Speculate on why George did not have more songs on Abbey Road.

I'd take nothing off the album...
For my money, Octopus's garden is the best Ringo track since the Pepper album..
Weird song idea though, has it ever been thought before or since the Octopus's lived in gardens?
Also what a strange place to dream of escaping to? Such a nice little song, that these things come off as plausible at least to me...........great backing vocals and a good solo...
I like the way they put the polish on Abbey road...

 

Maybe George Harrison's 'I Love Dig'

I love ATMP and love I dig love but that's a lyric....

 

I agree with Maxwell's Silver Hammer, but I want You(She's So Heavy) is a highlight for me from the Beatles catalogue. I wish they hadn't decided it to end so abruptly. A nice fadeout would have completed it for me.

 

Thanks, I'm well familiar with that song.

The End signals the end of the medley and the album (Her Majesty notwithstanding, but I'm not so sure it was signaling the end of the band.

Subconsciously, did some of them think Abbey Road might be the end? Sure. But this project, I don't believe, was taken on, or intended as their final musical statement. It certainly worked out that way (I Me Mine notwithstanding).

Some questions:

If Abbey Road was intended to be the last Beatles album, and mapped out that way, why would Paul leave both Let It Be and Long and Winding Road on the table and then not write a powerful statement song for Abbey Road?

Why would Paul, thinking about the future, try to get the band back on the road, knowing they had just finished recording their final album?

Why was the breakup so dramatic, if they had agreed going in this was it?

Why would Ringo say that when the Beatles were posing for publicity pictures in Tittenhurst (which turned out to be the final group pictures of the band), they had no idea that was going to be the final session?

I think the evidence is there that, in 1969, the Beatles themselves thought the band would continue beyond Abbey Road.

But in the late summer that all changed forever when John announced he had enough.

Some quotes about the September 20 meeting at Apple.

John Lennon reveals he is leaving The Beatles

 

Indeed, John's announcement at that September 20 meeting was the game changer. It suddenly seemed to change the situation from "could this be the end?" to "this IS the end."

As for why Paul left "Let It Be" and "The Long and Winding Road" on the back burner, well, they knew that there would be a film and album of the Get Back sessions eventually and those two songs were central to both.

 

Ringo got the idea in Sardinia when he left The Beatles temporarily in 1968. Apparently the octopuses collect shells and arrange them like a little garden.
And no one ever mentions John's contribution, the great guitar track that holds the whole song together.

 

A fade out would have ruined for me. The first time I heard the album was when I bought a copy some time in 1977 or so, when I was 15. I was blasting the music in my bedroom, windows open. When that song suddenly ended, I thought my stereo had broken. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Then I smiled as I realized what happened.

I get chills just thinking of that little moment.

 

There is no more powerful statement song that Paul could have written that could have topped the final lyric on the final album. "And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make". Arguably Paul's finest moment.

 

He hadn't written "Bip Bop" yet. If he had, then it would be a different story ...

 

I like that song myself. Ringo is no Lennon/McCartney, but he had a nice little song that is fun.

 

Actually, in the Let It Be movie, you can see George helping Ringo out with some ideas. I doubt John had much to do with the song.

 

Fixed.

LOL
What song would you remove from Side Two if "All Things Must Pass" followed "The End".
"Sun King"?

 

I think it would have been cool if George had a song in the medley. You almost wonder why he didn't when he had so many songs (and probably fragments) written.

 

George introduced several ATMP songs to the band during Get Back sessions. They were all pretty much ignored, or at least approached with indifference.

Something, HCTS and Old Brown Shoe were all part of Abbey Road sessions. Paul and Ringo contribute with energy and creativity. George reciprocates. Due to either his on going heroin addiction, or his car accident (or both), JL is not a driving force on Abbey Road. A good portion of the album is Threetle backing tracks, with wonderful GH/PM backing vox and great guitar playing from George, arguably his best since Revolver.

He maybe only had 2 songs, but his presence is very strongly felt on Abbey Road.

 

John plays great guitar on it.

 

I thought George had his mind set on... you.

Yeah... now I feel shame.

 

And then she'll go and sit on the amp for good measure!

 

The Abbey Road sessions technically begin in February 1969, a month after the Rooftop concert. If they seriously were considering making a final album, wouldn't the best play be to take the best songs from the Get Back project, maybe write some new ones, and forget about cobbling any loose ends together. Then, the final album is a film and album project.

That would have been the path of least resistance.

Instead, they went headlong into the next project after the last one was done. Pretty much as they always had.
And at the end of Abbey Road, they are already in a meeting talking about the next project, when John makes the declaration.

It's a nice story that the boys purposely got together one last time to make the finale great, to take a final bow. But sadly, I think that's a bit of myth making. It got ugly and messy at the end (as we all know), and it played out the way it did.

We ended up with an Album For the Ages, no matter what the original intention for it was.

 

Yes it's great. And its interesting that most people probably think Long and Winding Road was the final song.
I'd guess the fact that it was the last single, and the last song on the compilations lends that impression.

Also, years later, Paul concluded Memory Almost Full with "The End of the End," (Nod Your Head notwithstanding), and he went on to release, at least, two more albums, and hopefully soon a third.

In other words, the songs just come out. I dont think, despite the title, "The End" was meant to end the band. Just the album itself.

 

The Get Back sessions were so trying I have the feeling that the band really didn't want to revisit them as demonstrated by their lack of involvement until they actively brought (John and George) Spector in.

They had money tied in in the project so I doubt they would just abandon a soundtrack and re-record songs. As to the band knowing it was the end, three members had quit at various times between 1968 and 1969 so, yeah, I think they knew it was going to possibly be the last one.

It really doesn't matter though as Get Back was a separate project that they were working towards completing so I can't see the songs there ending up on Abbey Road.

Whether or not "The End" is meant to conclude the album and their career or only the album....only one person truly knows the answer to that now.

 

And I'm not telling!!

 

Hey, I'm the guy who told you!

I remember starting my "Beatles Myths Debunked" discussion on the premise of "Did Paul really call George Martin and ask him to produce an album for them like in the old days?" thinking that it made for a good story but probably not the way things really went down, so I think we might be on the same wavelength here. Even more than making their grand finale, I think The Beatles' main intention with Abbey Road was a cleansing of the palate, as it were, after the whole Twickenham/Apple ordeal that was the Get Back project (though if memory serves didn't they record "I Want You" at Apple?)

That is true

 

Or "All Things Must Pass... That's Why I Need Those Digestive Biscuits, Yoko!"

 

Is that John doing the fingerpicking guitar throughout?

 

I'm surprised he didn't keep them for his solo album.....