#something-> maxwell's silver hammer

[rainingbaconbits]

Beatles albums are fascinating in the fact that I could hear the most beautifully haunting melody with a three person harmony that could make a dead man cry And then the next song is just "PETE THE PLUMBER HE'S REAL COOOOOOOOL"

And i love them for that

[ringosmistress]

[i-am-the-oyster]

Oh! I came up with a new theory about Maxwell's Silver Hammer the other day: the teacher is the Maharishi

"back at school again Maxwell plays the fool again teacher gets annoyed"

[buttahpie]

something so poetic about “maxwells silver hammer” directly following “something” on the abbey road lineup…

this band is so unserious

[bikenesmith]

ive noticed some engagement on some of my monkees (shit)posts from way back in 2012/2013 — my 14/15 year old self. which is endearing, bc im aware the monkees fandom is still going, and is perhaps even more active than it was in my day. this did remind me of a @fansplaining article by allegra rosenberg / @areyougonnabe that i finally got around to reading earlier this week, the beatles live!

(i have no idea how long some of you have been here, so to recap i was fully obsessed with classic rock bands and 1960s/70s pop culture from like, 12 to 15 years old. profound impact on me in many ways, still love 60s/70s music, culture and history. also lmfao at my fandom of the last near-decade being sparked by a film set in the 60s. the several page video essay script about x-men first class' anachronistic 1960s fashion, which is sooo close to actually being filmed, will likely be the ultimate culmination of it all) the beatles were my first music fandom — while i still have feelings for the monkees [obviously, considering my ~12 year attachment to this url across nearly all of my social media] it is the beatles that i still have brain worms for. a tiny, isolated worm, but one nonetheless. so this article, i had to read.)

i was really taken by this section on the anachronistic modernizing of beatles fandom activities.

It takes a certain stripe of fannish brain to obsess over music from a bygone age instead of modern artists—taking something as broadly popular as classic rock and treating it with all the intimate, loving attention that other fans devote to a sci-fi television show, a fantasy book series, or a cult video game. These fans are cultural archaeologists, working with the materials of the past to create the passion of the present. The phenomenon is not limited to the Beatles. On TikTok, fans place meme tweets on pictures of the Stones and Bob Dylan; celebrate Freddie Mercury’s style; and make Monkees fancams. But the Beatles fandom is still top dog, with a kind of default dominance it retains from the dawn of Beatlemania. On Tumblr, you can find gifsets of Beatles movies, fanart, and the occasional Yoko Ono stan post, side by side with more typically Tumblr-esque wackiness along the lines of Paul McCartney posts tagged “#my twink wife”, “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” memes, and toxic yaoi polls.

it made me think about how this phenomenon — the blending of modern fan practices and modern pop culture (fancams, memes, insaneposting, etc) with classic rock fandom is not new (not that allegra insinuates it is — i am speaking generally), but is something that has been around for a while, and is something i participated in quite heavily when it came to monkees fandom. whether it was

editing a music video to the tune of marina + the diamonds

making art of mike nesmith as a genderbent marina + the diamonds analog

not to mention the entirety of the who (slight flashing tw)

creating mockups of a classic rock-themed homestuck/OFF/undertale/earthbound analog:

classic rock icons using homestuck icons as a base

blending classic rock into my ~aesthetic~ blog theme sensibilities:

this video where i did nothing but put the beginning of baby got back over a scene from the first episode of the monkees and the music lined up almost frighteningly well

or creating emo notepad screenshot aesthetic posts with quotes from head (1968)....

i was very invested in engineering (or maybe just yearning for + acting out desires?) a form of classic rock fandom that was "hip" to the modern fandoms i was aware of. this was likely inspired by the fact that monkees fandom at the time skewed older.

i cannot for the life of me find these accounts or screenshots of them, but i think the ultimate expression of this was a collection of twitter accounts i made as mockups of twitter stan accounts, modeled directly off of one direction accounts at the time. complete with icons that were cut-outs of musicians overlayed onto aesthetic background, and descriptions that noted how many times the musicians had interacted with them.

importantly, i could not have sustained this if not for the close friends i had at the time that were around my age and were on my wavelength, that supported it, commiserated with me, made lots — especially on the homestuck parts. even if it was a small thing, in a small fandom, it was a communal effort

idk. its interesting to see that these dreams of mine have now come to fruition.

abrupt stop, no conclusion bc this is just a post not an essay (a comment directed at my autistic ocd self). may be interesting to some of the nouveau classic rock fandom.

[grenonz]

Album Review #1

Abbey Road by The Beatles - 97%

OMG GUYS HE'S BAREFOOT!!!!

Abbey Road, The Beatles' Penultimate album, and their most beloved, regarded as of the greatest albums of all time, and honestly, have to agree.

Similarly to their previous album, The White Album, Abbey Road was made during peak tensions between the 4. In spite of this, as opposed to The White Album, it works through that to be much shorter, only being 47 minutes, and having a more cohesive sound

The Music itself is stellar to say the least. The instrumentals are great and well performed by the four, and i want to specifically mention "I Want You (She's So Heavy)", where the instruments keep growing slowly in intensity as the track goes on, until they collapse into madness at the climax. The Songwriting is also some of their, with some of the most iconic and best songs to come from Lennon and McCartney, like "Come Together", "Oh, Darling", "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" and "You Never Give Me Your Money". In spite of their efforts however, George still manages to wash most of the two's songwriting on the album, with "Something" and the ever iconic "Here Comes the sun", two of my favourite songs on the album. The vocals, too, are great, with leads being split generally evenly between Paul and John, as well as George getting to perform his songs, and Ringo getting a one song. Also, in terms of the whole tracklist, before i end this, i must bring up the last 8 song stretch that, while are some of the weaker tracks individually, combine as one to make a great medley to close off a great album.

Overall, Abbey Road is the Beatles at the peak of their powers as artists in all regards, and putting those powers together as one, to make an inarguable classic.

5 Favourite Tracks:

I Want You (She's So Heavy), Here Comes The Sun, Come Together, Something, Octopus' Garden

Least Favourite Tracks:

none

Best 3 Track Run:

Octopus' Garden --> I Want You (She's so heavy) --> Here Comes the sun

[johnssilverhammer]

~ Continued Obsessive!John x reader Part 3 ~ (not really I got a bit distracted)

Paul was distraught why was John breaking into your house?! John never seemed like the type to do something that crazy, but then again maybe Paul didn't know John as much as he thought.. Paul debated on catching him and confronting him or waiting it out, either decision could get himself or you hurt In the process. It was a tough decision. Who knew what John was up to inside your house. He went with the latter, he would rather wait it out. Which wasn't the best decision but he had to do something you know?

*The next day*

Paul was oddly quiet when he walked into the studio, usually he's greeting everyone there being quite the charmer. Paul sat down zoning in and out, visibly in thought. He was the first one to arrive to practice. His mind was trying to piece together what he saw last night but he couldn't come to a realistic conclusion. Is John and y/n actually dating but in secret? Maybe that was why John was sneaking in? Or they were just having a private meeting? His mind was racing with attempts of piecing together this puzzle in his mind.

