Worst Beatles song on Abbey Road

Maxwell to walk this?

Come Together

maxwell or i want you.

"I Want You"

Oh! Darling. Hate it hate it.

any one of the first 5

CT and OG are great, eejit.

The medley is great, but the rest of the album I'm not overly fond of.

What do people count as the medley? You Never Give Me Your Money onwards?

I include Because, not sure why though.

yeah

xpost

i never get the 'come together' hate. but the rest of side one is bollocks.

Gotta be "Maxwell..."

Voting for "Come Together" and knowing nobody else will do. But it's still the worst song here. Not to fond of "I Want You (She's So Heavy)", "Mean Mr. Mustard" or "Polythene Pam" either, but "Come Together" remains the worst.
"Because" is fantastically beautiful though, so John's contributions weren't all bad here.

Otherwise, I guess "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" will walk this poll, and I would say it's a kind of interesting song.

Sure, it's not my favourite track here, and as a song itself, it is a bit too simple. But it does have those synth bits that are maybe the best synth on the entire album. And also, there is something intriguing with the lyrics: Here you have this happy-go-lucky twee nursery-rhyme-like melody, and the lyrics seem quite twee at first glance too. But then, hey, wait! It is actually about a mass murderer! That is kinda cool to me.

Mind blowing.

Fucking psychopath.

Am I the only one who really really doesn't have any problem with "Maxwell" or what? Why do people hate it so much?

Also I've decided "I Want You" is one of my favourite Beatles tracks - it's so terrifically epic and towering and jazzy and heavy and crunchy and it just overwhelms. Sabbath, two years before the fact basically.

"Octopus's Garden" distracts me more than "Maxwell," because I've been to the House on the Rock.

I think I've decided Abbey Road's possibly my favourite Beatles albums right now, and the only one of which I've gone out and bought the remaster so far. It's compact and it's got everything you need from the Beatles. It also has some of their most beautiful moments, as well as their most harrowing.

The only things I don't like are Mean Mr Mustard and Polythene Pam. The latter I'm going to allow because of the comedy scouse accent, but Mean Mr Mustard annoys me - I don't see how a tramp with no money could be counted as "mean", as the traditional meaning of the word assumes that you are Scrooge-like, which would be impossible if you don't have any money or clothes. Those two tracks sound really unfinished and knocked off and they ruin the loveliness of Because onwards.

polythene pam rulez

Cards on the table time; Abbey Road doesn't really do it for me.

I don't see how a tramp with no money could be counted as "mean", as the traditional meaning of the word assumes that you are Scrooge-like

It's about a man who has lots of money because doesn't spend any of it.

But he's "saving up to buy some clothes"

you are dead maxwell

mind you he does keep a ten-bob note up his nose (so is it a sleight at a certain someone's cocaine habit?)

Polythene Pam is fantastic if it's about a tranny. Either way, Ringo's go-go drums create a beautiful effect here.

the traditional meaning of the word assumes that you are Scrooge-like

mean
2  /min/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [meen] Show IPA
–adjective, -er, -est.
1. offensive, selfish, or unaccommodating; nasty; malicious: a mean remark; He gets mean when he doesn't get his way.

Yeah, but considering that most of the song is about the man not wanting to spend money (or giving the appearance of not wanting to spend money), I think that dog latin is probably using the right connotation. Or, it's a double meaning.

I mean, my strongest suspicion is that it's just doggerel and shouldn't be looked into too deeply.

The backing vocals on Polythene Pam are terrific.

This is my favourite Beatles album. Everything apart from Maxwell's and Octopus's is sublime and enormously poignant.

Octopus's is ridiculously poignant. It is the saddest song ever.

I usually skip 'Maxwell' and 'Oh Darling' because they're boring, but 'Here Comes The Sun'. It absolutely infuriates me for some reason, so I'm voting for it. It's not even just the stupid complexity of the breakdown, I'm grinding my teeth long before that.

. It

It's compact and it's got everything you need from the Beatles.

It doesn't really sound like The Beatles though. Sure, it's a great pop album in its own right, and there is now way that I'd speak unfavourably of "Abbey Road" as a whole. It stands among my fave Beatles albums too, but for The Beatles, as in their typical trademark sound, you'll probably have to go back to 1966 or earlier. 1967 had some of it in it too, only it was another Beatles (the psychedelic Beatles), but from 1968 onwards they were so eclectic and fragmenting they didn't really have that typical Beatles sound anymore. They may have tried to go "back to the roots" in some of those songs, but mostly it was their Hamburg roots rather than the Merseybeat roots. The last Beatles song that really sounded like The Beatles was "All You Need Is Love".

"their Hamburg roots rather than the Merseybeat roots"

what the hell does this mean? they went back and forth between the two. they got good in hamburg but they hardly picked up on new roots.

Didn't George always have a twenty quid note in his shoe/sandal?

what the hell does this mean?

Plain 50s rock'n'roll minus the melody/harmony element that George Martin helped add from "Please Please Me" onwards.

