The Beatles, The #1 Artist of the Rock Era, Part Eleven

 

(Continued from Part Ten)

"Because" is one of the great songs on Abbey Road, the final song recorded for that great album.  Lennon was inspired to write it when his wife Yoko Ono, a classically-trained pianist, played Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Op. 27, No. 2--the Moonlight Sonata.  

Listening to the song, John asked Yoko to play the chords backwards, and he wrote this song as the result of that chord progression, although not an exact reversal.  Producer George Martin played an electric Baldwin harpsichord on the track.

 

"Maxwell's Silver Hammer" is another of the Beatles' best of their last few years, featuring clever lyrics from McCartney as he explained to Barry Miles:

            "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" was my analogy

            for when something goes wrong out of the

            blue, as it so often does, as I was 

            beginning to find out at that time in my life.

            I wanted something symbolic of that, so to

           me it was some fictitious character called

           Maxwell with a silver hammer.  I don't know

           why it was silver, it just sounded better 

           than Maxwell's hammer.  We still use that

           expression even now when something

           unexpected happens.

 

 

Paul presented the group with this song on the second day of what were the "Get Back" sessions in January of 1969.  A throwback to the 50's, here is "Oh!  Darling".

 

One of the longest songs in the Beatles' catalog, this Lennon song only uses fifteen words to tell of John's deep feelings for Yoko Ono.  "Lennon's passion for Ono had shaken him to the core," wrote author Ian MacDonald in his book Revolution In The Head.  "Sexually addicted to her, he was helplessly dependent...Lennon is literally obsessed."  John makes his intentions known in "I Want You  (She's So Heavy)".

To this point, Ringo had sung lead vocals on few Beatles songs, and had written less than those (just one to this point).  On January 3, Starr demoed two of his compositions ("Taking A Trip To Carolina" and "Picasso" on piano for Paul and George.  The group didn't work any further on either.

The following day, Ringo brought in another of his songs.  As January 4th was characterized by mostly arguing and jamming, the Beatles devoted little time to the song.  Starr pushed the song further on January 23rd and the 26th.  The rest of the group finally warmed to the song.  Ringo explained his song's background:

              Peter Sellers had lent us his yacht and we

              went out for the day.  I stayed out on deck

              with him and we talked about octopuses. 

              He told me that they hang out in their 

              caves and they go around the seabed

              finding shiny stones and tin cans and

              bottles to put in front of their cave like a

              garden.  I thought this was fabulous,

              because at the time I just wanted to be

              under the sea too.  

 

Later that afternoon, Ringo had the song written on a guitar.  He took it to Harrison, who transposed some of the chords.  Here is Starr's "Octopus's Garden".

“I wasn’t Lennon, or I wasn’t McCartney. I was me, Harrison said in 1969.  "And the only reason I started to write songs was because I thought, ‘Well, if they can write them, I can write them.’” Given the prolific output of Lennon/McCartney songs, it was difficult for George to get a song placed on a Beatles album.  

When the group gathered at Twickenham Studios on January 2, 1969, George had accumulated several good songs such as "Isn't It A Pity" and "All Things Must Pass", two songs he later recorded in his solo career.

John and George played each other their songs on that day, but while George wholeheartedly pitched in to help on John's "Don't Let Me Down", John struggled to play the chord structure on Harrison's "Let It Down" and instead began playing some Chuck Berry songs.  This happened throughout the "Get Back" sessions.

By January 10, George was past the breaking point and announced he was leaving the band.  As he said in Anthology:

              I had spent the last few months of

             1968 producing an album by Jackie

             Lomax and hanging out with Bob 

             Dylan and The Band in Woodstock,

             having a great time.  For me, to come

             back into the winter of discontent with

             the Beatles in Twickenham was very

             unhealthy and unhappy.  But I can

             remember feeling quite optimistic

             about it.  I thought, "OK, it's the New

             Year and we have a new approach

              to recording."  I think the first couple

              of days were OK, but it was soon

              quite apparent that it was just the 

              same as it had been when we were

              last in the studio, and it was going to

              be painful again.

    

Harrison returned to the group when sessions were moved to Apple Studios on January 21, but no longer pushed for his songs to be included on what is now known as the legendary "rooftop concert".

 

In April, George skipped a meeting of Apple Records and went to visit Eric Clapton.  It was here that his song "Here Comes The Sun" originated, as he recalled in his autobiography I Me Mine:

               "Here Comes The Sun" was written at 

               the time when Apple was getting like

               school, where we had to go and be

               businessmen:  "sign this" and "sign 

               that".  Anyway, it seems as if winter in

               England goes on forever, by the time

               spring comes you really deserve it.  So

               one day I decided I was going to sag

               off Apple and I went over to Eric 

              Clapton's house.  The relief of not 

              having to go see all those dopey

              accountants was wonderful and I 

              walked around the garden with one of

              Eric's acoustic guitars and wrote "Here

              Comes The Sun".  