John walks into the studio, a blank expression painting his face. He takes note of Paul sitting in the quiet room by himself. ‘Paul’s never this early..’ John thinks as he sits his guitar case down and sits next to Paul. They sit in silence, waiting for someone to break the silence.

They hear the faint noise of something in the attic. “RUNGO BUNGO” they hear jolting them out of their silence. “OI SHUT IT YOU BLOODY MONK” yells Paul. Behind Paul, John sees a man who looks identical to Paul wielding a silver hammer. It’s his worst nightmare come true. “YOU DONT HAVE THE GEARS TO GEAR YOUR LAST GEAR PAUL!!” The identical man screams as he lands the hammer right into Paul’s forehead. Billy ‘Gears’ Shears has struck again. “Tell the public it was Maxwell who did this John..” Billy says looking down upon to John, Paul’s blood splattered on his face. “I- uh I mean sure! I don’t really care anyhow!” Billy looks at John in disbelief. “But John… where’s your tool?” He asks coyly, eyeing him. “What tool, Billy Beers Gears Shears?” “This bloody tool!” Billy then whips out a sock with a brick inside and starts to beat John senselessly. John wails in agony. “WHOS YOUR DADDY EH? WHOS YOUR FOOKIN DADDY?!” Billy yells out. “YOU ARE BILLY!!” John manages to weep out. In the corridor George and Ringo watch in horror as they watch their bandmate get beat to death right besides their now dead bandmate. All of their guitars weep gently in unison. And Ringo drums cry regularly. Then Ringo only sees his deformed twin brother Rungo hovel down the attic steps, missing a step and falling, landing on his face. His whimpers in pain makeing Ringo wince. The noises from Rungos stupidity attract the attention of Billy. He snaps his neck practically, looking so hard over to Rungo. Then the only legible English Rungo has ever spoke in his entire life; “GEARS! BILLY BEERS GEARS SHEARS PEARS TEARS YEARS. QUEERS!” He yells adding emphasis on each word like Steve from the Minecraft movie would. At the end he points over to Paul’s dead body and John. John yells out “QUEERS!?” He can’t help but smile at the thought. “HUBABUBADONTWAITTILLSUPPAGEORGE!” Ringo yells as he sees a witch appear from a random cauldron in the middle of the room out of nowhere. “Did someone say nowhere?” Says the iconic, fan favorite, memorable character of the year: JEREMY HILLARY BOOB PHD! The man himself appeared out of thin air. He wattles over to Billy Rears, jumping up and clocking him right in the nose. “NOT THE NOSE!” A distraught Ringo yelps from afar. Mr.Boob continues to Molly wop Billy Jears in the gut, listening to his screams in pain. John, George and Ringo huddle together behind Ringo drum set, cowering in fear of the small man. A door is opened into the recording studio, two scientists waltz in and place a curling stone into the room without any notice. Only then George recognizes it and shouts; “ITS A THINGIE, A FIENDISH THINGIE!!” He’s played these games before. Everyone including the pummeled Billy Mears and Mr.Boob duck and cover from the bomb. It explodes and they all survive Yippeee. The end.

I’ll actually write the third John sometime this week and mb for not posting him more or another one shot my weeks been rly busy so I don’t have time to write and stuff .

[jacaela]

It bothers me a little that people use Get back as definitive proof of anything, completely forgetting that it is an eight-hour compilation of 56 hours of footage. Even the conversation about George's departure was heavily edited and reduced to "small talk" between John and Paul, although Ringo, Yoko and Linda were also there.

Now people write how bad George is - he didn't want to include the song in the album himself, although he was asked how he would like the song to sound. (He, like John, preferred to work on the song with the group, and not alone, but for a different reason). However, people leave out the reason, which can probably be heard on the Nagra recordings. Unlike other songs that were rehearsed at the same time, like Maxwell's Silver Hammer or Don't Let Me Down, it seems that ATMP was played as a favor, because the others worked on it like sleepy flies, rarely asking for something, while George himself was actively working on improving the songs of others, some of which, as we know, he did not like much. Perhaps the point is this, in the attitude of others, and not how bad George is - what did he think of, he brought the song and wanted to work on it with the band and not personally, because he is a member of the band, and not a solo musician. Almost the same situation was with I Me Mine, which even Ringo didn't really want to work on, but it seems George himself was more enthusiastic about this song (No one (except, perhaps, George) seems pleased to be rehearsing “I Me Mine.” Ringo expresses his opinion that no matter how many times they run through the song he won’t remember how to play it. - Get Back: The Unauthorized Chronicle of the Beatles' "Let It Be" Disaster). Everyone is good, he is the only one who is bad for some. There's no good and bad, there's only people.

[haveyoulistenedtothisalbum-poll]

Tracklist:

Come Together • Something • Maxwell's Silver Hammer • Oh! Darling • Octopus's Garden • I Want You (She's So Heavy) • Here Comes The Sun • Because • You Never Give Me Your Money • Sun King • Mean Mr Mustard • Polythene Pam • She Came In Through The Bathroom Window • Golden Slumbers • Carry That Weight • The End • Her Majesty

Spotify ♪ Youtube

[gardenschedule]

Decision making within the Beatles.

Link to masterpost of quote compilations

So the re-formation suggestions were never convincing enough. They were kind of nice when they happened – ‘That would be good, yeah’ – but then one of us would always not fancy it. And that was enough, because we were the ultimate democracy. If one of us didn’t like a tune, we didn’t play it. We had some very close shaves. ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ was a pretty close shave.”

“Paul McCartney’s New Album, New Life and How the Beatles Almost Reunited” by Brian Hiatt for Rolling Stone (1 March 2012).

"Well, say if George was the only one who didn't like a certain script but we were all mad about it, then we would try everything we could to change his mind, persuade him," he joked, as he raised his fist menacingly. "But if he just didn't want to do it, that would be it. We just wouldn't do it. We've always got to be in complete agreement on things as important as this, otherwise, later on it just wouldn't work out."

Paul McCartney interviewed by Maureen O’Grady for Rave, December 1965

“If they are asked to do something as a group and any one of them doesn’t want to take part, then the scheme is dropped,”

Norrie Drummond’s 1967 Melody Maker interview with McCartney

“We had a democratic thing going between us. Everyone had to agree with everything that was done, whether it was a concert in Liverpool or to go to Hamburg”

Harrison’s May 1998 testimony to the London High Court regarding the Star Club Tapes

Paul was the only thorn in his side. Paul refused to sign the contract and walked out of the offices. This left things in limbo, since according to the terms of the Beatles’ partnership agreement, all their business decisions had to be agreed by quorum. It might seem remarkable that Klein so quickly acquired this degree of power over the Beatles’ affairs. But bizarre at it might seem, the matter of the quorum was totally ignored. It might even have been that none of the Beatles were really aware that this clause had been written into their partnership contract by Brian. I doubt if at that stage any of them even had a copy.

