The Long and Winding Road: My Journey to Discover the Beatles' Greatest Album

By Bob Byrnes

Introduction

Perhaps being a bit naïve, I incorrectly assumed anyone who has listened to music in the past fifty years knew who the Beatles were.  During a recent conversation, I discovered that it wasn’t necessarily the case.  My 20-year old granddaughter wanted me to hear a song she loved, “FourFiveSeconds” (Rihanna, West, and McCartney), and played it for me on her phone.  While I was listening to Rihanna and Kanye West sing the lyrics, my granddaughter asked me to look at the accompanying video and asked if I knew who the old guy playing the guitar was.  A quick glance showed that two of the most popular and influential artists of the past ten years were collaborating with a 72-year old former Beatle, Sir Paul McCartney.

To reasonably argue what the greatest Beatles album ever recorded is, one must try and define what the term “great” means.  For the purposes of this paper, great is being defined as markedly superior in character or quality (“Great”).  This is especially challenging when discussing an art form.  Art, or in this case music, is subjective and personal.  In my estimation, art needs to move you to emotion, whatever that emotion may be, to be considered great.  Ben Franklin wrote in Poor Richard’s Almanac, “Beauty, like supreme dominion, is but supported by opinion.”  For example, many cite Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece, The Mona Lisa, as the greatest work of art in history.  I’ve seen the Mona Lisa in person and while certainly popular among the patrons, it didn’t stir any emotion and I couldn’t understand why it is so widely acclaimed.  On the other hand, I would be much more inclined to display a reprint of one of Cassius Marcellus Coolidge’s collection of Dogs Playing Poker in my home because it speaks to my sense of humor and fascination of what was going through Coolidge’s mind when he created the painting.

The Beatles Greatest Album

In researching this topic, I was caught off guard by how my classmates and those of a similar age were unaware of who the Beatles were, let alone their influence on music today.  It is my hope that this paper educates and encourages any who reads it to give the Beatles’ music a listen armed with broader sense of their influence on music today.  Hopefully, the reader will discover their own greatest Beatle album or simply agree with me that Abbey Road is their greatest work.

The impact of the Beatles on popular music is difficult to understate.  The Beatles were a rare combination in any walk of life where they were the best at what they did and at the same time the most popular.  They were the greatest and most influential act of the rock era and introduced more innovations into popular music than any other rock band of the 20th century (Unterberger).

For the purposes of this paper, there are thirteen albums to be considered: Please Please Me (1963), With the Beatles (1963), A Hard Day’s Night (1964), Beatles for Sale (1964), Help! (1965), Rubber Soul (1965), Revolver (1966), Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), The Beatles (“The White Album,” 1968), Yellow Submarine (1969), Abbey Road (1969), and Let It Be (1970). According to the Guardian newspaper, all reached #1 on the album charts apart from Yellow Submarine, which fell just short finishing at #2 (Rogers).  Between the years 1962 and 1970, the Beatles charted 27 #1 singles in either the UK or US and are captured on a compilation album released in December 2007 called The Beatles 1 (which coincidentally went to #1 on the album chart) (The Beatles).

To emphasize the historical impact the Beatles had and still have today, let’s examine some of their accomplishments.  Commercially, the Beatles are widely considered to have sold the most albums of all time.  As of 2014, reports show sales in excess of 600 million copies (CBS News).  As of December 2017, 149 albums have been issued by the Beatles worldwide.  Included in this total are box sets, different versions of the same album with different release dates, track order and different record companies in each country that an album was released.  For example, the first full studio album by the Beatles is Please Please Me. It was released in the UK in April of 1963 but not officially in the US until February of 1987.

Critically speaking, six of their studio albums and nine of their songs have been selected for inclusion in the Grammy Hall of Fame.  The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has enshrined the Beatles as a group as well as each member individually.  The Beatles were awarded an Academy Award in 1971 for Music (Original Song Score) for the film Let It Be.  Most recently in 2017, two Emmy Awards were awarded to the documentary The Beatles: Eight Days A Week – The Touring Years.  Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which has been hailed as “the most important and influential rock and roll album ever recorded” (Kasten).  Time Magazine collectively named the Beatles as members of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century (Loder).  Rolling Stone magazine named the Beatles as the #1 Artist in their critics’ poll of the 100 Greatest Artists in the rock and roll era (Costello).  A similar poll conducted in 2003 by Rolling Stone asked critics to rank the top 500 albums of the rock and roll era.  Seven Beatles albums were ranked in the top 100 albums in the poll, six were in the top 40, four were in the top 10, three in the top 5 including the #1 album of all time (500 Greatest Albums of All Time).

