“Abbey Road”: George and Ringo Have the Last Word

The Beatles’ Abbey Road has been delighting Beatles fans and music lovers of all ages for fifty-five years.  When listened to with the attention it deserves, and without distraction, the album can provide a forty-seven-minute reprieve from the cacophony of concerns we too often carry around in our heads.

I remember the arrival of Abbey Road quite vividly. Though only thirteen, I was a 9^th grader at Parsons Junior High School in Queens, NY. My brother, a grade ahead of me and at the high school, was in daily contact with Triboro Records in Jamaica when new Beatles releases were imminent. We planned an Abbey Road listening party for the evening of October 3, 1969.

I can’t say I remember my reaction to the record the first time I heard it, but I do remember what I was wearing: black long-sleeved leotard, hip-hugger bell-bottom jeans with flowers painstakingly embroidered on the back pockets, and assorted chunky jewelry.  I also remember my brother’s new friends from the high school—cute additions to our little band of freaks.

Abbey Road was the latest communiqué from our favorite people. I quickly got to know it and played it incessantly. As a physical object, it was less of a “package” than recent Beatles albums—no gatefold, no inserts, no printed lyrics. Yet it was no less an interactive experience. Beatles album covers, like the Beatles themselves, had an enigmatic quality, and were scrutinized with the belief that something important or delightful might be revealed; maybe both. The engaging cover image would soon become, like previous Beatles album covers, indelibly seared into our consciousness.

The carefully posed photo by Iain MacMillan is a richly detailed streetscape, inviting viewers to shift their attention between the middle ground of buildings, trees, cars, and bystanders; the background, where the vanishing point leads to infinity, and the foreground, where four unique and uniquely familiar individuals walk in lockstep. Looking only ahead, these four separate beings exude a seriousness of purpose that binds them together as they cross what has since become hallowed ground.

Fans I interviewed for my book Beatleness: How the Beatles and Their Fans Remade the World, thought John looked like Jesus, or a rabbi, with his reddish-brown mane and pure white suit. Paul, also in a suit, was oddly barefoot and holding a deadly symbol of ’60s cool, a cigarette. Paul’s bare feet, and the VW bug McMillian wanted moved out of the shot, would take on added significance when the Paul Is Dead rumor emerged a few weeks later.

George’s American hippie garb reflects the time he’d spent hanging out with Bob Dylan and The Band in upstate New York and gigging with American rockers Delaney and Bonnie. The non-fashion, utilitarian, full denim look—not considered too matchy-matchy like it is now— became a unisex uniform in the early seventies. George’s footwear also caught on. A male fan recalls, “I went out and got a pair of desert boots after that album came out.”

Engaging with the album cover was a sort of appetizer that shifted your consciousness into a receptive, curious mode to greet the music. Abbey Road felt and sounded like a collaborative effort in a way that the previous year’s White Album didn’t. Ensemble playing, angelic three-part harmonies, and a tight weaving of the four Beatle essences make Abbey Road feel whole and cohesive.

First-gen fans considered “Side Two of Abbey Road” a song unto itself. No other Beatle album had a chunk that big. Paul McCartney and George Martin created fifteen minutes of seamless Beatle bliss from unused snippets. One of the fans I interviewed for Beatleness remembers asking his Italian grandmother to translate the “Italian” on “Sun King:” “We played it for her over and over again. It drove her crazy trying to make sense of that gibberish.”

Abbey Road is the perfect soundtrack for savoring the autumn sun and the reds, oranges, and golds it brings. The fiftieth anniversary remaster, released in 2019, proves that Giles Martin inherited his father’s brilliance. Martin somehow managed to give it more layers, more sounds, and more color, yet it remains clear, crisp, and uncluttered. The songs are deeply familiar and elicit a hard-to-describe feeling unique to the experience of listening to them.

Yes, Abbey Road has a wholeness to it. But when I listen today, George and Ringo’s contributions seem to be of a higher order than that of their bandmates. John and Paul’s best work is elsewhere.

Ringo’s drumming is superb and establishes his greatness for all time. “Octopus’s Garden,” and the gentleness of Ringo’s performance, completes a through line from “With A Little Help From My Friends” and “Yellow Submarine,” forming a trilogy that reflects the love, goodness, and playfulness of a rebellious tribe—sensibilities at the core of the hippie ethos the Beatles have come to symbolize.

George’s songwriting skills were in full bloom on Abbey Road. “Something” is a thoughtful celebration of love. It’s mature and authentic, with a beautiful melody and superb guitar work. It’s the most covered Beatles song after “Yesterday” and is considered by many renowned songwriters to be one of the greatest love songs ever written.

The other two love songs on the album, “Oh Darling!” and “I Want You/She’s So Heavy,” sound to me today like tired displays of male id. The incessant, persistent rhythm has a menacing feel. Four times Paul promises, “I’ll never do you no harm.” If the object of his affection remains unconvinced he’ll cry; he’ll die. Similarly fixated, John declares, for close to eight minutes, that he’s being driven mad. Yes, these motifs permeate blues, rock, and pop, but these two songs are, for the Beatles, and to my ear today, annoyingly testosterone-driven.

The Beatles seemed like high-EQ guys. They sang about love with nuance, insight, and optimism. Their aspirational words are key to their enduring appeal across generations and across the globe. George delivers that for Abbey Road. Lennon-McCartney, not so much.

The ditty George wrote while strolling through his garden with Eric Clapton also delivers the positivity that has come to define the Beatles’ legacy. When my five-year-old grandson says, “Echo, play Beatles,” the algorithm brings forth “Here Comes the Sun,” one of the Beatles’ most downloaded songs. Future generations may see George’s ode to nature, optimism, and renewal as the band’s signature song.

Time magazine’s 1969 review said Abbey Road had a “cheerful coherence.” And I agree. It does. But listening today, it seems George and Ringo brought most of the cheer.

-Candy Leonard

Photo: Fair Use image of the Abbey Road album cover