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

(Continued from Part Eleven)

Engineer Glyn Johns was asked to put the album Let It Be together from what were essentially rehearsal tapes.  Though recording had taken place well before Abbey Road, that album was the group's final one, even though Let It Be was released the following year.  

After Johns assembled the album, it sat around while the Let It Be documentary was edited from the film footage of the Beatles rehearsing in the studio and playing their famous rooftop concert.  During this period, the group recorded Abbey Road, released it, and broke up.

 Meanwhile, the album still lacked one song to complete it, so the group recorded "I Me Mine" on January 3, 1970 without Lennon.  Klein, not happy with the work Johns had done on the album, now to be titled Let It Be, gave it to producer Phil Spector.  

Spector edited, spliced and overdubbed several of the songs intended to sound "live".  This infuriated McCartney, who was especially unhappy about the heavy orchestration on "The Long And Winding Road", which included a 36-piece ensemble and 14-voice choir.  

The group released the compilation Hey Jude, a Top 5 album around the world which rose to #1 in Australia and #2 in the U.S. and Canada and has sold over three million copies.   

The title song from the album is a grand masterpiece, inspired by a dream Paul had, as he told The Salt Lake Tribune:

            I think I was getting like, a little bit over the

            top with [the party fashion] - getting pretty

            tired and pretty wasted.  And I went to bed

            one night and had a kind of restless night.

            But I had a dream where my mother, who

            had been dead at that point for about 10

            years, came to me in the dream and it

            was as if she could see that I was 

            troubled.

            And she sort of said to me, she said, 

            "Let it be," and, "It's going to be OK.

            Don't worry."  I woke up and I

            remembered the dream, and I thought,

           "Well, that's a great idea."  And I then 

           sat down and wrote the song using the

           feeling from that dream and of my mum

           coming to me in the dream.

The group released the single "Let It Be" on March 6, #1 in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and Austria and #2 in the U.K. and West Germany.  The Quadruple Platinum-selling song is The #18 Song of the Rock Era*.

After Paul's demands that the changes to "The Long And Winding Road" be deleted were ignored, he publicly announced that he was leaving the Beatles on April 10, one week before the release of his self-titled solo project.  By the time the public heard the song, the Beatles were finished.  

The group released the album Let It Be on May 8 and their new single "The Long And Winding Road" three days later.

  

This final single of the Beatles era evokes a sadness, looking back while also looking forward, and is a fitting finale for this most amazing of groups.

McCartney wrote the song in 1968 while at his farm in Scotland.  The beautiful view of rolling hills contrasted to everything the Beatles were experiencing at the time while they were recording the White Album.  At that farm, Paul was able to find peace while he wistfully looked back at the group's past decade.

"The Long And Winding Road" was the 20th and final #1 song for the legendary Beatles.

Finally able to crack through the Lennon/McCartney monopoly, Harrison placed one of his career best on Let It Be.  Written for George's wife, the Beatles first worked on the song while filming the Let It Be documentary.  Lennon played a lap steel guitar on the track.

 

The flip side of "The Long And Winding Road", here is "For You Blue".

Here is another of Lennon's best songs in the later Beatles years.  John talked about the writing process as he experienced it in the 1980 book All We Are Saying by David Sheff:

                I was lying next to my first wife in bed,

                you know, and I was irritated.  She

                must have been going on and on

                about something and she'd gone to

                sleep and I'd kept hearing these

                words over and over, flowing like an

                endless stream.  I went downstairs

                and it turned into sort of a cosmic

                song; rather than a "Why are you 

                always mouthing off at me?  or

                whatever, right?...

                But the words stand, luckily, by

                themselves.  They were purely

                inspirational and were given to me

                as boom!  I don't own it, you know,

                it came through like that.  I don't 

                know where it came from, what 

                meter it's in, and I've sat down and

                looked at it and said, "Can I write

                another one with this meter?"  It's

                so interesting.  "Words are flying

                [sic] out like [sings] endless rain

                into a paper cup, they slither 

                while they pass, they slip away

                across the universe."  Such an

                extraordinary meter and I can

                never repeat it!  It's not a matter

                of craftsmanship; it wrote itself.