In a recent survey of 118 neighbors and friends on Facebook (Byrnes), only one of the albums, Beatles for Sale, did not receive a vote.  The accompanying chart is a recap of that survey combined with the results of the 2003 Rolling Stone critics poll.  In the end, Abbey Road, was cited most often as the favorite album, although four of the other albums garnered at least ten percent of the vote.  The most surprising revelation was that Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, ranked #1 in the critic’s poll, was considered the fifth greatest album in the survey, despite being re-issued and re-mastered to much fanfare late in 2017.

Ultimately the deciding factor for me in stating which Beatles album was my greatest is, referring back to my premise of what “great” means to me – art needs to move you to emotion. The difficult part was each of these albums had moments where the threshold of greatness was met for me.  In the end it came down to the album as a complete piece of work, the one that I would choose if I was only given one Beatles album to listen for the rest of my life, the one that continues to this day to create emotion with almost every listen.  For me that album is Abbey Road.

To fully appreciate Abbey Road and why I, as well as many others, consider it their greatest album, this paper will explore several of the songs from the album while referencing the Beatles history.  It is also helpful to know that the 18 months preceding its recording was filled with much acrimony and bitterness among the individual Beatles.  To emphasize that point, McCartney recalled, “I think before the Abbey Road sessions it was like we should put down the boxing gloves and try and just get it together and really make a very special album” (Abbey Road).  I believe they instinctively knew this was their last album together and that notion was  confirmed by George when speaking about the album, “We didn’t know, or I didn’t know at the time cause it was the last Beatles record that we would make but it kind of felt a bit like we were reaching the end of the line” (Abbey Road).

The album cover for Abbey Road was the source of much speculation and discussion and is almost as iconic as the cover for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.  The picture taken outside the Abbey Road studio of the four Beatles walking across the street, has been interpreted as a hint of Paul (and by extension, the Beatles) being dead.  John is first and is dressed as a minister, followed by Ringo in an undertaker’s suit, Paul walking barefoot as the English had buried the dead barefoot, with George bringing up the rear as the grave digger (Reporter). The photo has been imitated by several other musical groups, including Paul McCartney for one of his live albums and thousands of fans (including the author of this paper).

“Come Together”

The name of the title track of Abbey Road is a signal of the band’s desire to work together as a group similar to their early years.  “It was a very, very happy album. Everybody worked frightfully well and that’s why I’m very fond of it” (Abbey Road), stated the Beatles long-time producer, George Martin.  The title also allows for the opportunity to look back on how the Beatles came to be, who and what influenced them, what the world was like when they were first making a name for themselves and arguably, how the world was changing.

For many Americans, the 1950s were a time of prosperity and wholesome family values.  World War II was over, the economy was robust and soldiers returning from war had started families.  While historical images and old television programs from that era are predominantly black and white, those pictures of America portray cheerfulness and optimism.

Such was not the case in post war Europe.  Although World War II finished in 1945, Europe had a lot of rebuilding to do.  As Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones stated, “World War II stopped in 1959 for my generation.  Up until then, it was a load of rubble and rationing books. It took the entire 1950s for Britain to climb out of that” (Clydesdale).  These conditions were especially prevalent in the rough and war-ravaged neighborhoods of the seaside town of Liverpool, England, home of George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr (The Beatles).

Growing up in Liverpool was a great influence on The Beatles formative years.  Rock and roll music was essentially an import from the United States in the 1950’s.  Liverpool had two distinct advantages in being the first city in England where rock and roll music blossomed.  First, Liverpool was a major port city for the United Kingdom and ships loaded with supplies from America to rebuild Europe, often docked in Liverpool.  Among the necessities such as cotton and grain being unloaded, other pieces of America found their way to Liverpool.  Among the treasures were American blues, country and western, and rock and roll records (Clydesdale).

During World War II, both the Allied and Axis forces viewed the area around Liverpool as vital for control.  Liverpool was the most heavily bombed area of the country, outside of London, due to the city having the largest port on the West Coast and was of incalculable importance to the British war effort – it needed to stay open to provide a vital supply route for Britain’s survival (Spirit of the Blitz).  While essentially toddlers during the war years, the aftermath of the war and the outside influences around Liverpool greatly influenced the individual members of the Beatles as they were growing up.