Magical Mystery Tours My Life with The Beatles by Tony Bramwell

GEORGE: But it’s more of a personal thing. That’s down to the management situation. You know, with Apple. Because Paul, really, it was his idea to do Apple, and once it started going, Paul was very active in there. And then it got really chaotic and we had to do something about it. When we started doing something about it, obviously Paul didn’t have as much say in the matter, and then he decided – because he wanted Lee Eastman – you know, his in-laws – to run it, and we didn’t. Then that’s the only reason, you know. That’s the whole basis. But that’s only a personal problem that he’ll have to get over because that’s the reality. [It’s] that he’s out-voted, and we’re a partnership; we’ve got these companies which we all own 25 percent of each, and if there’s a decision to be made, then like in any other business or group you have a vote, you know. And he was out-voted three to one. And if he doesn’t like it, it’s really a pity. Because we’re trying to do what’s best for the Beatles as a group, or best for Apple as a company. We’re not trying to do what’s best for Paul and his in-laws, you know?

May 1st, 1970 (New York): George

It was true, that when the group was touring, their work and social relationships were close, but there had been a lot of arguing, mainly about musical and artistic matters. I suppose Paul and George were the main offenders in this respect, but from time to time we all gave displays of temperament and threatened to ‘walk out’. Of necessity, we developed a pattern for sorting out our differences, by doing what any three of us decided. It sometimes took a long time and sometimes there was deadlock and nothing was done, but generally that was the rule we followed and, until recent events, it worked quite well.

John Lennon’s affidavit – From “The Beatles Diary Volume 2: After The Break-Up 1970-2001” by Keith Badman

“I kept saying [to the other Beatles], ‘Don’t give Allen Klein 20 per cent, give him 15, we’re a big act!’ And everyone’s going, ‘No, no, he wants 20 per cent.’ I say, ‘Of course he does, he wants 30, really, but give him 15. It’s like buying a car. You don’t give the guy what he asks for.’ But it was impossible in the end, because it became three to one and I was like the idiot in the corner – trying, I thought, to save the situation. And to Klein it looked like I was trying to screw the situation. He used to call me the Reluctant Virgin. I said, ‘Fuck off, I don’t want to fucking marry you, that’s all.’ he’s going, ‘Oh, you know, he may, maybe he will, will he, won’t he, that’s a definite maybe.’ It was really difficult.”

Paul McCartney, interview w/ Paul Du Noyer for The Word: Let it be… naked. (December, 2003)

“On the way in which the four of us had sorted out our differences in the past, I deny that it had been on a three-to-one basis. If one disagreed, we discussed the problem until we reached agreement or let the matter drop. I know of no decision taken on a three-to-one basis”

Paul Mccartney - Keith Badman, The Beatles After the Breakup

John was a very forceful personality. Mostly – I mean, if we had arguments within the group, I remember George would turn to us, “Oh, he’s won again. John’s won again.” Just because he shouted loudest. And that often used to happen. “Ah, I’m not bloody doing that—” “Alright then, alright alright.” So there was a lot of that going on. So you do tend to get forced into another position, you know, if somebody’s very loud and very – I mean, I’m not saying he was just loud, he was a wit. He was a funny man, John, he was a clever guy, I loved him, you know. But somehow we got this anti position.

November 26th, 1984 (Soho Square, London): On British television show The Tube

“It’s not like we spend our time wrestling in the studio trying to get our own songs on. We all do it the same way… we take it in turns to record a track. It’s just that usually in the past, George lost out because Paul and I are tougher. “It’s nothing new, the way things are. It’s human. We’ve always said we’ve had fights. It’s no news that we argue. I’m more interested in my songs. Paul’s more interested in his, and George is more interested in his. That’s always been.”

John Lennon Interview: New Musical Express 12/13/1969

GEORGE: "Yeah, well, I wrote some songs -- in fact some songs which I feel are quite nice which I'll use on this album -- I wrote about four years ago. But, uhh, it was more difficult for me then to, you know, get in there to do it. It was the way the Beatles took off with Paul and John's songs, and it made it very difficult for me get in. And also, I suppose at that time I didn't have as much confidence when it came down to pushing my own material as I have now. So it took a while. You know, I think the first... I did write one song on about the second album, and I left it and didn't write any more. That was just an exercise to see if I could write. About two years later I recorded a couple more songs -- I think 'Rubber Soul.' And then I've had one or two songs on each album. Well, there are four songs of mine on the double White Album. But now, uhh, the output of songs is too much to be able to just sit around, you know, waiting to put two songs on an album. I've got to get 'em out, you know." "Yeah. It's always... it was whoever would be the heaviest would get the most songs done. So consequently, I couldn't be bothered pushing, like, that much. You know, even on 'Abbey Road' for instance, we'd record about eight tracks before I got 'round to doing one of mine. Because uhh, you know, you say 'Well, I've got a song,' and then with Paul -- 'Well I've got a song as well and mine goes like this -- diddle-diddle-diddle-duh,' and away you go! You know, it was just difficult to get in there, and I wasn't gonna push and shout. But it was just over the last year or so we worked something out, which is still a joke really -- Three songs for me, three songs for Paul, three songs for John, and two for Ringo."

George Harrison Interview: Howard Smith, WABC-FM New York 5/1/1970

GEORGE: To get it straight, if I hadn’t been with John and Paul I probably wouldn’t have thought about writing a song, at least not until much later. They were writing all these songs, many of which I thought were great. Some were just average, but, obviously, a high percentage were quality material. I thought to myself, If they can do it, I’m going to have a go. But it’s true: it wasn’t easy in those days getting up enthusiasm for my songs. We’d be in a recording situation, churning through all this Lennon-McCartney, Lennon-McCartney, Lennon-McCartney! Then I’d say, [meekly] “Can we do one of these?”

George Harrison, Guitar World: When we was fab. (1992)

John: Well, I’m saying that “Dear Prudence” is arranged. Can’t you hear [John vocalizes part of the song]. That is the arrangement, you know? But I’m too frightened to say “This is it.” I just sit there and say, “Look, if you don’t come along and play your bit, I won’t do the song,” you know? I can’t do any better than that. Don’t ask me for what movie* you’re gonna play on it. Because apart from not knowing, I can’t tell you better than you have, what grooves you can play on it. You know, I just can’t work. I can’t do it like that. I never could, you know. But when you think of the other half of it, just think, how much more have I done towards helping you write? I’ve never told you what to sing or what to play. You know, I’ve always done the numbers like that. Now, the only regret, just the past numbers, is when because I’ve been so frightened, that I’ve allowed you to take it somewhere where I didn’t want

...

John: And that’s all I did on the last album was say, “OK, Paul, you’re out to decide [how] my songs [are] concerned, arrangement-wise.” … I’d sooner just sing them, than have them turn into, into ‘[Being For the Benefit of] Mr. Kite,’ or anything else, where I’ve accepted the problem from you that it needs arrangement. … I don’t see any further than the guitar, and the drums, and, and George Martin doing the … I don’t hear any of the flutes playing, you know? I suppose I could hear ‘em if I [spoken as if straining] sat down and worked very hard! You know, I could turn out a mathematical drawing, if you like …

Jan. 13: The Lunchroom Tape

PAUL: You see the thing is also, I, I get to a bit where I just sort of push all my ideas, you know, and I know that my ideas aren’t the best, you know. They are [mechanical voice] “good, good, good” but they’re not the best, you know. We can improve on it. Because we write songs good, and we improve on it. [to Ringo] And you can improve on your drumming like it is, if you get into it. If you don’t, you know, then okay, I have better ideas, but if you get into it, you’re better! You know. It’s like that.

