser who hid his cash in order to keep people from forcing him to spend it.
6. Polythene Pam* — John wrote this one in India, as well. The protagonist, Pam, was based on a woman John had once been introduced to in Jersey. She had been dressed only in clear plastic — "polythene," as the Brits call it. John was put off by the crudity of it all. (Jersey, by the way, is a British-owned island off the coast of Normandy, France.)
7. She Came In Through The Bathroom Window* — Here begins a group of four songs written by Paul. Some "Apple scruffs" — dedicated fans who hung around outside the Abbey Road studio, the Apple Corps offices, and the individual Beatles' homes — had broken into Paul's home via a slightly ajar bathroom window, Paul found out, and he wrote this song.
8. Golden Slumbers* — This song by Paul was recorded together with the next, "Carry That Weight." This one was based on the poem "Cradle Song", a lullaby by the dramatist Thomas Dekker. Paul, says Wikipedia, "saw sheet music for Dekker's lullaby at his father's home in Liverpool, left on a piano by his stepsister Ruth. Unable to read music, he created his own music."
9. Carry That Weight* — This song's musical impact is a fitting one, considering that it directly follows "Golden Slumbers." The two songs were recorded together in the studio. Paul, according to Wikipedia, "said the song was about the Beatles' business difficulties and the atmosphere at Apple at the time."
10. The End* — Paul later said, per Wikipedia, "I wanted [the medley] to end with a little meaningful couplet, so I followed the Bard and wrote a couplet." This song "stands as the last known new recording involving all four members of the Beatles." It was originally intended to be the final song on Abbey Road, but that changed with the addition of ...
11. Her Majesty† — Not listed on the album sleeve, and arriving several seconds after the end of "The End," Wikipedia says "Her Majesty" — referring to Queen Elizabeth II — is "considered one of the first examples of a hidden track in rock music." But it was actually something of an accident. "Her Majesty" was originally slated to be part of the medley, to come between "Mean Mr. Mustard" and "Polythene Pam." Paul felt it didn't belong there, musically speaking, and had it edited out. But a recording engineer named John Kurlander put it at the tail end of Abbey Road instead.

The tracks with an asterisk (*) form a continuous medley of short songs that segue from one to the next. These songs are all listed individually on the album cover. The track with a cross symbol (†) — "Her Majesty" — is not part of the medley and is not listed on the album cover.

* * * * *

Major events of 1969:

• January 20 — Richard M. Nixon is sworn in as President of the United States.
• January 28 — A blowout on a Union Oil platform spills 80,000 to 100,000 barrels of crude oil, threatening the beaches of Santa Barbara County in Southern California. On February 5, the Santa Barbara harbor will need to be closed. This inspires Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson to organize the first Earth Day in 1970.
• February 4 — In Cairo, Yasser Arafat is elected Palestine Liberation Organization leader at the Palestinian National Congress.
• February 9 — The Boeing 747 makes its maiden flight.
• March 2 — In Toulouse, France, the first Concorde test flight is conducted.
• March 3 — NASA launches Apollo 9 (astronauts James McDivitt, David Scott, Rusty Schweickart) to test the lunar module.
• March 17 — Golda Meir becomes the first female prime minister of Israel.
• March 28 — Former United States General and President Dwight D. Eisenhower dies in the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, D.C.
• April 9 — The Harvard University Administration Building is seized by close to 300 students, mostly members of the Students for a Democratic Society. Before the takeover ends, 45 will be injured and 184 arrested.
• April 20 — British troops arrive in Northern Ireland to reinforce the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
• April 20 — A grassroots movement of Berkeley community members seizes an empty lot owned by the University of California, to begin the formation of "People's Park".
• April 28 — Charles de Gaulle steps down as president of France after suffering defeat in a referendum the day before.
• May 15 — An American teenager, 'Robert R.', dies in St. Louis, Missouri, of a baffling medical condition. In 1984 it will be identified as the first confirmed case of HIV/AIDS in North America.
• May 18 — Apollo 10 (astronauts Tom Stafford, Gene Cernan, John Young) is launched as the full dress-rehearsal for the Moon landing.
• June 8 — U.S. President Richard Nixon and South Vietnamese President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu meet at Midway Island. Nixon announces that 25,000 U.S. troops will be withdrawn from Vietnam by September.
• June 18 to June 22 – The National Convention of the Students for a Democratic Society, held in Chicago, collapses, and the Weatherman faction seizes control of the SDS National Office.
• June 20 — Georges Pompidou is elected President of France.
• June 22 — The Cuyahoga River fire helps spur an avalanche of water pollution control activities resulting in the Clean Water Act, the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, and the creation of the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
• June 23 — Warren E. Burger is sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States by retiring Chief Justice Earl Warren.
• June 28 — The Stonewall riots in New York City mark the start of the modern gay rights movement in the U.S.
• July 8 — The very first U.S. troop withdrawals from Vietnam are made.
• July 18 — Mary Jo Kopechne, American teacher, secretary, and political campaign specialist, dies at age 28 in a car accident at Chappaquiddick Island while a passenger in a car driven by U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy.
• July 20 — The lunar module Eagle/Apollo 11 lands on the lunar surface. An estimated 500 million people worldwide watch as Neil Armstrong takes his historic first steps on the Moon. It was the largest television audience for a live broadcast at that time.
• July 25 — U.S. President Richard Nixon declares the "Nixon Doctrine," stating that the United States now expects its Asian allies to take care of their own military defense. This starts the "Vietnamization" of the Vietnam War.
• August 4 — At the Paris apartment of a French intermediary, U.S. representative Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese representative Xuan Thuy begin secret peace negotiations. They will not lead to peace.
• August 9 — Followers of Charles Manson murder Sharon Tate, Folgers coffee heiress Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, and Hollywood hairstylist Jay Sebring at the Los Angeles home of Tate and her husband, Roman Polanski.
• August 14 — British troops are deployed in Northern Ireland following the three-day Battle of the Bogside.
• August 17 — Category 5 Hurricane Camille, the most powerful tropical cyclonic system at landfall in history, hits the Mississippi coast, killing 248 people and causing $1.5 billion in damage (in 1969 dollars).
• August 21 — The political liberalization of Czechoslovakia called the "Prague Spring" ends when the Soviet Union and other members of the Warsaw Pact invade the country to halt the reforms.
• August 29 — Trans World Airlines flight 840 from Rome to Tel Aviv is hijacked and diverted to Syria.
• September 1 – A coup in Libya brings Colonel Muammar Gaddafi to power.
• September 2 — Ho Chi Minh, former president of North Vietnam, dies.
• September 5 — Lieutenant William Calley is charged with 6 counts of premeditated murder for the 1968 My Lai Massacre deaths of 109 Vietnamese civilians in My Lai, Vietnam.
• September 24 — The Chicago Eight trial begins in Chicago, Illinois.
• October 9 to October 12 — In Chicago, the United States National Guard is called in to control "Days of Rage" demonstrations involving the radical Weathermen, in connection with the "Chicago Eight" Trial.
• October 15 — Hundreds of thousands of people take part in "Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam" demonstrations across the United States.
• October 29 — The first message is sent over ARPANET, the forerunner of the Internet.
• November 3 — U.S. President Richard Nixon addresses the nation on television and radio, asking the "silent majority" to join him in solidarity with the Vietnam War effort. Vice President Spiro Agnew denounces the President's critics as "an effete corps of impudent snobs" and "nattering nabobs of negativism."
• November 9 — A group of American Indians seizes Alcatraz Island for 19 months, inspiring a wave of renewed Indian pride and government reform.
• November 15 — In Washington DC, 250,000 to 500,000 protesters stage a peaceful demonstration against the Vietnam War.
• November 17 — Negotiators from the Soviet Union and the United States meet in Helsinki, Finland, to begin the SALT I negotiations to limit the number of strategic weapons on both sides.
• November 18 — Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., American businessman/statesman/politician dies. He was the father of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.
• December 1 — The first draft lottery in the United States is held since World War II.

Other key events of 1969:

• January 12 — Led Zeppelin, the first Led Zeppelin album, is released.
• January 12 — The New York Jets upset the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III, 16-7. Joe Namath is the MVP of the game.
• January 20 — After 147 years, the last issue of The Saturday Evening Post is published. Publication will resume in 1971.
• January 26 — Elvis Presley begins recording tracks for the albums From Elvis in Memphis and Back in Memphis. Singles "Suspicious Minds," "In the Ghetto," and "Kentucky Rain" will be issued from those albums, certifying Elvis's comeback.
• January 30 — The Beatles give their last public performance, filming their playing of several tracks on the roof of Apple Records, London.
• March 4 — Jim Morrison is arrested in Florida for indecent exposure during a Doors concert three days earlier.
• March 20 — John Lennon and Yoko Ono are married at Gibraltar, and proceed to their honeymoon "Bed-In" for peace in Amsterdam.
• April 4 — Dr. Denton Cooley implants the first temporary artificial heart.
• May 25 — Midnight Cowboy, an X-rated, Oscar-winning John Schlesinger film, is released.
• May 26 to June 2 — John Lennon and Yoko Ono conduct their second Bed-In. This follow-up to their initial Amsterdam event is held at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, Quebec. On June 1, Lennon composes and records the song "Give Peace a Chance."
• June 7 — The rock group Blind Faith (Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, Steve Winwood, Ric Grech) plays its first gig in front of 100,000 people in London's Hyde Park.
• June 22 — Longtime actress-singer Judy Garland dies of a drug overdose in her London home.
• July 3 – Musician Brian Jones, founder and original leader of the Rolling Stones, drowns in his swimming pool at his home in Sussex, England.
• August 15 to August 18 — The "Woodstock Festival" is held in upstate New York. It features some of the top rock musicians of the era. Over 400,000 people attend after knocking down fences and making the event a free one. 
• September 2 — The first automatic teller machine in the United States is installed in Rockville Centre, New York.
• September 22 — San Francisco Giant Willie Mays becomes the first player since Babe Ruth to hit 600 career home runs.
• October 31 — Wal-Mart incorporates as Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
• November 10 — Sesame Street is broadcast for the first time on the National Educational Television (NET) network.
• November 25 — John Lennon returns his MBE (Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) medal to protest the British government's involvement in the Nigerian Civil War.
• December 5  — The Rolling Stones release their Let it Bleed LP.
• December 6 – The "Altamont Free Concert" is held at Altamont Speedway in northern California. Hosted by the Rolling Stones, it is best known for the deaths and violence that occurred. It is viewed by many as the "end of the sixties."

* * * * *

On January 30, 1969, the Beatles made what was to be their last public performance, their famous impromptu "rooftop concert" atop the band's multimedia corporation Apple Corps headquarters at 3 Savile Row in London. They had just finished recording the two sides of the "Get Back/Don't Let Me Down" single which would be released in April 1969, and those songs were prominent in the "rooftop concert" lineup. Billy Preston accompanied the Beatles on organ on the record and at the concert.

Abbey Road didn't come out until September 1969 — just as I was beginning my senior year at Georgetown University. I had just turned 22.  (When I'd heard my first Beatles record, "I Want To Hold Your Hand" in December 1963, I had been 16. So the Beatles provided the soundtrack of my late teens and early 20s.)

The Beatles' only studio album after Abbey Road would be Let It Be, released in May 1970, but in the U.S. we had a compilation album, Hey Jude, that appeared in February 1970.

By then I was in Volunteers In Service To America, and my fellow VV's were just as much Beatles fans as I was. I had begun VISTA training in January 1970, and for some time afterward I was pretty much out of touch with the world of rock, beyond what I could hear on the radio. I just don't recall whether I even realized, as of April of that year, that the Beatles had broken up: Per Wikipedia, "Although in September 1969 John Lennon privately informed the other Beatles that he was leaving the group, there was no public acknowledgement of the break-up until Paul McCartney announced on 10 April 1970 he was leaving the Beatles."

Abbey Road was actually recorded after most of the tracks for the Hey Jude album were, but recording the Hey Jude tracks had been an ugly experience, one that had prompted longtime producer George Martin to exit the Beatles scene.

Martin was lured back for Abbey Road. Wikipedia says:

After the unpleasant recording sessions for the proposed Get Back album (ultimately released in 1970 as Let It Be), Paul McCartney suggested to music producer George Martin that the group get together and make an album "the way we used to do it," free of the conflict that had begun following the death of [Beatles manager] Brian Epstein and carried over to the sessions for the White Album. Martin agreed, but on the strict condition that all the group – particularly John Lennon – allow him to produce the record in the same manner as earlier albums and that discipline would be adhered to.

Yet the old camaraderie wasn't there during the Abbey Road sessions. There were arguments, often between John and Paul, and the handwriting was on the wall. So the last song to be recorded by the Beatles (though John did not even appear on it) would be George's "I Me Mine" — which became part of the Let It Be LP — work on which was finished on April 2, 1970. Eight days later would come news of the formal breakup of the band.