Category Archives: Beatles

Beatles Abbey Road

Beatles Abbey Road

Beatles Abbey Road

US release: October 1, 1969

What is the last Beatles album? The answer depends on whether one uses the actual times that Apple released the album or the actual time(s) that the Beatles recorded the album.

Beatles Abbey Road

Let It Be

Beatles Abbey Road

The US release of Let It Be was May 8, 1970. The Beatles actually recorded in before Abbey Road in February 1968, January – February 1969. Since most of Let It Be was recorded in January 1969, before the recording and release of  Abbey Road, some argue that Abbey Road should be considered the group’s final album and Let It Be the penultimate.

Famed producer Phil Spector is typically associated with the ablum, but his post-production embellishments so disappointed so many that in 2003 Apple re-released the album as Let It Be…Naked and removed  those embellishments that Paul McCartney in particular felt got in the way of the group’s original stripped down  sound goal.

Beatles Abbey Road

Beatles Abbey Road

Beatles Abbey Road

In any case, Abbey Road is a different album than Let It Be.  With Abbey Road, knowing it  was likely their last, the Beatles wanted to do what they did best and go into the studio with George Martin, not Phil Spector.

The album cover is, of course, iconic and no other site of an album cover has had so many visitors and pictures taken by those visitors. Also of note about the album cover is that it contains neither the album’s nor the group’s name.

Beatles Abbey Road

George Martin

As had almost always been the case, George Martin was a huge part of the album. He later said that his response to Paul McCartney’s request to produce it: “I was quite surprised when Paul rang me up and said, ‘We’re going to make another record, would you like to produce it?‘ and my immediate answer was, ‘Only if you let me produce it the way we used to.’ and he said, ‘We do want to do that’ and I said, ‘John included?’ and he said, ‘Yes, honestly.”

He also said, ““It was a very very happy album. Everybody worked frightfully well and that’s why I’m very fond of it.”

Beatles Abbey Road

Side Two

We all know side two.  “Here Comes the Sun” then “Because.” Then the medley. THE medley.

The Beatles had popularized the segue with Sgt Pepper’s. Not an album of singles, but songs that literally flowed one into the other.

Abbey Road’s “Medley” perfected that production technique with its 16 minutes melodious  jaunt:

  1. At 4:03, “You Never Give Me Your Money” is the longest of the eight songs. Even the song itself has different parts perhaps a foreshadowing of McCartneys 1971 Uncle Albert Admiral Halsey ,
  2. John Lennon’s “Sun King” follows with lots of backing harmonies.
  3. Lennon wrote toth “Mean Mr Mustard” (is the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi the “dirty old man”?) and 
  4. “Polythene Pam” during the Beatles 1968 visit to India.
  5.  Four McCartney songs follow:  “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window” (written after a fan entered McCartney’s residence via his bathroom window)
  6. “Golden Slumbers” (based onThomas Dekker’s 17th-century poem set to new music),
  7. “Carry That Weight” (reprising elements from “You Never Give Me Your Money”, and featuring chorus vocals from all four Beatles), and closing with
  8. “The End” which has the only Ringo drum solo.  Appropriately (and sadly)_, the song contains three guitar solos, too. McCartney, then Harrison,  then Lennon.

Though “Her Majesty” ends the entire album and is not part of the medley, it is the end of “The End” that is the true final message of the Beatles to us. One that has always been true whether before any of them were born, any of us were born, or after any of our progeny will be born:

“And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make”.

Beatles Abbey Road

Link to Beatles Bible site article on Abbey Road

John George David

John George David

September 29, 1967

John George David

George Harrison Sitar

The path that led the Beatles to transcendental meditation was mainly through George Harrison’s use of the sitar, the Indian instrument he used on Rubber Soul’s “Norwegian Wood.” Harrison used the sitar simply because he liked its sound, but he wanted to learn more.

Harrison first met master sitarist Ravi Shankar in June 1966 in the UK and Shankar gave a couple of lessons to Harrison.

On September 14, 1966, a Mr and Mrs Sam Wells, aka George and Pattie Harrison, flew to Mumbai.  The main reason was to take sitar lessons from Shankar. Because the sitting position was so difficult for Harrison, Shankar had a yoga instructor help him.

The following year Pattie attended a lecture on Transcendental Meditation at Caxton Hall, London, where she received her mantra.

John George David

see Beatles meet Maharishi Mahesh Yogi for more

Encouraged by Pattie Harrison’s interest and enthusiasm, on August 24, 1967  the Beatles met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at a lecture in London. All except Ringo and his wife Maureen (she had just given birth to to their son) attended. While there, they found out that he was giving a series of classes. They all decided to attend.