Geir, you make The Beatles sound crap.

Maxwell cos show off-y Paul has always irritated me.

"the end" -- ponderous po-faced pretense.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Most wtf moment of all these threads.

THE DRUMS! THE GUITARS! THE BEASTIE BOYS!

"the end" -- ponderous po-faced pretense.

Yes... but it still works.

I can't see anything po-faced in The End at all.

Not voting in this one. There are no bad songs on this album. I can't even rate one subjectively "not as good."

I pissed everyone off on the remasters thread just by mentioning I don't like this album so I won't repeat.

My vote- Something. Something in a way I vomit everywhere, more like.

Also, the end of The End is spectacular! Ballsy rock-out to stripped down, quirky piano and voices (and those little cheeky guitar licks!) to big ballad finish out of nowhere, all in the space of thirty seconds. And it all works perfectly.

xposts

Well yeah, obviously, since Klaatu was the Beatles.

Obviously!

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/b6/59/75/b659755676fc19515270d55baaf819c0.jpg

This LP sounds far more warmer and fuller to me than the white album, without a doubt.

fwiw i don't think the white album sounds very warm or full at all, it's very abrasive and raw sounding. i just like the hodgepodge nature of it and the expansiveness over the concision of abbey road.

yeah yeah its supposed indie virtue ("check it out, the beatles are 'fucked up'")

"they just don't give a fuck"

but as someone whose favorite FM album is tusk, i feel ya

although take out lindsey's amphetamine workouts and tusk really isn't all that weird, imo

it's not that. i hate pavement. i think the raw & abrasive qualities of the white album are very purposeful. it's part of the wildly paranoid and unhinged atmosphere and drive of that record.

anyway. ill stay out of here. we all love the beatles :)

xp otm about tusk's weirdness - also it's not just Lindsey's songs that make it weird, it's the stark contrast between his songs and Stevie's and Christine's that makes it so bewildering.

was it really purposeful, though? how much did george martin and geoff emerick's absence contribute?

it's sloppy and disjointed because they didn't want to work together anymore!

that too!

well certainly the sequencing is pretty abrasive, and like tusk, the record is weirder for its contrasts - Mother Nature's Son next to Me and My Monkey, Good Night after Revolution 9... the songs with 'raw' production are mostly Lennon's, with the exception of Helter Skelter, which was a very purposeful attempt to make a more raucous record than The Who. But like Glass Onion for example, that's a very rough around the edges song that is greatly benefited from the orchestra loops that Martin added. Even Happiness is a Warm Gun, recorded live, sounds loose and raw, and that was the one moment during the entire recording of the white album where the band was getting along.

Also, lyrically, the songs are much darker and scattershot than on Abbey Road.

Lennon's lyrics were all pretty scattershot from '67-'71 or so. He probably didn't feel this way but musically I think his stuff really benefited from restraints applied by the others (whether it was Paul or George Martin or whoever) and more considered arrangements. I know he loved to rock out and keep it real and all that rockist shit but Dear Prudence and Mean Mr. Mustard are a good deal improved by the other's contributions imo.

Musically, solo Lennon never approached his Beatles work. Nothing even remotely like Strawberry Fields or Walrus there.

this is a discussion for a different thread but generally I agree. The strange rhythmic turnarounds and relatively ambitious structures that regularly appear in his Beatles work p much completely disappeared from his songwriting after 1970. I think I've commented on this before somewhere around here.

I think Plastic Ono Band and half of Imagine are up there w his best Beatles work, but yeah after that it's a steep decline.

Agreed completely re: Lennon's rockist tendencies. That's why most of his solo records are so abysmal. so many Chuck Berry rewrites.

and again, Glass Onion is a great example. There's a no-strings version on Anthology I think, and it sucks. Tuneless w/ no personality - but those perfectly placed orchestra loops completely elevate it.

this is a discussion for a different thread but generally I agree. The strange rhythmic turnarounds and relatively ambitious structures that regularly appear in his Beatles work p much completely disappeared from his songwriting after 1970. I think I've commented on this before somewhere around here.

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, October 12, 2016 4:29 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

fortunately these appear on Yoko's albums

Shakey OTM re: Lennon's stuff benefitting from restraints from others and others helping to get the best out of his material. Once Lennon was out of The Beatles, his gift for melody didn't disappear, it's more that he developed a solo style and... didn't really move very far from it.

fortunately these appear on Yoko's albums

totally!

There's one or two tracks on, say, Mind Games which would have been great in the hands of The Beatles and George Martin, but as they are they come across as "solo Lennon by numbers"

compare w/McCartney, who never really stopped trying to push himself musically (or at least never shied away from the kind of ambition he showed in the Beatles)... but missed out on the Beatles' quality control process. This is why people continue to make "lost Beatle album" compilations from the 70s songs -- it just seems like they could have gone on making good stuff if they'd been able to hang on, professionally.

def a "greater than the sum of their parts" scenario

weirdly Lennon's the only one who made two albums I consider great all the way through - POB + Imagine. (The rest get one apiece - Ringo, ATMP, Ram)

and then of course there's the Yoko albums and Pussycats... maybe I'm talking myself into a more positive appraisal of Lennon's solo stuff than I wanted to admit

McCartney's weak spot was always his lyrics and occasionally failing to recognise when he'd written a dud. His gifts for coming up with catchy melodies and ensuring his songs are arranged and recorded well have never left him, really.