Another reason for Liverpool becoming the English font for popular music, identified by the Beatles primary record producer, George Martin, was the location of U.S. military forces. During World War II, the biggest single site for U.S. forces was at RAF-Burtonwood, a few miles northeast of Liverpool. This base became so large that it was known as “little America,” and the18,000 U.S. servicemen and women living in their barracks brought to England things from home, including their favorite records. As the locals became increasingly familiar with the Americans based there, they came to love American music and, by the 1950s, youngsters in Liverpool were borrowing from the imported American styles. It was in this environment that The Beatles grew up. Their idols included Americans Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Chuck Berry (Clydesdale).

The convergence of the above-mentioned events in and around Liverpool was the environment from which the Beatles were formed in the late 1950s.  In 1958, over the course of six months, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison all joined together in early groups that preceded what would ultimately become the Beatles. They were discovered and signed by Brian Epstein, a music columnist and a record store owner early in 1962.  They became a wildly popular local group in and honed their craft at lunchtime gigs at The Cavern Club in Liverpool and by playing eight to ten-hours per night gigs in Hamburg, Germany for six weeks a time.

Shortly after assuming his managerial role, Epstein recorded one of the group’s performances at The Cavern Club in the hopes of getting the Beatles a record deal.  After several producers turned him and the group down, he finally convinced George Martin, a producer with EMI Records, to give them an audition.  It was an odd pairing as Martin was primarily a producer of comedy records at the time.  He wasn’t particularly impressed with their first demos, primarily because the drummer at that time, Pete Best, couldn’t keep time.  The other three members of the group had already been considering replacing Best and in the fall of 1962 replaced him with Ringo Starr.

With the composition of the band complete, Martin brought the group back in for another audition and signed them immediately to a record deal.  The first order of business was to record and release a single.  Gathering at Abbey Road Studios in London in the fall of 1962, they recorded three original songs, “Love Me Do”, “Please Please Me,” and “P.S. I Love You“.  “Love Me Do” was released late in 1962 and was reasonably successful reaching the top twenty in the UK.  “Please Please Me” was released in January of 1963, reached #2 in the UK and the phenomenon known as Beatlemania was officially in full gear (Rogers).

“Something”

The Beatles released only one single from Abbey Road.  “Something” was written by George Harrison, and it was the first time the Beatles had a #1 single that wasn’t written by Lennon/McCartney.

Following the success of the first two singles, the Beatles were rushed back into the Abbey Road studios to record their first album.  Over the course of one day, the Beatles recorded the entire album.  Please Please Me was released in the UK on March 23, 1963. It reached #1 on the UK charts and remained there for thirty weeks (Please Please Me).  In a sign of things to come, it was replaced at the top of the charts by the Beatles follow-up album, With the Beatles.

To capitalize on their success, the Beatles embarked on a hectic schedule of touring in Europe to promote the album, and appearances on radio and television.  As talented as they were musically, they were charming individuals with quick smiles and ever quicker wits and received favored press by the usually staid British press.  The growing popularity of television (and a brutal winter in England) showcased their music, personalities, and their look to a wide audience.  They were followed by adoring fans across Europe and were greeted by large crowds wherever they went.

While the Beatles were becoming wildly popular in England and UK in 1963, they were relatively unknown in the United States for much of the year.  It was puzzling to the group, their manager and especially their producer, George Martin. The Beatles were signed by EMI Records in England. EMI Records was owned by EMI Ltd., which also owned Capitol Records in the United States and was the label the Beatles were originally distributed in their early years. Capitol Records executives claimed that the Beatles sound would not be successful in the United States and as such did not actively promote them in 1963.

That all changed in early November of 1963 when Ed Sullivan, the host of CBS television’s The Ed Sullivan Show, was at a London airport returning home to New York City.  The Ed Sullivan Show was the most popular and longest running variety show on television at the time. Airing live on Sunday evenings, it was a must watch television for the American public.  Performers booked on the show considered it the big break in their careers.  While Sullivan was waiting for his flight, he was overwhelmed by teenagers waiting in the rain to greet the Beatles after returning from a tour date in Sweden.  When Sullivan returned home, he began making inquiries on how to book the band on his show.

