Abbey Road is the eleventh album by English rock band the Beatles, released on 26 September 1969 by Apple Records. The recording sessions for the album were the last in which all four Beatles participated. Although Let It Be was the final album that the Beatles completed before the band's dissolution in April 1970, most of the album had been recorded before the Abbey Road sessions began. A double A-side single from the album, "Something"/"Come

Side two contains a 16-minute medley of eight short songs, recorded over July and August and blended into a suite by McCartney and Martin. Some songs were written (and originally recorded in demo form) during sessions for the White Album and Get Back / Let It Be, which later appeared on Anthology 3. While the idea for the medley was McCartney's, Martin claims credit for some structure, adding he "wanted to get John and Paul to think more seriously about their music".  The first track recorded for the medley was the opening number, "You Never Give Me Your Money". McCartney has claimed that the band's dispute over Allen Klein and what McCartney viewed as Klein's empty promises were the inspiration for the song's lyrics. However, MacDonald doubts this given that the backing track, recorded on 6 May at Olympic Studios, predated the worst altercations between Klein and McCartney. The track is a suite of varying styles, ranging from a piano-led ballad at the start to arpeggiated guitars at the end. Both Harrison and Lennon provided guitar solos with Lennon playing the solos at the end of the track, which Beatles author Walter Everett considers his favourite Lennon guitar contribution.  This song transitions into Lennon's "Sun King" which, like "Because", showcases Lennon, McCartney and Harrison's triple-tracked harmonies. Following it are Lennon's "Mean Mr. Mustard" (written during the Beatles' 1968 trip to India) and "Polythene Pam". These in turn are followed by four McCartney songs, "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window" (written after a fan entered McCartney's residence via his bathroom window), "Golden Slumbers" (based on Thomas Dekker's 17th-century poem set to new music), "Carry That Weight" (reprising elements from "You Never Give Me Your Money", and featuring chorus vocals from all four Beatles), and closing with "The End".  "The End" features Starr's only drum solo in the Beatles' catalogue (the drums are mixed across two tracks in "true stereo", unlike most releases at that time where they were hard panned left or right). Fifty-four seconds into the song are 18 bars of lead guitar: the first two bars are played by McCartney, the second two by Harrison, and the third two by Lennon, with the sequence repeating. Harrison suggested the idea of a guitar solo in the track, Lennon decided they should trade solos and McCartney elected to go first. The solos were cut live against the existing backing track in one take. Immediately after Lennon's third and final 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". This section was taped separately to the first, and required the piano to be re-recorded by McCartney, which was done on 18 August. An alternative version of the song, with Harrison's lead guitar solo played against McCartney's (with Starr's drum solo heard in the background), appears on the Anthology 3 album and the 2012 digital-only compilation album Tomorrow Never Knows.  "Her Majesty" was recorded by McCartney on 2 July when he arrived before the rest of the group at Abbey Road. It 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 asked for it to be cut. The second engineer, John Kurlander, had been instructed not to throw out anything, so after McCartney left, he attached the track to the end of the master tape after 20 seconds of silence. The tape box bore an instruction to leave "Her Majesty" off the final product, but the next day when mastering engineer Malcolm Davies 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.  "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 on 30 July. 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.  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. The song title appears on the inlay card and disc of the 1987 remastered CD reissue, as track 17. It also appears on the sleeve, booklet and disc of the 2009 remastered CD reissue, but not on the cover or record label of the 2012 vinyl reissue.  Abbey Road was recorded on professional eight-track reel to reel tape machines rather than the four-track machines that were used for earlier Beatles albums such as Sgt Pepper, and was the first Beatles album not to be issued in mono. The album makes prominent use of the Moog synthesizer, and the guitar played through a Leslie speaker. The Moog is not merely as a background effect but sometimes playing a central role, as in "Because" where it is used for the middle eight. It is also prominent on "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" (played using a ribbon strip) and "Here Comes the Sun". The instrument was introduced to the band by Harrison who acquired one in November 1968 and subsequently used it to create his Electronic Sound album. Starr made more prominent use of the tom-toms on Abbey Road, later saying the album was "tom-tom madness ... I went nuts on the toms."  Abbey Road was also the first and only Beatles album to be entirely recorded through a solid state transistor mixing desk, the TG12345 Mk I, as opposed to earlier thermionic valve based REDD desks. The TG console also allowed better support for eight-track multitrack recording, helping the Beatles' considerable use of overdubbing. Emerick recalls the TG desk used to record the album had individual limiters and compressors on each audio channel and noted the overall sound was "softer" than the earlier valve desks.  One of the assistant engineers working on the album was a 19-year-old Alan Parsons. He went on to engineer Pink Floyd's landmark album The Dark Side of the Moon and produce many popular albums himself with the Alan Parsons Project. Kurlander also assisted on many of the sessions, and went on to become a successful engineer and producer, most noteworthy for his success on the scores for The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.

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