Twickenham, January 6th

I wasn’t surprised that Paul disliked “Revolution 9” as much as he did. Although he was well versed in all musical genres—in fact, he’d been into avant-garde well before John—he simply didn’t see it as Beatles music, and he certainly didn’t agree that it was the direction that the Beatles should go in. Later on, when they were sequencing the White Album, I heard through the grapevine that John and Paul ultimately had a huge row over “Revolution 9.” Paul absolutely did not want it on the album, and John was just as adamant that it would be on there. In the end, of course, he got his way.

Here, There and Everywhere, Geoff Emerick

I was more ready for the drink or a little bit of pot or something. I’d not wanted to do it, I’d held off like a lot of people were trying to, but there was massive peer pressure. And within a band, it’s more than peer pressure, it’s fear pressure. It becomes trebled, more than just your mates, it’s, 'Hey, man, this whole band’s had acid, why are you holding out? What’s the reason, what is it about you?’ So I knew I would have to out of peer pressure alone. And that night I thought, well, this is as good a time as any, so I said, 'Go on then, fine.’ So we all did it.

Paul McCartney, Many Years From Now by Barry Miles

"John's fellow student Helen Anderson remembers him ushering Paul in, with George, their tag-along junior, usually following a little later. The three would go into the cafeteria for a cheap lunch of chips then take their guitars into an empty life-drawing room, which tended to be more spacious than the others. Helen, being extraordinarily beautiful, was among the very few they allowed to watch while they rehearsed. 'Paul would have a school notebook and he'd be scribbling down words,' she says. 'Those sessions could be intense because John was used to getting his way by being aggressive---but Paul would stand his ground. Paul seemed to make John come alive when they were together.”

Paul McCartney: The Life - Philip Norman.

“I don’t know about being in a band with him, how that would work out,” he told Rolling Stone in 1979. “It’s like, we all have our own tunes to do. And my problem was that it would always be very difficult to get in on the act, because Paul was very pushy in that respect. When he succumbed to playing on one of your tunes, he’d always do good. But you’d have to do fifty-nine of Paul’s songs before he’d even listen to one of yours. So, in that respect, it would be very difficult to ever play with him.”

A Conversation With George Harrison

What was clear from the start was that writing would be a matter of Lennon and McCartney. “I remember walking through Woolton, the village where John was from, and saying to John, ‘Look, you know, it should just be you and me who are the writers,’ ” McCartney recalled. “We never said, ‘Let’s keep George out of it,’ but it was implied.”

In “Paul McCartney Doesn’t Really Want to Stop the Show” by David Remnick for The New Yorker (11 October 2021).

“I do stand back at times, unlike John. I look ahead. I’m careful. John would go for the free guitar and just accept it straight away, in a mad rush. I would stand back and think, but what’s this bloke really after, what will it mean? I was always the one that told Klein to put money away for tax. “I don’t LIKE being the careful one. I’d rather be immediate like John. He was all action. John was always the loudest in any crowd. He had the loudest voice. He was the cock who crowed the loudest. Me and George used to call him the cockerel in the studio.

Paul and Hunter Davies, 1981

George “I’ve got about forty tunes which I haven’t recorded, and some of them I think are quite good. I wrote one called ‘The Art Of Dying’ three years ago, and at that time I thought it was too far out. But I’m going to record it. I used to have a hang-up about telling John, Paul and Ringo I had a song for the albums, because I felt mentally, at that time, as if I was trying to compete. And, in a way, the standard of the songs had to be good, because theirs were very good. Another thing is I didn’t want The Beatles to be recording rubbish for my sake, just because I wrote it. On the other hand, I don’t want to record rubbish just because they wrote it. The group comes first. It took time for me to get more confidence as a songwriter, and now I don’t care if they don’t like it. I can shrug it off. Another thing with The Beatles is it’s sometimes a matter of whoever pushes the hardest gets the most tunes on the album, then it’s down to personalities, as to whoever is going to push. And more often, I just leave it until somebody says that they would like to do one of my tunes.”

The Beatles Off the Record (Keith Badman)

Paul came across in 1963 as a fun-loving, footloose bachelor who turned on his charm to devastating effect when he wanted to manipulate rivals, colleagues or women he fancied. (...) He had enormous powers of persuasion within The Beatles. He would get his own way by subtlety and suaveness where John resorted to shouting and bullying. John may have been the loudest Beatle but Paul was the shrewdest. I watched him twist the others round to his point of view in all sorts of contentious situations, some trivial, some more significant, some administrative, some creative.

John, Paul, George, Ringo & Me: The Real Beatles Story, Tony Barrow (2005)

[jokerlennon]

i hate paul mccartneys stupid gay dream having ass so fucking bad i cant see magrittes without thinking about him and then getting mad at myself for something only extremely tangentially related anymore. i wish one of the others dropped the anvil on him while recording maxwells silver hammer

[petty-crush]

“Sgt peppers lonely hearts club band” (1978)

-This film is so not good, yet is completely worth watching with a game audience. It becomes a collective disbelief

-like, remaking psychedelic songs in the body of cocaine filled disco muzak is legitimately funny.

-To that end, Donald Pleasance menacingly crooning the opening of “she’s so heavy” with an utterly detached “I want yyyyou, I want yoooouuuuu so bad” is one of the five biggest laughs I’ve had this year

-it’s startling to me to think that George burns, born in the late 1800s, was singing a song about kites from a bunch of twenty somethings, and he is just so game for it

-there are a lot of flavors of bonkers choices, but having Steve Martin being fucking terrible at singing “Maxwell silver’s hammer” is just so wrong that I love it

-I actually like that song (surprised to see others don’t) and yet it does nobody in this film any favors

-Aerosmith probably does the best suiting the song to their personality. Their version of “Come Together” is wonderful

-it is also possible that no one can fuck up “golden slumbers” because it still comes across as resonant and life affirming even though Peter Frampton sings it here (he’s a good guitarist though)

-there is a mock belief called “the magical negro” where a black person (usually a guy) comes in with god like powers to set everything right for sad white boys (and everyone else can go fuck themselves)

-Billy Preston, hot to trot as the title character, redoing his own song(only musician co credited with the Beatles) in a soul way, may be the uber example. His lightning bolt shots just destroy all the gloom, and why he couldn’t have been there in the beginning, who fucking cares. It’s an ending, and a hilarious one at that

-after the lights went up, a guy (in a autographed crew jacket for this film) said to me “I’m not sure who had more fun watching this, you or me”. I dunno ether, but by the power of rock n roll, was my humor nerves shaken and my giddy brain rattled.

[i-am-the-oyster]

Some not at all lighthearted thoughts about Maxwell's Silver Hammer

I've been thinking a lot about Maxwell's Silver Hammer, Joe Orton, and 'original sin'.