“Here Comes the Sun”

Acrimony amongst the Beatles towards the end of their career mostly revolved around business decisions.  The death of their manager, Brian Epstein, left the group without someone to act as a buffer for the band.  After a particularly stressful set of meetings, George wrote “Here Comes the Sun” as a reminder to himself and his mates that better days were possible.

Sullivan’s team wanted the Beatles for his show so he could break the group in the United States.  The Beatles for their part wanted to make sure they had a #1 hit on the US charts before they would come to America.  They recorded and released “I Want to Hold Your Hand” in November of 1963 and it immediately soared up the UK charts to #1 (Rogers).  As part of his plan, Sullivan convinced CBS News to use their London bureau to do a story on the Beatles for airing on American television in preparation for their appearance in February of 1964. The story was completed and the film was sent to New York for editing and airing.  The story Sullivan encouraged CBS News to do earlier in the month, was aired on CBS Morning News program the morning of November 22, 1963 and presumably would have been on the news that evening.  But later that day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.  The assassination and related stories dominated the news and the story did not air again until the last week of December 1963 (Ed Sullivan Show).

The Beatles arrived on American soil for the first time on February 7, 1964.  “I Want to Hold Your Hand” reached #1 in the US charts on February 1, 1964 (Rogers).  They had done their part.

The Beatles were greeted at Kennedy Airport in New York by an estimated crowd of more than 3,000 screaming fans as well as a large contingent of journalists.  It should be remembered that while this hullabaloo was happening, there was still an air of gloom in America. The Kennedy assignation was still fresh in the minds of the entire county. The country was ready for some much-needed diversion, and it came in the form of four young lads from Liverpool – their sound, their look, their energy and their charisma. History shows that on February 9, 1964, 73 million people, more than 64% of the country, tuned in to watch the American television debut of the Beatles (Ed Sullivan Show).

In the weeks that followed the Sullivan appearance, the Beatles performed several concerts and made another appearance on the Sullivan show before returning triumphantly to England.  The nation, especially the youth of America, needed something to replace the hope lost by the Kennedy assassination.  The Beatles, with their youthful exuberance, charm, and music, recharged much of the nation’s youth and helped set in motion many of the social changes that would drastically change the United States the remainder of the decade.

“Because”

While they still occasionally wrote cute pop songs, much of the new music was nuanced; the lyrics more thoughtful and provocative and music much more elaborate.  What makes these albums and songs even more remarkable is the limitations in the recording equipment at that time.  Without getting too technical, much of the Beatles music was recorded using four-track technology.  Essentially, that means four distinct sounds, voices, instruments, etc. could be recorded at different times and merged into one tape.  When you compare that with today where 256-track recording is standard equipment in a recording studio, the complexity of the songs produced by the Beatles and George Martin is remarkable.  “Because” is an example of this complexity because of the harmonies they wanted to capture and the technology that was available at that time. George, John, and Paul recorded their voices three times to make nine voices in the final cut of the song.

From 1963 through 1965, the Beatles released five more albums that all reached #1 in music charts across the world. At the same time, they starred in two movies, A Hard Day’s Night and Help!, which helped bring their music and personalities to a global audience.  They increasingly were writing and recording compositions of their own and experimenting with different types of sounds and instruments.  As they grew as musicians and their curiosity grew, George Martin, their producer, increasingly was becoming more vital to the recording process.  Martin essentially became known as the fifth Beatle.

Beginning with the release of Rubber Soul in November of 1965, the following three years produced arguably the greatest consecutive string of albums ever created by one group. Not only did Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and The Beatles (The White Album) all reach #1 commercially, critically they ranked 5th, 3rd, 1st and 10th in a 2012 Rolling Stone poll of critics and musicians of the greatest albums ever recorded (500 Greatest Albums of All Time).  Free from the rigors of touring, the recording studio became their canvas. Fueled by their curiosity, imagination and admittedly hallucinogens, they created albums that still sound as fresh today as when they were recorded.

They wrote songs reflecting the times and what they were going through personally: “Help!” was about depression, “Taxman” was in protest of the high tax rate the Beatles were subject to in England at the time, “Elanor Rigby” addressed loneliness, “She’s Leaving Home” is about a girl who runs away from home, and “Blackbird” was written about the civil rights abuses going on in America at the time.