                It drove me out of bed.  I didn't

                want to write it, I was just

                slightly irritable and I went

                downstairs and I couldn't get to

                sleep until I put it on paper, and

                then I went to sleep.

 

Part of the song's chorus, "Jai guru deva, om", is a Sanskrit phrase which translates loosely as "Victory to God divine".  The Beatles brought in 18 violins, four violas, four cells, a harp, three trumpets, three trombones, two guitarists and 14 vocalists to accompany the band on this great song--"Across The Universe".

John was famous for disliking several of his songs, among the best ever written.  "Across The Universe" was one such example which he gave away on a whim to the World Wildlife Fund when he wasn't satisfied with the recording of the song. 

Lennon often wrote nonsensical lyrics that nonetheless were painstakingly researched and analyzed by people hoping they could figure out "the code". This amused John, and "Dig A Pony" is in much the same light.

The group recorded the song on the rooftop of Apple Records on January 30, 1969 for the Let It Be film.

 

This is the last song recorded by the group before the broke up in April of 1970.  It is Harrison's view of the group's situation at the time--"I Me Mine".

The Let It Be documentary debuted later in the month and the Beatles won an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score.  

The breakup of the Beatles, which was inevitable while at the same time unexpected, was excruciatingly sad, and was an acrimonious split unlike any other before or since.  Four genuinely good people who were good-natured and good friends and who had, as a force of nature, so dramatically changed music had evolved and descended into often moody individuals with increasingly different opinions about music and the larger world about them.  

The influence of drugs undoubtedly sped up this process, but ultimately, it was the ego and overriding feelings of self-importance that spelled the group's demise, the existence in each Beatle that their individual needs superseded those of the group.

McCartney filed a lawsuit for the official dissolution of the Beatles' contractual agreements on December 31 but disputes continued long after and the dissolution wasn't final until December 29, 1974.

All four Beatles went on to enjoy success after the breakup, and all were ranked in The Top 100 Artists* in 1976 (McCartney & Wings and Lennon are both still ranked.)  McCartney enjoyed both solo success as well as with his band Wings, Lennon too continued to record outstanding solo music and gave the world "Imagine" in 1971.  

Harrison, who struggled to place his songs on Beatles albums, showed what he could do with great songs like the classic "My Sweet Lord", "What Is Life", and "Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)", to name a few.  Starr also went on to enjoy several hits, including "It Don't Come Easy" and "You're Sixteen", and still performs to this day.

The 1973 album Ringo is the only one to contain compositions and performances by all four ex-Beatles, although they were on separate songs.

Despite rumors, longings of their millions of fans, and offers from promoters to reunite, the Beatles never did.  Promoter Bill Sargent offered the Beatles $10 million for a reunion concert in 1974.  Sargent raised his offer to $30 million in January of 1976 and then to $50 million the following month.

On April 24, 1976, during Saturday Night Live, producer Lorne Michaels jokingly offered the Beatles $3,000 to reunite on the show.  Coincidentally, Lennon and McCartney were watching the live broadcast at Lennon's apartment at the Dakota in New York City, within driving distance of the NBC studio.  John and Paul briefly talked about going to the studio and surprising Michaels by accepting his offer, but decided not to.

Compilations that have been released in the years since abound, but we will highlight the best ones.  Two essentials to listeners are what have come to be known as The Red Album and The Blue Album, both double albums and both released on April 2, 1973.  

The former, titled Beatles 1962-66, was an immediate Top 5 album across the world (including #1 in Australia, France and Norway) and has sold over 15 million copies. 

The Blue Album, entitled Beatles 1967-70, also was a universal Top 5 release, including #1 in the United States, France and Austria and #2 in the U.K.

 

Rock 'n' Roll Music, released in 1976, has gone Platinum, and contained a new single, "Got To Get You Into My Life", that  became a big hit, reaching #7 in the United States.  The song was first released on the Revolver album.

Love Songs (released the following year) has sold over three million copies, and Rarities (Gold) and Rock 'n' Roll Music, Volume One and Volume Two (both Platinum) were all released in 1980.

Lennon released his first solo album in seven years in 1980 and was making a great comeback when a lunatic assassinated him outside his home in New York City.  Fans everywhere were devastated and angry that one weirdo could deprive them of further greatness from one of the best lyricists the world has known.  Lennon died at the age of 40.