Of course if the Beatles found something interesting, fans followed suit. Ravi Shankar became part of the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 and famously played in the rain at the Woodstock Music and Art Fair.

John George David

The Frost Programme

On September 29, 1967 John Lennon and George Harrison were guests on David Frost’s The Frost Programme.

Among the comments were:

Lennon: “Buddha was a groove, Jesus was all right.”

Harrison: “I believe in reincarnation. Life and death are still only relative to thought. I believe in rebirth. You keep coming back until you have got it straight. The ultimate thing is to manifest divinity, and become one with The Creator.”

Because viewers found that  program so interesting, John and George returned for another interview a week later.

Again, the subject of the 45-minute show was Transcendental Meditation. Lennon and Harrison answered questions that Frost and studio guests asked as well as from letters sent in. There was also a pro- and con- discussion about meditation.

John George David

No Mas Maharishi

The interest continued and on February 16, 1968 John and Cynthia Lennon, and George and Pattie Harrison flew to India for further study with the Maharishi. Paul McCartney, Jane Asher, Ringo and Maureen Starr followed on the 20th. The plan was to stay at least six weeks.

Ringo found the food there too difficult and he and Maureen returned to England less than two weeks after their arrival. Paul and Jane returned on March 20.

The stay for the others came to an abrupt end when one of the members of the Beatle party told John and George that the Maharishi was sexually inappropriate with one of the female guests.

John and George confronted the Yogi, but he didn’t take the accusation seriously which convinced John, George, and the others that he was guilty.

John left, but George, rather than return straightaway to England, went to visit Ravi Shankar and didn’t return until April 28.

The accusations were likely untrue.

John George David

Swan Beatles She Loves You

Swan Beatles She Loves You

US release September 16, 1963

Swan She Loves You

Ed Sullivan’s supercharge

Americans typically consider the Beatles starting point in the US as their debut on the Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964. That so many people watched that evening is a great demonstration that the Beatles’ popularity already existed. The show supercharged that popularity.

Swan Beatles She Loves You

Crickets at US start

The Beatles recording presence in the United States had begun in 1963, but to little acclaim. The UK release of “Please Please Me” had been on January 11, 1963. It hit #1 there on February 22.

The US release was on February 7, but the single hardly charted. It only reached No. 35 on the local WLS-AM (Chicago) music survey in March and did not chart at all on Billboard. The Vee Jay label even misspelled their name.

beattles-please-please-meSwan Beatles She Loves You

From a slow first release to…

…a slower second release

When Vee Jay signed an agreement to release “Please Please Me” it also got the right to first refusal. Even though the song did poorly, Vee Jay chose to release “From Me To You” and did that on May 27, 1963. It did even more poorly. By the end of June, “From Me to You” had sold fewer than 4,000 copies and had failed to chart anywhere.

At least Vee Jay spelled the band’s name correctly.

Swan She Loves You

Swan She Loves You

Brian Epstein chose “She Loves You” for the next release. Vee Jay declined. EMI was the Beatles UK label; Capital Records EMI’s US counterpart. Capital refused.

Persistent, Brian Epstein licensed the song to Swan Records, a Philadelphia-based label. Few US radio stations picked it up.

The song’s poor US showing was definitely a surprise. EMI had released the song in the UK on August 23, 1963.  It had what would become their trademark “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” It contained their equally famous trademark of the high pitched “Whoooo.”

In the UK, it had had 500,000 advanced orders. It hit #1 on September 14 and was on the charts for 31 consecutive weeks,  It was the best-selling single of 1963. “She Loves You” built Beatlemania.

Swan Beatles She Loves You

NBC News

NBC news had a piece on the Beatles on November 18, 1963. It may have helped light the US Beatlemania fuse, but even such national coverage didn’t tip things their way. The link below does work despite its appearance.

Swan Beatles She Loves You

CBS News

CBS broadcast a piece about the Beatles the morning of November 22, 1963 intending to rebroadcast it that evening. Obviously, the assassination of President Kennedy cancelled that broadcast.

Swan Beatles She Loves You

Jack Parr Show

On January 3, 1964 the Jack Paar program showed film footage of The Beatles performing “She Loves You,” but Jack Parr’s demographic did not reach out to those Baby Boomer buyers. It is interesting to note Parr’s claim to have been the first to show the band on American TV. Apparently his fact-checkers, if they existed, missed the two November news reports.

Swan re-release

Swan re-released “She Loves You.” It hit Billboard #1 on March 21 and remained there until April 3 when the now-wiser Capital Record release, “Can’t Buy Me Love,” replaced it. [Beatles Again site story of various labels]

Swan Beatles She Loves You