gr_s' Journal

Medley (из Abbey Road, 16 с лишним минут)
Please, furnish full volume of sound. With headphones, of course. Thank you, Gr_S
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Citation from Wiki: 'The climax of the album is the 16-minute medley consisting of several short songs, both finished and unfinished, blended into a suite by McCartney and Martin. Most of these songs were written (and originally recorded in demo form) during sessions for The White Album and the Get Back / Let It Be sessions.

"You Never Give Me Your Money" is the first song of the Abbey Road medley. It was written by McCartney and based on his feelings towards Allen Klein and what McCartney viewed as Klein's empty promises. It slowly and quietly follows into "Sun King" (which, like "Because", showcases Lennon's, McCartney's, and Harrison's overdubbed harmonies), "Mean Mr. Mustard" (written during The Beatles' trip to India), and "Polythene Pam" (contributed by Lennon). These in turn are followed by four McCartney songs, "She Came In Through the Bathroom Window" (written after a fan came into McCartney's residence literally through the bathroom window), "Golden Slumbers" (based on lyrics from Thomas Dekker's 17th-century poem, but not the music of a song based on the poem), "Carry That Weight" (featuring chorus vocals from all four Beatles), and the climax, "The End".

"The End" is notable for featuring Starr's only drum solo in The Beatles' catalogue (the drums are mixed across two tracks in "true stereo"—in a similar way to the studio single version of Get Back). Normally, even though mixes were in stereo, the drums were mixed in mono, locked together with other instruments and often panned hard left or right in the stereo "picture". Fifty-four seconds into the song, before the famous last line, which is played over piano chords, are 18 bars (or measures) of guitar solo: the first two bars are played by McCartney, the second two by Harrison, and the third two by Lennon, then the sequence repeats. Each has a distinctive style which McCartney felt reflected their personalities: McCartney's playing included string bends similar to his lead guitar work on "Another Girl" from the Help! album; Harrison's was melodic with slides yet technically advanced and Lennon's was rhythmic, stinging and had the heaviest distortion. Immediately after Lennon's third solo, the piano chords of the final part of the song begin. The song ends with the memorable final line, "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make".
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"Her Majesty", tacked on the end, was included in a rough mix of the side two medley, appearing between "Mean Mr. Mustard" and "Polythene Pam". McCartney disliked the way the medley sounded when it included "Her Majesty", so he had it cut out of the tape. However, second engineer John Kurlander had been instructed never to throw out anything, so after McCartney left, he picked it up off the floor, spliced 14 seconds of red leader tape onto the reel, and then spliced in "Her Majesty" onto the leader tape. The tape box bore an instruction to leave "Her Majesty" off the final product, but the next day when Malcolm Davies at Apple received the tape, he (also trained not to throw anything away) cut a playback lacquer of the whole sequence, including "Her Majesty". The Beatles liked this effect and included it on the album. Original US and UK pressings of Abbey Road do not list "Her Majesty" on the album's cover nor on the record label, making it a hidden track.

"Her Majesty" opens with the final, crashing chord of "Mean Mr. Mustard", while the final note of "Her Majesty" remained buried in the mix of "Polythene Pam". This is the result of "Her Majesty" being snipped off the reel during a rough mix of the medley. The medley was subsequently mixed again from scratch although "Her Majesty" was not touched again and still appears in its rough mix on the album.