Orton was killed by his (male) partner with a hammer on the 9th of August 1967. He had written a script for a potential Beatles movie (it was returned without comment) earlier that year. He was due to meet with Richard Lester on the morning of his death, to discuss filming a revised version of the script, with Mick Jagger as a possible lead.

18 days later, on the 27th of August, Brian Epstein was found dead.

Less than six months later, in Rishikesh, Paul started working on Maxwell's Silver Hammer. On the face of it, one of Paul's 'story songs'. On closer inspection though there's reason to suspect it's more symbolic and less allegorical. The timeline is off: Maxwell starts in college, then goes back to school, then suddenly finds himself in a court. The second and third verses are dream-like in their unrealism.

The other three Beatles' frustration with the recording of the song is well known, but John also said it was their first attempt at writing a song about Instant Karma.

From this site:

Former Apple employee Tony King expands on the song's meaning a little further in Steve Turner's book “A Hard Day's Write,” by relating a conversation he had with John Lennon concerning his song “Instant Karma.” “John told me that 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer' was about the law of karma. We were talking one day about 'Instant Karma' because something had happened where he's been clobbered and he'd said that this was an example of instant karma. I asked him whether he believed that theory. He said that he did and that 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer' was the first song that they'd made about that. He said that the idea behind the song was that the minute you do something that's not right, Maxwell's silver hammer will come down on your head.”

Paul tends to speak of the hammer metaphor more like random negative events, rather than some kind of deserved retribution, but he did talk about the breakup like this:

That whole period weighed on me to such an extent that I even began to think it was all tied in with the idea of original sin

So I was already thinking something along the lines of: what if John and Paul had come to some terrible conclusion about "sinful" gay activity attracting divine retribution. They decide they need to find "the right woman" to settle down with, and resist these "sinful" urges. Paul deals with this, in part, by writing a freaky song partially inspired by Orton's murder, where he giggles at the mention of the word 'behind' (in every take, apparently). He also allegedly obsesses over the recording of the song.

So when I saw this section of John's lyrics sheet for Now and Then I gasped:

Remember when we thought our life <love> had ended the gods had been offended

Yeah.

[tavolgisvist]

Maxwell’s Silver Hammer

Joan was quizzical, studied pataphysical Science in the home Late nights all alone with a test tube Maxwell Edison majoring in medicine

Maxwell is possibly a descendant of James Clerk Maxwell, who was a pioneer of electromagnetism. Edison is obviously related to Thomas Edison. They’re two inventor types. <...> Part of the fun here is that Edison is connected to the lightbulb and the phonograph, and here we were making a gramophone record.

(Paul McCartney, The Lyrics, 2021, about Maxwell’s Silver Hammer)

Painting to Hammer a Nail In was a wooden panel from which a hammer hung on a chain; a jar of nails sat on a chair below it. Viewers were invited to hammer one of the nails into the panel. When its surface was covered, the work was considered finished. When Lennon saw the piece at a 1966 exhibition, he asked Ono if he could hammer an imaginary nail into the panel. His question inspired her to make a version of the work in stainless steel and glass, which she dedicated to him.

Calls her on the phone Can I take you out to the pictures, Joan?

by blondecasino

But as she’s getting ready to go A knock comes on the door Bang bang Maxwell’s silver hammer Came down upon her head Clang clang Maxwell’s silver hammer Made sure that she was dead

The thing about Maxwell is that he’s a serial killer, and his hammer isn’t an ordinary household hammer but, as I envision it, one that doctors use to hit your knee. Not made of rubber, though. Silver.

(Paul McCartney, The Lyrics, 2021, about Maxwell’s Silver Hammer)

Painting to Hammer a Nail in (Yoko Ono, 1967)

Also invoked is the world of the children’s nursery rhyme, where people are always getting their heads chopped off – and of course, there’s also the Queen of Hearts from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, who’s always saying, ‘Off with their heads!’

(Paul McCartney, The Lyrics, 2021, about Maxwell’s Silver Hammer)

Yoko Ono during her early ‘Half-a-Wind’ exhibition at the Lisson Gallery in London (11 October – 14 November 1967), photo by Clay Perry)

I've got a girl they call the queen of the hop Well I love my queen Do you know who I mean

(Bobby Darin, Queen of the Hop, 1961)

Back in school again, Maxwell plays the fool again Teacher gets annoyed

Songs like this, where you’re calling someone out on their behaviour, are quite commonplace now, but back then it was a fairly new ‘genre’. The idea of too many people ‘preaching practices’ was definitely aimed at John telling everyone what they ought to do – telling me, for instance, that I ought to go into business with Allen Klein. I just got fed up with being told what to do, so I wrote this song.

(Paul McCartney, The Lyrics, 2021, about Too Many People)

Wishing to avoid an unpleasant scene She tells Max to stay when the class has gone away So he waits behind Writing fifty times I must not be so

I’d been able to accept Yoko in the studio, sitting on a blanket in front of my amp. I’d worked hard to come to terms with that. <...> If he fell in love with this woman, what did that have to do with me? Not only did I have to let him do it, but I had to admire him for doing it. That was the position I eventually reached. There was nothing else I could do but be cool with it.

(Paul McCartney, The Lyrics, 2021, about Too Many People)

But when she turns her back on the boy He creeps up from behind Bang bang Maxwell’s silver hammer Came down upon her head Clang clang Maxwell’s silver hammer Made sure that she was dead

This song is also an analogy for when something goes wrong out of the blue, as I was beginning to find appening around this time in our business dealings.

(Paul McCartney, The Lyrics, 2021, about Maxwell’s Silver Hammer)

The whole story in a nutshell is that we were having a meeting in 1969, and John showed up and said he’d met this guy Allen Klein, who had promised Yoko an exhibition in Syracuse, and then matter-of-factly John told us he was leaving the band.* That’s basically how it happened. It was three to one because the other two went with John, so it was looking like Allen Klein was going to own our entire Beatles empire. I was not too keen on that idea.

(Paul McCartney, The Lyrics, 2021, about Too Many People)

*Yes, the song was writing and recorded befor the meeting where John told he was leaving the band but our lads discussed about it during Get Back sessions - and Paul 'was not too keen on that idea', so…

Recording sessions were always good because no matter what our personal troubles were, no matter what was happening on the business front, the minute we sat down to make a song we were in good shape. Right until the end there was always a great joy in working together in the studio. So there we were, recording a song like ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ and knowing we would never have the opportunity to perform it. That possibility was over. It had been knocked on the head like one of Maxwell’s victims. Bang bang.

(Paul McCartney, The Lyrics, 2021, about Maxwell’s Silver Hammer)

Q: When you were working on McCartney in London, was it strange not being able to bounce ideas off the others? A: Yeah, it was. Because right up until that point I’d been working with John, the best collaborator in the world. Suddenly that was taken away. It was very difficult. But I thought, ‘Well, I’m not going to worry about it. I’m going to sling some ideas down, have a little go on the drums.’ I had my own stuff at the house for my own fun, I wasn’t going into the studio with The Beatles. I wasn’t sweating it. Then suddenly, it became something. “OK, this is an album.”

