Abbey Road B-Side Medley: An Interpretation

I first heard the Abbey Road B-Side Medley about 35 years ago and have heard it many times since. Over the past several years I’ve developed an interpretation of it that has made me love it about 5x more than I did before, which was already a lot. In honor of Paul’s excellent performance of a portion of it on SNL this past week, it seemed liked a good time to share it.

I don’t know how much of this was common knowledge already. I know some of it was, and maybe most of it was. This is just what my brain did with all of the information available to it.

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In spite of what everyone says, including the Beatles themselves, the Abbey Road B-Side Medley clearly begins at "Because" and not "You Never Give Me Your Money". “Because” is the overture. The stage is dark, and there are no people on it. Maybe the curtain is closed, or maybe it’s open and there’s just a faint dark blue light over the stage. The key though is that the Abbey Road side-B medley is Paul’s work, but John gets the first word. The overture is John’s. The medley is about Paul’s lament at the imminent demise of the Beatles and his elegiac celebration of everything they were. But he seems to be the only one who cares. He's the one who cared the most throughout, the one that felt most like a Beatle. But John’s overture is the Greek chorus singing c’est la vie, what will be will be. It’s bigger than the Beatles, bigger than life. It’s a song of Zen koans.

Also: it was John's band, at the start. And he's the big brother, two years older. In a way, it was he that gave all of this to Paul, even if he didn't retain control of it for long. So it's right that he's the one to introduce us to Paul's funereal medley, as the Godlike figure above it all letting us know his attitude toward it. It was a lovely thing, but not that big of a deal, in the grand scheme of things.

Then Paul starts. “You Never Give Me Your Money” isn’t actually a single song. It’s 3 songs, the 2nd-4th of the medley. It starts with the title song, which we all know is Paul complaining about their management not paying them properly. But is it though? Is that all it’s about? Or is it a coded lament for his abandonment—already emotional, soon to be legal and physical—by the rest of the Beatles? Obviously. You guys don't give me the real thing anymore, just humor me. (This is what it feels like—this isn't completely true, but Paul is feeling sorry for himself and exaggerating things. He's sitting forlornly alone on stage at the piano, singing this to himself.) “Break down” hints at what his tender childish heart is really doing, among all the legal wrangling.

Next is the song I’ll call “Oh That Magic Feeling”. The stage lights up and suddenly it’s daytime and there’s a whole production. Paul is recounting the early days of the Beatles, before they got famous, when they were nothing, life was uncertain, and they had to hustle. That magic feeling is those few moments each day when they can get together on stage or in practice and forget about the grind and the naysayers. They loved each other and everything was possible. The ideas and invention were endless.

“One Sweet Dream” is their Beatlemania days. They’ve made it. Life just got wild and great. And the reality turns out to be 100x better than even their greatest dreams. It’s unreal and unprecedented. Even they didn’t know they were this good.

It ends with a joyous nursery rhyme recalling their collective giddy feeling as they are thrust into this new world and receive their just rewards ("all good children go to heaven"). It also reflects the playful and clean quality the Beatles maintained in their music throughout their short time together. Also calls back and forward to the darker lullaby laments that this medley starts and ends with. There is a character to it that is slightly unsettling (foreboding?), put across in the vocal harmonies especially.

Then Lennon comes back. "Sun King" brings us to their early middle period, Rubber Soul and beyond. A haze of weed smoke, Indian and mystical influences creeping in, some of it more folk than rock n' roll, sitting mellow on a pillow on the floor in a darkened room. There's definitely a hookah in the middle. Norwegian Wood, etc.

But John can’t handle this seriousness for long. “Mean Mr. Mustard” and “Polythene Pam”. Their goofy cartoonish psychedelic middle period. Reflecting "Yellow Submarine" (the song) up to Magical Mystery Tour, but especially Sgt. Pepper's. John had all the best psychedelic songs.

Paul shoves back to the front and breaks the tension of John’s sarcastic, meaningless larks with “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window”. This is Paul’s medley after all. Paul's the only one who wants to keep the band together. "Bathroom Window" is still goofy and nonsensical, but bluesier, like the White Album and the Get Back sessions. More importantly, it references the dark sides of fame creeping in. Girls breaking into their homes through the window and whatnot. One might think, that’s not so bad. It's just an enthusiastic young girl who likes you quite a lot. Isn't that part of why we got into this? But who could be coming through that window next? (How’s George doing? Is he all right?)

Then Golden Slumbers. Paul is back onstage in a solo spotlight. Once they could have gotten back home, but he knows it’s all over now. He tells himself to sleep it off and wake to a brighter day, humming a lullaby to himself recalling the optimism and open sky of youth.

But that wish for golden slumbers comes with a good bit of bitterness and irony in his voice. Humming it has no effect, so he starts screaming it desperately to try to make himself believe it. Then, on the second attempt he realizes with a start that the real lullaby his heart is singing is: BOY, YOU’RE GONNA CARRY THAT WEIGHT, CARRY THAT WEIGHT, A LONG TIME. (This is the part that gives me chills, every time I hear it.) This all ends, but then again, IT DOESN’T. He’s (they’re) going to carry the weight of the Beatles the rest of their lives, and carry the weight of their dissolution. He'll be talking about this more than anything else the rest of his life, and everything he does will be weighed against this, by himself and others. It's unescapable. He wants to move forward, to put this chapter behind him, but it will always be there, in his pocket. He has to (they have to) carry it, but can never go back to it.

In between the two choruses he calls back to the lament he started with, you never give me your money, but this time admits the part his own emotional autism is playing in it—I never give you my pillow (I never make you feel welcome) I only give you my invitation (please come play with me again), and admits that recently he has been essentially crying alone in his closet even during their best moments (“in the middle of the celebrations, I break down”).

And then, once again: BOY, YOU’RE GONNA CARRY THAT WEIGHT, CARRY THAT WEIGHT, A LONG TIME.

But come on boys, stiff upper lip, have a pint and all that. We had a good run. Are you gonna be in my dreams tonight? Maybe? Doesn’t matter. Let’s assume I was singing about a girl and dance. Take it Ringo:

Ringo gives a drum solo. Ringo doesn’t like doing drum solos, and for good reason: he’s not a flashy drummer. He is a *fine* drummer ("fine" meaning reliable and joyous with a good groove and solid time, not meaning merely OK), just not flashy. Pulling this out of him was like pulling teeth. But he begrudgingly agrees to take this one solo bow for the sake of his boys, but only for the curtain of the final night. He does a fine job of it.

And then comes a groove to dance to so good the Beastie Boys sampled it. Following on Ringo’s solo spotlight on the drums, the other three swap licks on guitar, three rounds of Paul, George, and John, each contributing their own version of rock n roll attitude, all recorded in a single take facing each other in the studio, the last time they would be together like that. It started as John’s band, and fittingly, John ends with the most insolent and punk rock take, just thrashing away at a single distorted note (Mother! Beatles! God! Yoko!) until suddenly everything stops.

We’ve come to their acceptance, of each other and the situation. In the end, love is all you need, and you get what you give.

A proper ending. It’s where it was supposed to end. But are we perhaps taking ourselves a bit too seriously still? Honoring the role that chance has played in their near-perfect artistic output, and their willingness to embrace chance when it came up, an engineer tacks this goofy little ditty Paul wrote and discarded about having a crush on the Queen onto the end…. Not wanting to appear too self-important, they all agree it belongs there. It doesn't start or end properly, but that's part of the appeal. And thus ends the greatest band that ever existed, or ever could exist.