The Beatles’ Abbey Road wasn’t just a showcase for Paul McCartney
Abbey Road found the Beatles ostensibly coming together — even though, once side one is done, there is very little overt John Lennon sprinkled throughout the rest.
Try as he might, Abbey Road (released on Sept. 26, 1969) is no Paul McCartney record. Sure, this is among McCartney’s brightest, most artistically satisfying, moments. But it’s Lennon’s punctuations (and, to a quickly emerging degree, George Harrison’s), undoubtably, that make it so.
It’s easy to unfairly narrow the critical scope, since McCartney’s most cohesive medley can be found as part of the second half of Abbey Road. Yet, the enduring magic here only grows more impressive after hearing similarly constructed John Lennon-less also-ran attempts from solo projects like Ram and Red Rose Speedway. There is a missing balance achieved here. Moreover, Abbey Road was the album where George Harrison’s latent potential finally was realized — to the tune of an A-side No. 1 hit in “Something” and the lilting, uplifting “Here Comes the Sun.”
Moments away from imploding, they arrived for these sessions as distinct individuals, rather than stylized mop tops. Yet, for a moment in time and for this one last time, the Beatles’ separate personalities seemed to work again in service of the whole. Their strengths served to strengthen one another. After the disastrous Get Back sessions, we could scarcely have expected one of the Beatles’ most gorgeous shared harmonies on “Because,” or Ringo Starr taking a self-deprecating solo, or these relentlessly traded guitar solos — with Lennon simply buffeting the rest — on Paul McCartney’s closing peace-loving Vietnam-era message called “The End.”
By: Nick Deriso
Source: Something Else Reviews