(Paul McCartney, interview with Tom Pinnock for Uncut, Nov 2020)

(Get me right, it's not about Yoko, John or Paul, it's about the song and some free associations)

[cringearenachamp]

She's Mine: or, patriarchy as capitalism's pressure valve

Journey is fun, sometimes pretty, sometimes melodramatically-pretty arena pop rock. Steve's first solo album stripped out a lot of the melodrama (not all of it tho hehe) to focus on his more R&B/soul-style roots. He also embodied a more masculine image, and perhaps also tried to step out of the "boy next door who never gets the girl" (as Jon describes it) lil angel-boy persona he would use-- perhaps less and less comfortably as he aged into his thirties-- with Journey. He fully focused on his tenor range and belted from there, wore that goofy-ass fedora, and while he sung his more typical fare of star-crossed yearning, trying to avoid said yearning, and attempts to save loves that are likely already over, he also has.... She's Mine.

Journey isn't a stranger to using patronizing or possessive misogyny in songs: they were a 70s/80s rock band made up of dudes. That sort of thing is sadly standard fare. Journey doesn't actually have a lot of examples that REALLY get to me, though Line of Fire is kinda eyebrow raising as a cheeky little ditty about a guy threatening a woman with a shotgun (with the woman being the villain of the song just for MAYBE cheating on the guy with the shotgun-- but then again, this is just kind of The Beatles' Maxwell's Silver Hammer in a way). Backtalk, from Frontiers, has a lot more of a serious tone, and while there's no guns involved this time it's still very much about a man trying to reassert his masculinity by threatening and condescending to a woman he feels has castrated him (to get Freudian with it again) by being Too Mean. Backtalk is a phrase you usually associate with children or teenagers: trying to put a woman back in her "place" by talking to her like a child. Hmmm... even if she isn't treating you fairly, I don't think this approach is going to make her any nicer to you (in fact, I think this approach simply continues the cycle of meanness more than it's any real fight back against it!)!

She's Mine is closer to Backtalk's threatening/possessive tone than it is to Line of Fire's cheeky one. This time, the addressee is another man, with the main thrust of the song being, simply, "my girlfriend likes you but she's MY girlfriend not yours so go away". Okay! Very common theme in music-- women sing their own versions of it: Dolly Parton's Jolene for example is basically the gender flipped version of this. The tone of Jolene is far more pleading, though: she's begging her to not take her man, literally, while also talking about how beautiful she is, lol. She's Mine, on the other hand, is sung very masculinely, and it's to another (heterosexual) man, so he has to speak their language: in other words, begging and pleading are off the menu. The woman in this song is an object between men, who are both given subjectivity. She doesn't get a say in who she chooses or what she wants to do; she's there to be owned and for the narrator to claim ownership of her.

While the lyrics of She's Mine aren't full of blatantly hateful misogyny, the idea that men are supposed to own women, women are supposed to belong to men, and that men control the relationship are ALL extremely misogynistic ideas and they're insidiously commonplace! Backtalk is stained with these sorts of ideas as well: hence addressing the woman as if she's a misbehaving child. Under patriarchal capitalism, The Family as a structure-- alongside being a space of personal and financial support-- is something of an engine designed to naturalize and perpetuate men's authority over women and parents' authority over children (and, more broadly, this structure also serves to naturalize and support the economic hierarchies that currently run our world). Conservative forces want to make "the family" line up with this ideal as much as possible and to take it to its extremes: liberals might also accept the "nuclear family" as more natural than it really is, but conservatives want to make the most of it as a tool of control over women and children for their own purposes (ex: banning same-sex marriage, banning abortion, banning divorce, cutting funding for public schools, etc).

Walter Herbert, Journey's manager, often conceptualized the band as a "family", with him, naturally, as the patriarch. He unsurprisingly had a very conservative view of what family entailed in this particular instance: he was the man with the vision the money and the power, and the band were supposed to be his loyal lackeys. In his own words, "I put the band together, absolutely, man by man. Personally hand-picked each person, and it was, you know, it was MY band - no doubt about it. It was my band and I had total authority, and total autonomy and total control, and nobody minded one fucking bit.". If The Family is supposed to be about upholding the power of the patriarch and Herbie's the patriarch, then this quote can't be seen as much of a surprise, but it IS extremely telling as to his approach and even as to some of his worldview (it certainly makes me worried about how he treated any women in his life, for one thing). Most of the men in Journey were fine upholding this particular patriarch's power: as I mentioned in other essays, the "perks" from buying into Herbie's family system were easily attainable to people like Neal.

Steve, of course, didn't buy into this system and seemed to really start to chafe against it by the time 1982 rolled around. This was when he started really limit testing: rallying the rest of the band to cut the '82 tour short (which might be an example of a little collective labor action of a kind!) and getting his own cover art chosen for Frontiers, for example. He even tried to get a different TITLE for the album: something he failed to do here, but had enough leverage to achieve the next time. There's no real reason or motivation for the last two things, in my opinion, except for trying to poke holes in the idea that Herbie should have ultimate authority over creative decisions. A press conference held during this time-- where Steve stresses that "without a song, you don't have none of this [fame, money, etc]" and "too many people in this industry believe that they're driving the ship, but let me tell ya [...] the song, the performance, and the band is where it starts"-- lends even more plausibility to this reading of the situation.

Steve's personal relationship with Sherrie was, in his words, "at best, difficult" (from the VH1 behind the music doco). If Backtalk is autobiographical, then he was dealing with a lot of fighting with her while ALSO fighting against his BOSS. If you're a man struggling against a man that has more power over you-- if your boss is also "castrating" you-- then you might seek to reassert the masculine authority patriarchy promised you by controlling the "weaker" people patriarchy also "promised" you: that is, women and children. If Steve was the "defiant" one that refused to buy into Herbie's system, Sherrie seemed to be "defiant" in her own way! Yet, sadly, she also seemed to buy into patriarchal ideas: for example, calling the Separate Ways actress a "slut" for... existing? So she likely also expected Steve to "measure up" in a hetero-masculine sense, and may have even internalized the idea that being "owned" by him was a good thing: he just had to be disciplined into a worthy "owner". So in that sense, both Herbie and Sherrie were trying, in their own ways, to discipline Steve into a Proper Man. Steve at this point seemed to think that the answer was to get one over on her by saying "um you're not being a WOMAN right, actually" so he could win against *SOME*body without having to question anything about himself or his own worldview. This was, of course, a losing answer to a trick question.

(and it goes back to this again!)

Both patriarchal masculinity and capitalism trap people within roles that harm them and those around them in order to ultimately benefit a very few at the top. Everyday people with certain privileges can buy in to certain benefits of patriarchal masculinity and capitalism, of course: that's part of why these ideas are as ingrained as they are. If it was all stick and no carrot, it wouldn't be worth it. Patriarchal masculinity is in itself used as a sort of pressure valve: direct working men's anger towards those weaker than them instead of those that actually have power over them, so they feel strong and FEEL in control. Steve is someone who was very insecure and always wanted to feel in control. It isn't surprising to me, then, that at least for awhile, patriarchal masculinity was something that was seductive to him. Yet despite trying to buy into it, he never seemed to be convincing enough at it to please Herbie OR Sherrie. Maybe the winning move is... not to play?

