01/05/2023
A great read about the last recording the Beatles ever did as a quartet…
How the Abbey Road Side Two Medley Came About
Known during the sessions as "The Long One," the medley is “You Never Give Me Your Money," “Sun King," "Mean Mr. Mustard," "Polythene Pam," "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window," "Golden Slumbers," "Carry That Weight" and "The End."
The album closes with “Her Majesty.”
But they weren't always in this order. The Beatles originally placed "Her Majesty" just after "Mean Mr. Mustard." Paul decided he wanted to reorder the songs, and asked tape operator John Kurlander to take out "Her Majesty" all together. Kurlander, in a moment of now-historic serendipity, decided not to throw it away. Instead, he tacked the song on the end of the reel – after attaching a long piece of leader tape to separate it from the rest of the album.
That's how Abbey Road was released. Paul heard this sequencing, including the long silence before "Her Majesty" comes suddenly crashing back in, and approved.
The medley concept began to emerge in May 1969, when Paul took his first pass at "You Never Give Me Your Money." He didn't finish the song, instead stopping short – suggesting he had plans to connect the track to something else.
Later, they added the lines, "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven – all good children go to heaven," and some tape-looped sounds to link the song with "Sun King." Other previously unfinished ideas were brought back to the sessions, and they too began to combine into a greater whole.
“I'm a bit wary of claiming these things,” said Paul.
“I'm happy for it to be everyone's idea. Anyway, in the end, we hit upon the idea of medley-ing them all and giving the second side a sort of operatic structure – which was great because it used 10 or 12 unfinished songs in a good way."
As Abbey Road continued to take shape, everyone approached the medley as a single musical entity. "Sun King" and "Mean Mr. Mustard" were recorded together, as were "Polythene Pam" and "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window," and "Golden Slumbers" and "Carry That Weight.”
“it was worked once and always listened to as one piece,” said engineer Alan Parsons.
“We were always running off rough mixes of it as a whole piece as it had developed to the end of that day, and everyone would take it home to listen to it."
“During the album, things got a bit more positive and, although it had some overdubs, we got to play the whole medley," George said.
“We put them in order, played the backing track and recorded it all in one take, going from one arrangement to the next. We did actually perform more like musicians again."
Thanks to Boris for this photo.
