Abbey Road

Released on 26 September 1969, Abbey Road was the Beatles' eleventh studio album in the United Kingdom and their final recorded collection, although Let It Be appeared later. The sessions ran chiefly from February through August 1969 at EMI Studios in London, while the group worked intermittently amid business and personal strain. Producer George Martin returned to oversee an unusually elaborate production, with engineer Geoff Emerick again contributing after leaving earlier sessions. Its cover photograph, taken by Iain Macmillan outside EMI's Abbey Road premises, made the zebra crossing recognizable. The image shows John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison. Side one opens with "Come Together," written by Lennon and credited to Lennon-McCartney. It grew from a campaign song requested by Timothy Leary, but its finished lyric and swampy groove became distinctly Lennon's. "Something," written by Harrison, was issued as a double A-side with "Come Together" and became the first Harrison composition selected for a Beatles single A-side. Harrison had already offered it to Joe Cocker before the Beatles recorded their version, featuring his lead vocal and a string arrangement by Martin. "Here Comes the Sun," another Harrison song, emerged during a visit to Eric Clapton's garden in Surrey after Apple meetings. The album's second side is dominated by a medley, assembled from short and unfinished songs including "You Never Give Me Your Money," "Sun King," and "The End." McCartney initiated much of the sequence, and Martin helped connect sections through key changes, tape edits, and recurring musical ideas. "The End" contains the Beatles' only recorded three-way guitar solo exchange, played by McCartney, Harrison, and Lennon in that order. It also features Starr's only full drum solo on a Beatles studio record, followed by the line, "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make." Although the medley ends with "The End," the brief hidden track "Her Majesty" follows after a gap on original pressings. McCartney wrote and sang it; its accidental placement resulted when tape editor John Kurlander removed it from the medley but preserved the ending chord. "Because," largely written by Lennon, built its harmony vocals from a Beethoven Moonlight Sonata figure that Yoko Ono had been playing. The album was mixed in both stereo and mono, yet its mono mix was not commercially issued in Britain; Abbey Road became the Beatles' last studio album to receive an entirely dedicated contemporary mono mix.