Within She's Mine, there's one potential solution within the lyrics to the trick question of "do you control or be controlled?". In an interview about the song, Steve describes the type of man the narrator is threatening as one that has a "magnetic pull". The narrator also fantasizes about going over to his hotel himself to threaten him, and freaks out over his girlfriend saying his name in her sleep and stuff. Like, he says that, but HE'S the one obsessing over him for the entire song! In this reading, the woman is objectified in order for the narrator to project his own feelings for the mystery man onto her, because owning her is far more comfortable than owning his feelings. Realizing HE'S the one getting "pulled in" would destroy his conception of himself, a conception built upon heteronormativity and normative heterosexual masculinity. But maybe that kind of destruction can be a good thing? Maybe it's not a destruction at all, but a kind of creation? Maybe it's a way OUT?

Throughout the beginning of the Oh Sherrie video, Steve stresses about being placed in roles he feels don't fit him. He doesn't want to be an actor, he doesn't want to be a husband, but that's what's expected of him, so at first, he tries to go along with it all. Yet before the song even kicks in he throws off his prince uniform, states that he "can't do this", and later states that this isn't even him, that he doesn't need it.

I think he was more right than even he knew at the time. Did he ever realize JUST how right?

[shinygoku]

Abbey Road (1969)

It's always bittersweet when things come to an end. Especially when the times were good, you want more of that! But nothing can last forever, and sometimes the best one can do is to go out on a high, a tribute to and capping off of the fun had over a decade of creating music as such a close unit. I'm not going into the ins and outs of the foregone conclusion, partly as it's too sad and messy, yet oddly commercial lol, but this Album helps soothe the pain.

Obviously this picture needs little introduction, it's possibly their most iconic of album covers... maybe even of any band! No shade meant to Revolver or Sgt Pepper, but THIS is one I'd like upon my wall~ It's also more impressive that only a handful of potential snapshots were taken in about 10 minutes, and they happened upon this near-perfect sync! While Paul's irregularity has painful resonance in the band's breakup and tedious conspiracy theories, there ain't a thing I'd change in the picture even if I did have the godly power to do so. It's incredible in its simplicity and the symbolism of them no longer facing the crowds, but walking on into the next stage of their lives. Though many people imitate this at the real Abbey Road crossing, this is yet another instance of The Beatles bottling a bolt of lightning.

SIDE ONE

Come Together: Yes, they were fully aware of the dirty reading of the track name and they lean into it. Also a very funky, catchy song~ There's a theory that the four verses describing "Ol' Flat Top" correspond to each Beatle, though debate rages on the first two being Ringo and George, the John (Walrus gumboots, Ono sideboards) and Paul (Got to be good looking cause he's so hard to see) are clear. How many of us hear the "hold you in his arms, yeah, you can feel his disease" as "hold you in his armchair"? I can detect both and I think the latter has been accepted retroactively lmao. The near-whispered "Shoot me" parts have aged poorly, probably another heroin reference but oof...

Oh! And there's also a cool official music video on yt with Low Poly Beatles grooving around, but if you're photosensitive you may find the flashing colours and strobing effects are pretty overwhelming. The comments have funny snowclone memes too. All in all I dig this number~

Something: Quite possibly George's Magnum Opus, his abilities as a songwriter having been a slow burn with incredible payoff. I've been pretty lukewarm of most of his numbers doing these reviews, but that's partly as I had Something in mind of what he could really do ^^;; The guitars, bass and percussion are all fantastic, with George's gentle but powerful vocals and the mesmerised lyrics. No wonder it even caught the attention and approval of so many, like Frank Sinatra! His cover is fine but kinda blurs into Sinatra-esque sameness, featuring "Jack" (and he missed the memo that George wrote it, oops!)

This also has a very nice music vid with the Bugs and their Girls that can be seen on yt, though it's also painful as it's both after the band split up (Paul's footage clearly being on his farm when I think the others are all in the same, different location) and each and every one of these pairings went awry in the following years either with divorce, death, or both. But uhh, don't let that distract you from the beauty of the song itself ;w;;;;

Maxwell's Silver Hammer: A notoriously controversial song, at least among The Beatles themselves. It's Paul's baby and he made an upbeat, jolly ditty about a serial killer. The other three remember it being a massive pain to record and not worth all that effort (George's critique of it being "fruity" isn't far off though lmao). In my opinion, the song is fine but also far from Paul's best, and it seemingly needed fewer Takes than a lot of their other songs, so I think the JGR distaste isn't with the song itself, but it became a heat sink of their tension with Paul. Anyway, with audiences this seems to be a popular one, at least in tumblr circles, where it's cited as one of their funniest songs. The piano and other instruments are all really strong, too.

Oh! Darling: Paul belting out his anguished declarations to another party that he won't harm them, and please don't leave him. His vocals get extremely intense and raw, nicely counterbalanced with instruments. John was impressed with this song, but annoyed he didn't get a go as it's more a Him Style performance, possibly oblivious or choosing not to see that he's very obviously the other party that Paul is pleading to. Also Ringo's drumwork here is really great~

Octopus's Garden: :D 🐙🌻💐🌷💙

I absolutely loooove this song!! Partially inspired by the real life behaviour of Octopus...s for assembling a nice arrangement of odds and ends in their patch, which Ringo learned during his break from the band in the White Album era. It's not just my Ringo bias, it's such a pretty and charming bop with somewhat profound metaphorical resonance (I'm gonna say indeed influenced by The Conflicts within the Band, ough) and funky, unorthodox instruments like the bubbles lol. Both a groovy Country & Western flavour and a song that works nicely for children, joining the likes of Yellow Submarine (hey, a theme!) and All Together Now. Additional shout out to George for his part in making this song happen and ooohh, what instrumentation there is too! That the Super Mario 3D World main theme seems to have similar key changes(?) is another W I'm giving this song~

I Want You (She's So Heavy): This one gets a lot of praise, and I do dig the shredding, building guitar riff and slowly increasing drama and Oomph of this song, but I also think it maybe goes on a bit longer than it needs to. The abrupt cutoff is a cool moment but my then my brain has usually disconnected some focus, so the effect isn't quite as profound on me ^^;;

SIDE TWO

Here Comes the Sun: In case Something wasn't enough, here's George's optimistic masterpiece. Now, I think this is slightly overplayed (similar to ELO's Thematically The Same Song of Mr Blue Sky ...which is even more overplayed in movies and such maybe due to Royalties being less pricy lmao) but I also like that this one is something like The Most Streamed Song Ever. And it's easy to shrug off the lyrics in summer but when you get weeks and weeks of dreary, overcast, drizzly, dark-at-3pm ass winter weather, a clear sky and bright sun really DOES perk one up! (Remember, The Beatles are from Liverpool, which is in England!) That also works as a metaphor, and indeed it seems George had skived off work to have a day off in the garden when this song came to him, haha

This also has a lovely Video on yt, with animated sequences of a heron flying around as The Beatles cross the road and stand for the Last Photoshoot. The latter of which seems kind of ironic, but I'm not opposed to framing the events as more Sweet than Bitter. Don't be sad it's over, be glad it happened, type of thing :'3

Because: A baroque kind of piano or harpsichord backs the ethereal harmonies, musing about nature. Their harmonies were always a strong part of their songs, and this feels like a logical conclusion. A song I don't have much to say for, but I really like it all the same :)

(...The next songs are officially a Medley, but I'm still talking about each individually...)

