The 5 Best Songs From The Beatles’ ‘Abbey Road’
The Beatles‘ Abbey Road is one of the band’s most acclaimed offerings. The album gave us massive hits in addition to sadly overlooked songs. Notably, John Lennon wished he had performed the vocals on one of the greatest tracks from The Beatles’ Abbey Road.
5. ‘Because’
In 1968, Wendy Carlos released the album Switched-On Bach, which featured selections of classical music played on a synthesizer. The Beatles accomplished something very similar in 1969 with “Because.” According to a 1980 interview from the book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, John said the synthesizer-laden tune was inspired by Ludwig van Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata.
Both Moonlight Sonata and “Because” have similarly haunting atmospheres. While listeners can project anything onto Beethoven’s instrumental, “Because” is a hippie meditation on the beauty of the universe. Nothing is as glorious as nature, but the harmonies here come close.
4. ‘Come Together’
“Come Together” is probably the most overexposed song from The Beatles’ Abbey Road. It inspired T-shirts, commercials, and a hit cover by Aerosmith. Despite that, it still works because of its tremendous groove. John wrote many songs whose lyrics are jumbled bits of disconnected imagery, such as “All You Need Is Love,” “I Am the Walrus,” and “Give Peace a Chance,” but “Come Together” works the best.
3. ‘Oh! Darling’
No matter how much they expanded their sound, The Beatles were always in love with the 1950s rock ‘n’ roll that got them interested in music in the first place. “Oh! Darling” is one of the most overlooked songs from The Beatles’ Abbey Road, but it is a prime example of that fascination. Paul McCartney channels some of Little Richard’s vocal inflections in the track to great effect.
In All We Are Saying, John said he wished he performed the vocals on “Oh! Darling.” That might have worked, but Paul brought the right kind of screaming desperation to the track.
2. ‘Something’
“Something” was the other massive hit from The Beatles’ Abbey Road. The Beatles released many love songs in many genres and “Something” might be the best of the bunch. The mix of soft-rock, blues, and funk elements sounds like nothing else they released.
George Harrison didn’t have the vocal range of Paul, but on “Something” he sells the track with his sincerity. The track makes love sound like spiritual transcendence the same way “My Sweet Lord” makes spiritual transcendence sound like love. Like its title, “Something” is an example of simplicity done well.
1. ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’
The Beatles wrote songs about submarines, octopuses, serial killers, revolutions, and circuses, but they always returned to the topic of love. “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” is about the stage of love where the desire for someone is overwhelming and scary and The Beatles made a backbeat worthy of that kind of emotion.
“I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” sounds beautiful, heavy, and awe-inspiring at the same time. By the time The Beatles wrote this, the chipper teen love of “I Want to Hold Your Hand” was gone and they had musically entered the world of adult romance.