While this period was extremely prolific and profitable, outside influences and differences of opinion were beginning to affect the four Beatles’ relationships with each other.  These cracks in the relationship have been attributed, in no particular order, to the death of their manager Brian Epstein in 1967, their increased drug use, starting families, working on solo projects, differences in opinion of where to go musically and financially, all contributing to the gradual and eventual breakup of the Beatles in 1970.  Despite all the internal turmoil, their final two years as a group produced two more #1 albums and three movies, most notably the animated musical The Beatles: Yellow Submarine, created to be a children’s movie.  They performed live one last time together on the roof of Abbey Road studios in support of the album and movie of the same title, Let It Be.  The eventual breakup of the Beatles was building over these last two years.  Both Ringo and George had left for short periods only to be coaxed back.  While John was the first one to tell the others that he was leaving the group in September of 1969, it didn’t become public until April of 1970 when Paul announced he was leaving the Beatles (Unterberger).

“Golden Slumbers”

What elevates this album in my estimation is side two and specifically the last seven songs; the ultimate sum is greater than its parts.  Side two contains of a 16-minute medley of eight short songs, blended into a suite by Lennon, McCartney, and Martin.  None of the songs on its own was more than three minutes in length or stood out necessarily on their own.  Stitched together as two distinct medleys, they are joyous and beautiful whole pieces.  The final three songs in particular, “Golden Slumbers”, “Carry That Weight” and appropriately “The End,” commonly referred to as the Abbey Road medley showcases the Beatles at their best.  Starting slowly with a ballad, transitioning to an exhilarating rock song with one of the most iconic drum solos ever recorded and ending with a simple, beautiful message for the world, it resonates as much today as it did then.  To this day, McCartney closes his shows with the Abbey Road medley as a tribute to his former mates.

While no longer a group, the various members of the Beatles have had lasting impacts on the world artistically, politically, and socially since their breakup.  While the aura of the Beatles was always in the background, their contributions as individuals are remarkable. Combined they have recorded 61 studio albums since their breakup.  As mentioned previously, they have all been recognized for their individual achievements.  The early years after the breakup were filled with much acrimony, especially over financial issues.  Still, they would occasionally help each other out on an album or support one another at a concert.  As time passed and the wounds healed, their relationships with each other improved.

Sadly, violence robbed the world the opportunity to see if they would ever make music together again.  After writing so many songs about love and peace, it is ironic that both John Lennon and George Harrison had violent attacks on their respective lives.  Lennon was murdered outside his New York home in December 1980.  Harrison and his wife were attacked in their home in 1999 and Harrison was stabbed over forty times.  While he recovered from attack, he passed away two years later from cancer.  Paul McCartney was on a plane taxiing at JFK Airport in New York when the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 took place.  He watched the attacks unfold on the World Trade towers before his flight was grounded and he was removed from the plane.

The legacy of the Beatles and their music still endures.  Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr both tour regularly, playing to massive crowds worldwide with fans trying to capture a bit of time in a bottle.  The crowds are an equal mix of those who grew up with the Beatles, their children and their children’s children.  Visit Las Vegas and you can see a Cirque du Soleil production that began with George Harrison and a friend who was a co-founder of Cirque.  The Beatles Love merges the Beatles music and the talents of the troupe into a presentation that recalls their early beginnings through the breakup with the finale being a hope for a joyous reunion. Visit Central Park in New York City and take in Strawberry Fields, which is a garden commemorating John Lennon’s work as a musician and peace activist.  In the middle of Strawberry Fields is a mosaic on the ground with the word “Imagine,” arguably Lennon’s most revered song as a solo artist, as its focal point.

“The End”

Fittingly, the last official song on Abbey Road (there is a 23-second long hidden track included at the end titled “Her Majesty”) is titled “The End.”  “The End” is a joyous exclamation point on the Beatles career.  It features Paul, George and John taking turns at playfully dueling with each other with their guitars and Ringo contributing a rare and iconic drum solo.  The lyrics are simple, poignant and as meaningful today as the day they were recorded.  This album, and particularly the last three songs, showcases four men who created and provided joy and inspiration for millions then as they do today, but also reminded them of their friendships and love and the power of what they could create together.

Fittingly, the most powerful and poignant lyrics ever written by The Beatles in my opinion, which are as relevant today as they were when written in 1969, are the last lyrics from the last song on the last album The Beatles ever recorded, Abbey Road.

“And in the end,
May the love you take
Be equal to the
Love you make.” (“The End”)

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