Harrison wrote the song "All Those Years Ago" in honor of his fallen bandmate.  Paul and his wife Linda sang backing vocals and Ringo played drums on the track.

 

At a time when medleys were all the rage, Capitol released a medley of Beatles' songs from their films, A Hard Day's Night, Help!, Magical Mystery Tour, Yellow Submarine and Let It Be.  "The Beatles' Movie Medley" reached #12 in 1982.

In 1982, Reel Music went Gold and 20 Greatest Hits has been certified Double Platinum, although neither hardly does justice to the group.

We want to highlight three superb live collections:  Live at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany; 1962 and The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl were both released in 1977.  Live at the BBC, which reached #1 in the U.K., #2 in Australia and Canada and #3 in the U.S., was released in 1994 and has gone Quadruple Platinum.   

In 1988, the Beatles were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.  That same year, the wonderful Past Masters volumes were released, which included all Beatles tracks not available on CD releases of their original albums.  Volume One includes 18 tracks from 1962-65 while Volume Two includes 15 from subsequent years.

McCartney, Harrison and Starr collaborated on the Anthology project, which included a television miniseries, an eight-volume video set and three box sets.  Two songs based on Lennon demos, with instrumentation and vocals added by the three surviving Beatles, were released as singles.  An estimated 400 million people viewed the television series.

Anthology, released in 1995, features 52 previously unreleased out-takes and demos from 1958-1964.  In confirmation of the lasting effect of the group, it was the first of three such releases over the next two years, each of which were universal Top 5 albums over 25 years since the Beatles broke up.

Anthology I reached #1 in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Germany and France and #2 in the U.K. and Sweden and has sold eight million copies in the United States alone. 

Anthology 2 hit #1 in the U.S. and U.K. and #2 in Sweden and has sold four million, while 

Anthology 3 also topped the Album chart in the U.S. and has gone over three million in sales.

 

"Free As A Bird" represents the first song recorded by the Beatles since their breakup.  A 1977 track sung by Lennon into a tape recorder is backed by vocals and instrumentation from the three surviving Beatles recorded in 1996 and produced by Jeff Lynne.

One of Lennon's early takes of this song was on the soundtrack of the Imagine:  John Lennon documentary.  The surviving members of the Beatles built their version from a different Lennon recording captured at his piano with a small cassette recorder.  As you can imagine, creating a professional quality sound from a cheap cassette recorder is no small task, as producer Jeff Lynne explained to Sound on Sound:

            The problem I had with "Real Love" was

            that not only was there a 60-cycles 

            mains hum going on, there was also a

            terrible amount of hiss, because it had

           been recorded at a low level.  I don't

           know how many generations down this

           copy was, but it sounded like at least a

           couple.  

           So, I had to get rid of the hiss and the

           mains hum, and then there were clicks

           all the way through it.  We'd spend a 

           day on it, then listen back and still find

           loads more things wrong.  But we 

           would magnify them, grab them and

           wipe them out.  It didn't have any 

           effect on John's voice, because we 

           were just dealing with the air 

           surrounding him, in between 

           phrases.  That took about a week 

           to clean up before it was even

           usable.

 

McCartney, Harrison and Starr overdubbed their parts onto the resulting tape in February, 1995 at McCartney's studio in Sussex, England.  Lynne gave his impression of what he heard that day:

              Paul and George would strike up the 

              backing vocals, and all of a sudden it's the

              Beatles again.  To be there in the middle

              of all this, and have a degree of

              responsibility over the result, was

              astonishing.  It wasn't some kind of fake

              version; it really was the real thing.  

              They were having fun with each other, 

              and reminding each other of the old

              times.  I'd be waiting to record and

              normally I'd say, "Okay, let's do a

              take," but I was too busy laughing and

              smiling at everything they were

              talking about.

The Beatles released the single "Real Love" (from Anthology 2) on March 4, 1996.  It reached #4 in the U.K. and #11 in the United States.

In 1999, it was confirmed that the Beatles were the most successful recording act of the 20th century (as if anyone doubted that) with album sales of over 106 million in the United States alone.

The surviving Beatles joined Yoko Ono to release the Anthology book.  

