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By Root 321 0

and as Ringo later recalled in the Beatles Anthology, within days of his return he announced to his brothers at a meeting at Apple, “Well, that’s it lads, let’s end it.” The others convinced him not to go public, that they should wait for Abbey Road’s release, which was due September 26. The world had no idea when that classic album hit the radio waves, the store shelves, and the turntables that it was the Beatles’ swan song.

I got the call from Capitol Records a couple days before. Steve drove me to their offices and the Capitol man came down to greet me. He smiled as he handed me Abbey Road. Like so many other Beatles-related moments, I remember how I felt when I saw it for the first time. Untitled, yet again, the Beatles, like superheroes on a mission, crossing Abbey Road where EMI’s recording studios were. They were walking away. George in jeans, casual and independent. Paul in a dark blue suit, cigarette in his hand. Ringo, dressed to the nines and ready for the show. John, all in white, bearded and purposeful. The photo probably had been taken around the time we met. On the back, like a London street sign attached to brick, was written “Beatles.” They had followed the minimalist approach from the White Album. They did not have to say who they were or jazz up the cover. They had been there and beyond with Sgt. Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour. They were the biggest rock band ever.

Just like the others before it, I listened to that album all day and all night, feeling a part of it all. John breathing “shoot me” started it all on “Come Together.” Like the airplane on “Back in the USSR,” the opening sound of the album was wildly original and set the tone with John at his lyrical best. “One and one and one is three…. Hair down to his knee…. Hold you in his armchair you can feel his disease…. He shoot Coca-Cola…. Come together, right now, over me.” Phrases to last an eternity. Paul playing bass wrapped around Ringo’s rolling drumbeat. George harmonizing his lead and John grunging out the chords on his guitar. It was scary, it was funny, it was street theater. And it was pure John.

George’s “Something” was beautiful. John thought it was the best song on the album. He wailed his sliding lead guitar throughout defying any duplication. What I loved most about it was how sweetly Paul accompanied George on bass and in the chorus harmonies. The master of ballads knew that his younger mate had written a love song to match anything he had ever created. Yet Paul clearly held nothing back. It was the music after all. Even at this time of terrible discord and alienation, they were mates who loved each other and supported each other to achieve artistic perfection.

Side one was John’s idea. He did not want another thematic Sgt. Pepper. Just straight ahead rock and roll songs. “Oh! Darling,” Paul’s screaming tribute to Little Richard was so pure rock and roll that John always said he should have sung it. The Beatles rallied around Ringo and his “Octopus’s Garden” to give the least likely songwriter of the group his moment of independent fame. To end it, John’s haunting and primal love song to Yoko, “I Want You (She’s So Heavy).” Soul, rock, jazz, and orchestral, the Beatles demonstrated how contemporary they were, always with a foot planted in the future.

“Here Comes the Sun” was a perfect uplifting opener for side two after the climactic ending of “I Want You.” “Because,” the Yokoinspired backward Beethoven harmonic masterpiece, followed, leading into Paul’s vision, the Abbey Road medley: “You Never Give Me Your Money,” Paul’s fragmented lament for what the Beatles had become (a song he has to this day not performed publicly); “Mean Mr. Mustard”; “Polythene Pam”; and “She Came In Through the Bathroom Window.” John and Paul were two super mutants battling each other with blasts of musical genius. They did this to “The End” where they dueled lead guitars with George right down to the finish. But the Beatles never took themselves too seriously. The last cut was Paul singing to Queen Elizabeth on the acoustic and raunchy “Her Majesty