You Never Give Me Your Money: This in of itself feels like a seamless mash-up of three distinct songs, and the whole this is such a bop! I'm inclined to doubt the official story that it's directed at the Beatle's then-Manager, who was notoriously awful and scumbaggy, just as this song seems to lack the venom that would be appropriate for such a case of vagueblogging. But maybe Paul's taking the high road here, and WOW it's got a nice view from that path! The three "parts" of it have been theorised to correspond to the other 3 Beatles in yt comments, which doesn't appear to be the case but it's still a fun observation. All that theorising aside, absolutely fab piano with the building addition of guitars, bass and percussion, pivoting to a more ragtime arrangement and then calming down and building up again for the last stretch with much more optimistic (if potentially Ironic) lyrics and a very front-and-centre guitar fading into spoken chants and bells.

Sun King: Starting with the chirping crickets that were faintly heard before (yeah, medleys be like that lol), we have a very mellow and pleasant instrumental. Then we get more harmonised "Ooooohs" and "Here comes the sun ....king" before spoken words and the return of the harmonies. The song closes after a mixing of Romance Language Words, with Ye Olde Liverpool slang mixed in.

Mean Mr. Mustard: The tempo quickly steps up a few levels for a rather dry dragging of some miserly Dirty Old Man (he's not very clean, this one!) with prominent piano and in later years, comparison to the Thomas the Tank Engine theme. Though it seems that may be more based on a bridge of a different song Paul would make, but I digress... - Mister Mustard here cuts off abruptly, perhaps one note early?

Polythene Pam: Strong electric guitar introduces this woman who "is so good looking she looks like a man", which reminds me of Lovely Rita XD;; - John really leans into a Leeverpull accent and there's tambourines, heavy drums and strong guitar, though I find it harder to parse the lyrics due to the loudness. But she was previously mentioned as the sibling of Mister Mustard. What a Beatles Characters Universe we have going!

She Came In Through The Bathroom Window: This gives me strong echolalia pretty much any time going in or out via a window is mentioned ^^;; - It seems to be a wistful kind of song about a "dancer" who needs more money and tries to gain extra cash via breaking and entering, but is less than effective at it. A cool musical assortment but not an all-timer for me.

Golden Slumbers: "Once there was a way to get back homeward" would already deal pretty heavy psychic damage to me, given how that links to multiple songs obliquely about the split, but this is also backed with beautiful (yet tasteful! very much unlike the LIB album!) and powerful instruments. Seemingly partially based on an existing lullaby but as none of the Beatles can read sheet music it still stands up as original and lovely, my main complaint only being that it's short and when not in the Medley, it cuts off too sharply. But that's to lead into...

Carry That Weight: BOOOOY! I love it when Ringo is so audible... and oh god, the You Never Give Me Your Money reprise with new verses!! This song is beating me up, especially with the Reality Subtext again, like if the use of YNGMYM is alluding to Paul being the odd one out (who was later proven Correct) but he still lost the band and the heaviness of that continues into this present day?! ...Or, as that's written with the aid of hindsight and my mind quick to make theories, it could also be about the whole group and their Impact, impossible to ignore (though people still try to downplay it ¬¬;; ...lol) and their legacy continues. They were amazing but also Patient Zero for much celebrity culture these days, exposed to absolute horrors as no one knew what to expect or how out of hand things may spiral... I'm rambling. The song itself is also another groovy bop, but the Meanings are maybe a bit more powerful for me =w=;;

(...Oh god the voices in this are Paul and Ringo and not John or George, oh god this song saw the future, paaaaaaain)

The End: This has a very welcome surge of energy and ooohhh man I've not talked enough about the drumming Ringo's done in this album, but I'm glad the others got him to do a solo here, even if he doesn't Need to prove his skills in isolation lol. The following 3 guitar solos are bringing such a cool rock flavour (sorry I can't tell whose is whose yet though, haha), then the climactic, calm, harmonised declaration that closes the song, the album, and even the Band itself.

...

Her Majesty: Well, other than this coda! The last note from (iirc) MMM startles one into waking up after having been so thoroughly carried by the power of the previous numbers, and then a cute little ditty postscript. I'm mixed on how much I like this being after The End, which I'm pretty sure is a common take. I will say though, that the Boys doing a little cheeky prank on their way out feels perfectly in character for them, and they liked it as a secret bonus track, so fair's fair.

CONCLUSION

Best 3: How in the hell do I pick just 3 here? Maaaan! I'm gonna hafta go with... Here Comes The Sun, You Never Give Me Your Money and Golden Slumbers. I hope you know how hard it was to not have Octopus's Garden up here!!

Blurst 3: Inversely, finding 3 duds is harder than normal here too lol. I'm gonna say Mean Mr Mustard, Polythene Pam and She Came In Through The Bathroom Window - but only Polythene Pam is actually weak to me, the others just haven't got the same effect or Oomph as the rest of the album.

So... here we are, at the end of the (Abbey) Road. Once again I rue and shake my fist at the stupid corporate bullshit that had Let It Be come out after this, because if anything has a perfect ending, it's Dragonball GT and This Album for their respective franchises. If Her Majesty is contentious for coming out after The End, then that goes 100x more for such a limp noodle assortments of songs with meddling all over it. I'm going on a tangent here, but my point is this:

While the Beatles story ended sadly, this album is a beautiful farewell.

I genuinely wonder how they managed to pull it together for this, but I'm so grateful they found a way. If only the circumstances weren't so dire, they could have made more like this, which sounds selfish of me but it's also, like, something the boys loved to do. If they'd been allowed time and breathing room, and not being manipulated by bean counters and jackasses, if such and such could have been avoided, and so on. Blegh. Sorry for these derailings, the irl lore is too messy and sad for me to cover properly but it's an elephant in the room! Why else would a band shut up shop when they were reaching new heights? But well, they sure did leave an amazing legacy.

Abbey Road truly is the pinnacle of this. The Best album. Firing on all cylinders, no misses, every gear and cog running smoothly for a complete experience.

🪲🪲🪲🪲

So, now what? Well, I've only covered the Albums, and I was quite jammy that there was one for each month XD - However, there's tons of incredibly famous songs that I haven't got to, like She Loves You and I Wanna Hold Your Hand. These are the singles! And while I'm not sure how I'll group them for write-ups like this (by era might be sensible but there's like, a Lot! Hmmm...) there's other Beatle Material I wanna discuss, like their Movies and the previously skipped Yellow Submarine Album (which I actually love, but I feel it'd be better grouped elsewhere~).

What I might do first, though, is a bit of a retrospective on these retrospectives, as I've noticed a slight drift in my style of writing, and having listened to most of the songs again since, some of my opinions may've moved a little bit in transit. This won't be as in depth but should be Fun ^w^