The compilation 1 collected all of the group's #1 songs and was a #1 album across the globe.  Though it too leaves off so many of the Beatles' greatest songs by limiting it to only #1 songs, the collection has sold 15 million.

Harrison succumbed to lung cancer at age 58 in November of 2001 and the world mourned.  McCartney and Starr were among the musicians who performed at the Concert for George at the Royal Albert Hall in London on the one-year anniversary of George's death.

In 2005, George and Giles Martin collaborated with the Cirque du Soleil to produce the show Love, featuring Beatles songs.  The show was wildly successful.

In 2009, the box set The Beatles (The Original Recordings) was released and has gone Triple Platinum.  It is one of the most complete and best compilations of this iconic group.  In 2014, the group received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

In 2016, the documentary The Beatles:  Eight Days a Week, directed by Ron Howard, was released.  It showed the group during their touring years from 1962 to 1966, from their performances at the Cavern Club in Liverpool to their final show in San Francisco.  This is essential viewing for not only fans but for anyone doubting the Beatles' immense following.

In November of 2021, a new documentary directed by Peter Jackson using footage of what became the Let It Be film will be released.  Titled The Beatles:  Get Back, the film has been delayed several times due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Beatles in their early happy-go-lucky years revolutionized the sound and style of Rock music and that alone would have been enough to establish them as one of history's greatest acts.  But they didn't stop there.  In their later years, the Fab Four's incredible innovations, both in lyrical content and endless sonic inventions showing what was possible in the recording studio, have had a profound effect on recording artists and music to this day.

Before the Beatles, the Rock Era, and indeed all of popular music, was all about the single, the 45 (or the 78).  This band, especially after their Rubber Soul album, shook the industry upside down and showed everyone that the album could be, if expertly crafted, a work of art far superior to the single.

The Lennon/McCartney songwriting partnership, each drawing on the strengths of the other, is the standard for songwriting excellence for evermore.  McCartney was a genius in creating fictitious characters and weaving them into a song and he had a born melodic sense.  Lennon was a master lyricist, expanding the possibilities of what a songwriter could place into a song.

When they began their career, they were solid musicians, but the Beatles in 1970 were far more advanced musically than when they began.  By that time, also, each had learned to play more and more instruments, adding to not only the complexity of their recordings but enabling their music to be largely self-contained for most of their career.

Five asteroids:  4147 Lennon, 4148 McCartney, 4149 Harrison, 4150 Starr and 8749 Beatles are named after the group.  In 2007, they became the first group to be featured on a series of postage stamps in the U.K. issued by the Royal Mail.

Although they broke up before most of the awards shows began, the group collected seven Grammy Awards and an Academy Award.  They have achieved six Diamond albums (over 10 million in sales), 20 Multi-Platinum albums, 16 Platinum albums and six Gold albums in the United States alone.  

The Beatles are (by far) the best-selling band in history, with over 600 million units sold, and and they also have sold the most albums of all-time (183 in the U.S.).  They have scored more #1 albums on the U.K. charts (15), and sold more singles in the U.K. (22 million) than any other act.  They hold the all-time record for #1 hits with 20.

The Beatles charted 72 career hits, with an astonishing 34 of those (47%) reaching the Top 10 and 20 #1 songs.  29 of those 72 are in The Top 500 Songs of the Rock Era*, far more than any other artist, and 15 Beatles songs are ranked in The Top 100*, again far more than any other artist of the Rock Era!.

Those statistics should easily show you why this group is The #1 Artist of the Rock Era*.  We mentioned that it isn't even close between #1 and #2, between 2  and 3, between 3 & 4, and between 4 & 5.  The difference, then, between #1 and #3 is huge, between #1 and #4 monumental, and between #1 and #5 astronomical.  

I hear the question, "How can someone whose recording success took up essentially seven years be ahead of an artist who has put out music for 50 years?

Exactly.  The answer is in the question.  When some act is so great and so successful that their seven-year output is light years ahead of any artist who has been recording for 50 years, that gives a glimpse of how groundbreaking they were, how innovative they were, and how talented they were.  Records are made to be broken, but in this case, it is very difficult indeed to see anyone ever topping them, or for that matter, anyone ever topping #2 Elvis Presley.

We hope you have enjoyed this special as much as we have enjoyed working on it--good day to you!

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!