Sic Semper Tyrannis

Abbey Road

As I alluded to before, the other Beatles album my dad had was Abbey Road and it was just as phenomenal to my high school mind as The White Album. As the last album that they recorded together, stories vary as to whether or not they knew that it would be their swan song. It sure sounds to me like they were trying to wrap up their career with one last hurrah.

It couldn’t have been more than a couple weeks between my discovery of The White Album and Abbey Road and their legends loom about equally as large in my psyche.

I’ll get the gist of this post out quick for those of you who are frequently bothered by customers when trying to read this stuff: I believe Abbey Road is about as close as you can get to a perfect album.

Now that I’ve said that, I must admit that I’ve always sort of just ignored the lead-in song “Come Together.” Maybe my standards aren’t high enough or I am lazy or whatever, but I’m willing to forgive one only “good” song on an album otherwise comprised of “great” songs.

First, let me speak in generalities. Why’s this album so great, to my ears? Mainly, the continuity. Let’s face it; the “album” is pretty much a dead medium. I don’t mean vinyl. I mean the art of sequencing songs together and incorporating common themes, and establishing a unified “sound” in the studio. Doing all of this to create a sum greater than its parts is, well, like I said, a dead art form. Today’s ruling musical expression is the single or the video--short, easily digestible fragments and sound bytes. This is the age where you express your musical aptitude with a ring tone. Our attention spans are short. Ours is the generation of the “mix CD,” where more than one song by a particular artist is the kiss of death. We would rather arrange our Ipods so as to best accompany our daily adventures than allow an album to take us on a sonic adventure. We would rather create our own cue list of faves to serve as a kind of audio wallpaper than really set aside the time to experience an extended artwork. It’s kind of like appreciating post card photos rather than a 4’ x 4’ canvas.

The idea of an extended musical art work like Abbey Road is pretty much crazy-talk today, and I for one think that’s a real shame because I don’t see “great albums” ever coming back.

Towards the end, you have seven songs that segue between each other flawlessly to end in the emotional climax of the album’s zen-like moral: “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.” At the end of it all, you feel like you just went somewhere. Anybody who has ever been in a band and written musical material will probably agree to just how difficult of a prospect that is. It’s hard enough to link two songs together musically, but seven? And to top it off, “Carry That Weight,” the penultimate song of the suite, refers back to the melody of “You Never Give Me Your Money,” which started off the whole shooting match. When I first heard those trumpets recapitulate the theme, I felt like I was witness to something truly extraordinary.

Speaking of self-referential material, the melody on “Sun King” starts out as a slow recitation of the melody to Harrison’s “Here Comes the Sun,” even more evidence of a larger artistic intent. And ALL of this is most likely lost in our present-day computerized, pick-a-song-any-song music distribution system. Anyway, the part of me that loved and loves this album is the same part of me that loved the Big Ideas of Pink Floyd. Once again, it was showing that rock and pop music can have an artful undercurrent.

Incidentally, I’m also amazed at the lack of commercial intent anywhere near the idea of this album’s suite. But since The Beatles are who they are, (or were who they were), I have heard the whole thing played on the radio as one whole, the way it was meant to be heard.

So, briefly, track-by-track:
“Come Together”-not one of my faves, as I’ve said before. I’m not much of a fan of later Lennon songs. Blues-rock doesn’t really speak to me much, but everything from this point on is just golden. Like a gooey, violin-soaked Twinkie.

“Something”-I did a college musical analysis paper on this Harrison song and it’s one of my all-time favorites of any artist. The modulation from C Major to A Major at about the midway point gets me every time.

“Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”-McCartney gets slagged by critics for his lack of “seriousness” and cutesy rhymes, but I would defy any critic to write a single melody as memorable as even this seemingly tossed-off song has in its chorus. Also, this is the album where the Beatles discovered the Moog synthesizer and it’s used to nicely subtle effect here.

“Oh! Darling”-it’s been said that McCartney was the driving force behind most of the ideas on the album and this song is clearly no exception. It seems mildly referential to 50’s doo-wop, but somehow they pull it off a little more rock than roll. A fantastic vocal performance by Paul on this one.

“Octopus’s Garden”-it’s the “Ringo song" for the album, and surprisingly more complex than his average country-rock song. Great background vocal effects and again, sort of referential to 50’s doo-wop. Also features some pretty nice playing on Harrison’s part

“I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”-the real genius of this song is its gradual build-up to white noise at the end.

“Here Comes the Sun”-the real genius of this song is its contrast with what just came immediately before.

“Because”-I was blown away by this song on first listen. The vocals are as thick as a Carpenters song, but the harmonies are way more complex than your average rock song. The third Anthology presents a version with just the backing vocals and it is a beautiful thing.

I won’t go over the medley since I’ve kind of covered all that and it just leaves “Her Majesty,” which was tacked onto the end of the master tape. And I love how this grand album has a catchy little postscript to remind us of the Beatles’ sense of humor and to remind us that: this is art, but it’s still supposed to be fun.

And after being introduced to Abbey Road, I was sold on the Beatles and my primary mission was to hear everything, to figure out how they got from point A-“I Want to Hold Your Hand,” to point B-glorious, grand statements like this. After discovering the veritable mine of great music in the Beatles catalog, I knew from that point on that I wanted music to be some part of my life. I wanted it to be inextricable from my identity. And so far, I’d say that’s pretty much been the case.

posted by Mike @ 4:46 PM