George finished the song while he was on vacation in Sardinia and returned two weeks before work began on the song at EMI Studios on July 7th, Ringo's 29th birthday.

    

 

In May of 1969, the group desired to string together several songs, many of them unfinished, to form a long medley that would take up a full side of an album.  

The first part of the medley was written in New York City in either late March or early April.  The subject is new manager Allen Klein, and McCartney's profound distrust in him.  "Funny paper"--that's what we get," Harrison explained how he felt at the time for the book Anthology.  "We get bits of paper saying how much is earned and what this is and that is, but we never actually get it in pounds, shilling and pence," he added.  "We've all got a big house and a car and an office, but to actually get the money we've earned seems impossible."  

The second part of the song, "Out of college, money spent..." is a trip down memory lane to the group's early days.  The repeated chant "One two three four five six seven, all good children go to heaven" concludes the song, backed by a collection of guitar notes that later formed the bridge between "Carry That Weight" and "The End".    Here is the first song in the medley:  "You Never Give Me Your Money". 

Although many humorous songs in the Beatles catalog are about fictional characters, "Mean Mr. Mustard" is not.  The song is based on a real person--John Alexander Mustard.  According to newspaper articles about Mustard, he actually did shave in the dark and turned off the lights in his home when he and his wife listened to the radio.  

Lennon wrote this as a composite about different characters, with one of them being Pat Dawson, known to the group then as Pat Hodgett.  Pat was a regular fan of the group when the Beatles played at the Cavern Club in the early 60's.  Pat had the bizarre habit of eating polythene, the British name for the plastic material called polyethylene.  The Beatles called her "Polythene Pat", a name John remembered when he wrote "Polythene Pam".

This next song in the medley could also be a composite of events.  In one such incident, fans grabbed a ladder from McCartney's garden, climbed into his London home and stole a picture, believed to be one of Paul's father.   The title likely came from another incident described to McCartney by the Moody Blues, in which a female fan snuck in the bathroom window of a place they were staying.  Later covered by Joe Cocker, here is "She Came In Through The Bathroom Window".

"Golden Slumbers" is a tender ballad elicits feelings of innocence and nostalgia and the impossibility of getting back home.  On July 2, McCartney was recording at Abbey Road at the time Lennon, Yoko, Lennon's son Julian, and Yoko's daughter Kyoko were in the hospital after a car crash the previous day.  

The previous October, McCartney had visited his father Jim in a house Paul had bought for him.  One night, he found a music book belonging to his eight-year-old stepsister, Ruth.  Paul came across a tune called "Cradle Song".  "I can't read music and I couldn't remember the old tune," McCartney said in the 1995 Anthology film.  "So I started just playing my tune to it...I like the words so I kept that, and it fit with another bit of song I had."  

That other song was "Carry That Weight", the next part of the medley which "Golden Slumbers" nicely slides into.  "Golden Slumbers" is mournful for the moments we have as children and never get back, while once we hit adulthood, we have to "carry that weight a long time".

Specifically for Paul, the second part of this last segment is about his struggle to keep the Beatles together following the tragic death of Brian Epstein.  When McCartney took over much of the group's business affairs following Epstein's death, he gained a greater appreciation for what Brian went through for the group.

In his biography Many Years From Now, McCartney also said the emotional weight of the song was from the numerous drug issues with the group and the difficulties they had with their new manager, Allen Klein.  Apple Corps was already struggling when Klein took over, and for Paul, and perhaps the other Beatles, he much preferred the early days when they were just four carefree Liverpool teenagers who had fun being in a band.

After they committed to writing and recording the extensive medley, the Beatles needed a good ending.  By this time, "Golden Slumbers"/"Carry That Weight" was taking shape, and the group decided that pair of songs would segue into the closing piece.  By late July, Paul brought his idea for the conclusion of the medley into the studio.

At that time, this final piece, with the placeholder title of "Ending", lasted one minute and twenty seconds, concluding with a sudden stop.  As you listen to the final segment and imagine the ending right before Paul's gentle piano chords, you get a feel for what the original ending was going to be.  Paul quickly envisioned a more mature and rightful ending to the song, which the group added to the end of the heavy song they had recorded.

By July 23, the Beatles began recording this final segment, but it wasn't until early August that McCartney came up with a final lyric that fit the end of the song.  Paul explained his contribution to author Barry Miles:

            Shakespeare ended his acts with a rhyming

            couplet so that the audience would know

            they were over.  I wanted to end with a 

            little meaningful couplet, so I followed the

            Bard and wrote a couplet.

McCartney's finish had the blessing of Lennon:  "It had a nice line in it - 'The love you take is equal to the love you make.'  It was a very cosmic, philosophical line."

Find out about the Beatles' final days and beyond in Part Twelve, exclusively on Inside The Rock Era!