Replay: Walking Down ‘Abbey Road’ After 55 Years

The Beatles’ final album recorded, “Abbey Road” represents bittersweet endings and independent beginnings.

Released Sept. 26, 1969, the 55-year-old “Abbey Road” is a legendary culmination of the band’s seven-year tenure as recording artists. At the height of their success and craft, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr made a record that reckons with both unity and division.

Named after the London street where EMI’s recording studio was located, “Abbey Road” was the last studio album The Beatles produced before officially splitting up just three months later. While the band’s post-break-up album “Let It Be” was released half a year later, the “Abbey Road” sessions were the last ever recorded with all four members present.

Blues anthem “Come Together” opens the album with a grungy celebration for the uncanny. With lyrics like “he got monkey finger” and “hair down to his knee,” Lennon belts about an eerie musician’s attraction. With psychedelic lyrics and a blues-rock backing, “Come Together” is a prime example Lennon’s irregular artistry. 

The second track “Something” plays to Harrison’s strengths in his sincerity. Dubbed “the greatest love song of the past 50 years” by Frank Sinatra, “Something” soulfully relishes in Harrison’s love for his first wife, Pattie Boyd.

“Something in the way she moves / Attracts me like no other lover / Something in the way she woos me,” Harrison sings.

Originally intended for “Let It Be,” “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” is lyrically dark yet instrumentally upbeat. The tune cheerfully relays the tale of a boy’s murder spree with a hammer, and features gleeful sound effects producing an eerie earworm.

McCartney’s “Oh! Darling” contrasts hopeful dealmaking with Harrison’s lovesick ballad. The track’s desperate lyrics of a man not wanting to be abandoned are recontextualized knowing The Beatles’ relationship was on its last legs.

“Oh darling, if you leave me / I’ll never make it alone / Believe me when I beg you / Don’t ever leave me alone,” McCartney sings.

Starr’s “Octopus’s Garden” is a dreamy tribute to simple living. Singing about a joyous party under the ocean, Starr relishes in a life without worry while acoustic instrumentation bubbles with yearning.

“Abbey Road” encompasses all four corners of the Beatles’ musical strengths — McCartney’s upbeat innovation, Lennon’s bohemian experimentation, Harrison’s thoughtfulness and Starr’s boyishness.

In their previous albums, “The Beatles,” promoted individuality while “Let It Be” streamlined a grounded rock style. “Abbey Road” is the wire-walk of both approaches, allowing creativity to burst through a record dense with nostalgic desire.

Contributing a love song of his own, Lennon’s “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” is a haunting ode to his wife, musician Yoko Ono. Lennon leans into lust’s intoxication with a strained guitar and voice.

“Here Comes the Sun” immediately follows with a vibrant melody starkly contrasting Lennon’s dreariness. In a record rife with longing and reminiscence, “Here Comes the Sun” is a celebration for the future ahead.

“Little darlin’, the smile’s returning to their faces / Little darlin’, it seems like years since it’s been here,” Harrison sings.

Harrison wrote the song while skipping a business meeting with the band’s management company, Apple Corps, according to his autobiography “I, Me, Mine.” The underlying theme of bright days ahead, coupled with his truancy, convey his joy at branching out from The Beatles.

Despite forming their own paths, “Abbey Road” features the last vestiges of The Beatles’ unity. The abstract tribute to Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata,” “Because” features a sublime three-part harmony between McCartney, Lennon and Harrison.

Closing the album is a patchwork 16-minute medley consisting of eight abridged songs. “You Never Give Me Your Money” kicks off the assortment with an arresting mix of soft piano and swinging choruses, resulting in a head-rocking rhythm.

“Sun King” borrows the harmonic structure of “Because” with a mellower melody. “Mean Mr. Mustard” is a carnivalesque tune that resembles 1967’s “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” The fast-paced “Polythene Pam” harkens to their early days performing in dance clubs. Each of the three serves as tribute to earlier sounds within “Abbey Road” and The Beatles’ wider catalog.

The middle of the medley, “She Came in Through The Bathroom Window” is inspired by a fan who broke into McCartney’s home. The track exhibits both the singer’s affability and penchant for telling stories in songs.

“Golden Slumbers” is a rich melody sweet in texture and bitter in brevity. Likewise, the tragically short “Carry That Weight” reprises arrangements from “You Never Give Me Your Money” and retools them as an orchestral anthem.

Aptly closing the medley and tracklist is “The End.” The climatic concluder features solos from each of the four, containing Starr’s only unaccompanied drum performance in his entire tenure with The Beatles.

“The End” would be fitting as the last Beatles song on the last Beatles album, but the actual closer is “Her Majesty.” A musical epilogue, the track is a mere 26-seconds of McCartney strumming alone.

Ranked fifth by Rolling Stone’s top 500 albums of all time, the significance of “Abbey Road” can’t be understated. The album’s genre-spanning tracklist is the senior thesis for a band who influenced the likes of classic acts Queen and Electric Light Orchestra, to modern rock bands The Killers and Arctic Monkeys.

The tumultuous aftermath of “Abbey Road” adds context to its tracks, but it’s the record’s overflowing personality that solidifies its historic status. The final bricks paved by The Beatles, “Abbey Road” permanently cemented the band’s status as music icons.
“Abbey Road” is available to stream on all major platforms.

Replay is a recurring music review album.