Tuesday 23 November 2010

Abbey Road Demos


Hey guys, today we're looking at a recording called Abbey Road Nw 8 #3, which must referee to the location of the Abbey Road studios.

This record consists of, I assume, demos and outtakes from the sessions prior to the Abbey Road album, so we must be somewhere in the first half of 1969, even though some of the pieces in the medleys are from the let it be/get back session and even from  the time around The White album (1968)

I will mainly discuss a bit about the two medleys, which are found on this track.

Medley #1 consists of these following songs: You Never Give Me Your Money, Sun King, Mean Mr. Mustard, Her Majesty, Polythene Pam and She Came In Through The Bathroom Window

Medley #2 consists of Golden slumbers, Carry that weight, The End (without vocals)

These two medleys are what makes up for the epic b side of the Abbey Road album. I've always kinda seen it as two medleys because while You Never Give Me Your Money, Sun King, Mean Mr. Mustard, Polythene Pam and She Came In Through The Bathroom Window smoothly falls into one another, there's always been kind of a break between She Came In... and Golden Slumbers till The End, dividing the medley in two parts (like these tracks).

In this cut we see Her Majesty in the middle of the first medley, which is interesting, because on the final cut we have Her Majesty a couple of seconds after The End finishes, let me explain why.
The Beatles were a little concerned about Her Majesty, where to stick it, when we listen to it here, it kinda slows down the whole medley and cuts it into another little medley starting with You Never Give... til Her Majesty [medley 1, in my book], Polythene Pam till She Came In... [medley 2] and finally Golden Slumbers till The End [medley 3].
The Beatles must have thought something similar, because they removed Her Majesty. This is how I remember reading somewhere:  there were some studio engineer who added it on some demo of the complete album, it was added twenty seconds after the ending of the complete album, and when they heard it, they really liked it and kept it that way, which is why Her Majesty is placed where it is today.

                                                 This is apparently suppose to be the cover...

Another version of Her Majesty is found, this one sound much alike the one on the final cut (except it holds "the missing chord"), followed by Golden Slumbers (in same cut), perhaps they were trying to fit it there, who knows?

Two tracks with some rather funny/silly lyrics are found, Heather and How Do You Do, we have an isolated version of Carry That Weight, it's pretty funny to listen to, because you are kinda used to hearing that start chord of The End right after it.

Blackbird is found as well, followed by a fun little chat where McCartney is joking about Diana Ross taking offense when he played it for her (protip: Bird can mean girl, in the UK)

I can highly recommend downloading this piece, there are numerous interesting  tracks ,so yeah, thanks for reading and enjoy this.

Download link: http://www.mediafire.com/?z3tz74o70sfsror

9 comments: