Abbey Road - The Beatles

It had to happen at some point. There are twenty-five goddamn Beatles' albums in the basket. And so as last week's post was my love letter to Tom Waits (and if you haven't bought his new album, Bad As Me, shame on you), it's B's turn to carry on like a pork chop about Lennon and McCartney this week. I accept the songs are good but god I hate The Beatles.

Taking the laptop from L, I point out that The Beatles only released 13 albums (four are in the basket). Considering all were written in a seven-year period, I consider this to be the richest period of artistic creation in the history of humanity.

Writing about Abbey Road is like reviewing the Bible. Fortunately, we have the cojones to do so. (Incidentally, our review of the Bible would consist of five words - "could do with an edit").

Come Together is one of those Beatles songs which is so omniscient you forget how brilliant it is. It doesn't sound like any other Beatles song - it's all drums and percussions and funk. It wears its jeans so tight it needs to do the fly up with pliers and would be (re: is) cool in any era.

There's not much to say about Something, except that it's perfect. It has never been bested. Period. Until you hear Here Comes the Sun. It's a Harrison one-two knockout punch that leaves you lying on the canvas, bruised and breathless.

This album is the most polished of all Beatles releases. The songs in themselves are pure, breathtaking genius. But the production polishes them up until they are flawless diamonds. It verges on over-production, but never crosses the line, with harmonies and string sent in just at the right moment to rocket the songs into the stratosphere.

I reckon if someone challenged God to write a pop song, he would write Oh Darling. The piano riff is textbook 50s-Jerry-Lee Lewis-Little Richard rock and roll, but the plaintive plea of the chorus is sung with such raw passion it sounds like it's tearing McCartney's vocal chords to shreds.

As all readers would know, after Because, side two is seamless, with each song segueing into the next. This is not easily done, particularly considering Lennon and McCartney had stopped writing together. McCartney and George Martin took the fragments of unfinished songs and melded them into an incredible medley. Some of these songs fully formed would have been the pinnacle of another songwriter's career, but for The Beatles, they are the leftovers spooned onto a plate and microwaved to make a meal.

The album is McCartney's from this point on. You Never Give Me Your Money starts with a quintessential McCartney minor key, brooding, melody describing his boredom with daily life and then jumps into a rocking anthem about the thrill of escape when "one sweet dream came true today".

My favourite song on the album is She Came in Through the Bathroom Window. The bassline is funky and the verses are exhilarating. McCartney is wonderfully skilful at capturing suburban mundanity with lines like "Sunday's on the phone to Monday, Tuesday's on the phone to me."

The climax is all four Beatles singing "boy, you're going to carry that weight a long time"; it sounds like the encore to the best concert you never went to. Brilliantly, it reverts back to You Never Give Me You Your Money and then segues into The End, which sounds like a victory lap, with the band throwing flowers into the crowd.

There's really no way to describe Abbey Road and do it justice. Put it on and let it take your breath away. And with Queen Elizabeth in town, enjoy the final line of "I want to tell her that I love her a lot, but I gotta get a belly full of wine, Her Majesty's a pretty nice girl and someday I'm gonna make her mine."

Even L admits that she doesn't mind the album by the end, although she does note that my hyperbole-filled post has failed to mention Octopus's Garden....