Before The Beatles' Abbey Road

[Kooperman]

George Harrison on "Abbey Road"

"Newer" LP will precede "Get Back"

Abbey Road, the Beatles upcoming new LP, came about as suddenly as any Beatles project. As George Harrison told it: "We had Get Back in the can, but one day we just decided that we'd like to do a newer album. There was no particular reason -- we just wanted to some of our newest songs. The trouble with making albums is that it is difficult to represent the group, as it is at present, I mean like right now. Abbey Road was only finished a few weeks ago, so it does fairly present the Beatles as we are it this point in time."

Harrison contributes two tunes to Abbey Road, "Something" and "Here Comes the Sun." However excellent his compositions, Harrison stays in the shadows of the Lennon-McCartney team. Still, he writes because "I feel you can say more in two minutes of a song than in ten years."

George gave Rolling Stone the following track-by-track observation of the songs on Abbey Road:

"Come Together," the first track on side one, was one of the last trucks to be recorded. John wrote it about a month ago, just after his car accident. It's a 12 bar type of tune -- and one of the nicest things we've done musically, Ringo's drumming is great. [Ringo, sitting across the room, grinned.] It's an upbeat, rock'-a-beat-a-boogie, with very Lennon lyrics.

"Something" is a song of mine. I wrote it just as we were finishing the last album, the white one. But it was never finished. I could never think of the right words for it. Joe Cocker has done version too, and there's talk of it being the next Beatles' single. When I recorded it, I imagined somebody like Ray Charles doing it, that was the feel I thought it should have. But because I'm not Ray Charles -- I'm much more limited in what I can do -- we just did what we could. It's nice though, probably the nicest melody I've even written.

"Maxwell's Silver Hammer" is just something of Paul's. We spent a hell of a lot of time recording this one. It's one of these instant, whistle-along tunes which some people will hate and others will love. It's like "Honey Pie," a fun sort of thing, but probably sick as well because the guy keeps killing everybody. We used my Moog synthesizer on this track, and I think it came out effectively.

"Oh! Darling" is another of Paul's songs which is typical 1950-1960 sort of period in its chord structure. It's a typical 1955 song which thousands of groups used to make -- the Moonglows, the Paragons, the Shells and so on. We do a few ooh-oohs in the background, very quietly, but mainly it's Paul shouting.

"Octopus's Garden" is Ringo's song, the second he's written. It's lovely. Ringo gets very bored playing the drums, so at home he plays the piano. But he only knows about three chords. And he knows about the same on guitar. He mainly likes country music, so this has a C&W feel. It's really a great song. On the surface, it's a daft kids song, but I find the lyrics very meaningful. I find very deep meaning in the lyrics which Ringo probably doesn't even know about.

Lines like "resting our head on the seabed" and "we'll be warm beneath the storm." It makes me realize that when you get deep into your consciousness its very peaceful. So Ringo writes his cosmic songs without knowing it. [From across the room Ringo grinned again].

"I Want You (She's So Heavy)" is very heavy. It has John playing lead guitar and singing the same as he plays. This is good because the riff he sings is basically a blues.

But it's a very original Lennon-like song, even though I'd written it. The middle bit is great . . . John has an amazing thing with his timing. He always comes across with different timing things, for example "All You Need Is Love," which sort of skips beats out and changes from 3-4 to 4-4 all the time, in and out of each other.

Yet when you question him about it, he doesn't know. He just does it naturally and you can't pin him down. The bridge section is like that -- it's an excellent chord sequence he's using.

"Here Comes the Sun," the first cut on side two, is the other song I wrote for the album. It was written on a very nice sunny day in Eric Clapton's garden. We'd been through real hell with business, and it was all very heavy. Being in Eric's garden felt like playing hooky from school. I found some sort of release and the song just came.

It's a bit like "If I Needed Someone" with the basic riff running through it. But it is very simple really.

"Because" is one of the most beautiful things we've ever done. It has three-part harmony -- John, Paul and George. John wrote the song, and the backing is a bit like Beethoven. It does resemble Paul's writing style but only because of the sweetness it has. Paul usually writes the sweet things and John does the rave ups and freakier things. But every now and then, John just wants to write a simple 12-bar thing.

I think this is my favorite track as the album, it's so simple, especially the lyrics. The harmony is very difficult to do, we had is really learn it.

I think this is the tune that still impress most people. Hip people will dig it and the straight people and serious music critics will think it's really good.

Then begins the medley of Paul and John songs all shoved together. It's hard to describe them unless you hear them at the same time. "You Never Give Me Your Money" is like two songs, the bridge of it is like a completely different song. You whip out of that and into "Sun King," which John wrote. He originally called it "Los Paranois."

"Mean Mr. Mustard" and "Polythene Pam" are two short songs which John wrote in India 18 months ago.

"She Came In Through the Bathroom Window" is a very good song of Paul's with great lyrics. "Golden Slumbers" is another very melodic song by Paul which links up.

"Carry That Weight" keeps coming in out of the medley all the way through.

"The End" is just that, a little sequence which ends it all.

Despite the fact that Abbey Road was only recently completed, George says he has no overall image of it yet. "I just can't get any complete impression of Abbey Road. With Pepper and even the white album, I got an overall image of the complete product, but with this one, I'm still at a loss. I think it's a bit like Revolver, but I still feel very abstract about it. I just can't see it as a whole entity yet."

Source: Rolling Stone #44 October, 18, 1969

[rainbowdemon]

Of all the Beatle albums, this one has always been my favorite!!

[method77]

that's probably the best one

[DudeAsInCool]

Certainly the most polished one--I think Im partial to Revolver though, because that is when the experimentation really began to work...

George seemed to have eye on the pulse of things, and was less egocentric.. Kind of refreshing to hear things from him..

[slum_goddess]

whoa, he's alive again? holy shit--that means i'm a little kid again, yay! B)