Band On The Run!

has a bunch of crap on it!

His gifts for coming up with catchy melodies and ensuring his songs are arranged and recorded well have never left him, really.

no argument here though, he def eclipsed the others in this dept.

Yes, I've just bought that for someone, so I've been listening to it a lot. So many of the songs are so flimsy and overlong. (xp)

despite that I am generally a bigger McCartney fan than a Lennon one, I don't rep for any of his solo records as being great all the way through. JL/POB is the single best Beatles solo IMO, and both Imagine and All Things are really good -- about as good as the best McCartney record in fact -- but not as classic as, say, the 3rd or 4th best Beatles record.

McCartney II tho

sad that Gone Troppo is always overlooked when people discuss the best solo Beatles album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLSKNzT0Ve8

I like Mac II! Definitely filler on there tho (if "Secret Friend" was on the original running order in place of 10 minutes of lesser stuff, I'd certainly put it in the discussion for best Beatles solo LP)

John has a way more interesting solo career, including his collaborations with Yoko, the Plastic Ono Band stuff, and Yoko's solo albums that he worked on as well. many of the early Yoko Ono albums have songs with more Beatles playing on them then are on actual Beatles songs. very cool experimental stuff giving maybe an alternate history of the Beatles if they kept going into pre-punk. John's solo work is patchy but i really enjoy things on just about all of his records ("Mind Games" being a hidden gem imo) right up to his death.

Paul seems to do best when he is just doing DIY albums at home experimenting w multitracking. makes sense as this is how some White Album tracks were done!

in the aftermath of the Napster/pre-iTunes era (1999-2004) I had many friends burning CD-Rs of Macca comps. I got one I treasure because of the formidable consistency of those A-sides, album tracks, and B-sides sitting beside each other.

there's some really great stuff on Ringo's 70s + 80s solo albums

mind games is excellent except for a couple really shitty songs (tight ass and meat city come to mind).

we've definitely done many versions of this. and i guess "they sure needed each other as checks and balances" is basically part of canonical beatles lore at this point. which certainly beats "if only yoko hadn't ruined everything" as far as the sophistication of narratives carried around by the general listening public. but imo the biggest problem with almost all the beatles solo records is, following an initial or nearly-initial burst of "i'm free!" creative greatness, they get lazy. maybe in a totally typical and understandable way: you've been one of the kings of the world for 5-6 years. time to just chill out and do whatever you feel like. hey, it's the Me Decade after all. this plays out in different ways and maybe overlaps a lot with them getting so far up their own success that they can't really be constrained or challenged by any of their collaborators.

macca gets the best results out of this - if you're in the mood for what he does - because he's just more restless musically and wants to try each new toy that comes within earshot. he also generally retains a gift for melody that is able to carry him through all but the dudliest of dudly pointless lyrical conceits and tangents. nothing close to the masterpiece-after-masterpiece production of the beatles, but highly listenable and for a fan (like me and several others here) very very enjoyable. but he also is very clearly surrounding himself with people who don't challenge him, esp. denny laine for a decade's worth of "sure boss, sounds good!" his best records - save early flourish ram - are produced out of weird circumstances, constraints, or collaborators: martin for tug of war, costello for flowers in the dirt, travel woes and tight timelines for band on the run, starting from scratch on the two mccartneys, etc.

with john it's more what y'all have been describing - the songwriting rapidly gets just kinda boring, you don't feel like he's really laboring over these things; indeed you feel like he wears it as a point of pride that he's not. unfortunately the muse strikes infrequently. i honestly think that POB aside you really are okay with the greatest hits for his solo career. it's a great greatest hits! there just aren't that many killer album tracks in that discography. i've listened and tried to find them. the exception of course is pussy cats. whatever its flaws that's not a boring record.

iirc, Denny Laine was kicked out of Wings for standing up to Paul.

McCartney II is, at this stage, the most overrated McCartney solo record. Back To The Egg, though - underrated as fuck, and I quite enjoy the fact that I'm one of a handful of people that consider it one of his finest records.

So, Abbey Road guys

What about it?

It contained within it the seeds of "Spies Like Us."

back to the egg and mccartney 2 are my favorites (well, along with ram and band on the run and chaos and creation)

sad that Gone Troppo is always overlooked when people discuss the best solo Beatles album

― soref, Wednesday, October 12, 2016 2:16 PM (two hours ago)

soref, where were you in 2006? You have officially joined the club that I think previously only comprised myself and Geir.

I was gonna say!

The time is now.