The End (The Beatles song)
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| "The End" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Song by The Beatles
from the album Abbey Road |
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| Released | September 26, 1969 | |||
| Recorded | 23 July–18 August 1969 | |||
| Genre | Hard Rock, Art Rock | |||
| Length | 2:20 | |||
| Label | Apple | |||
| Writer | Lennon/McCartney | |||
| Producer | George Martin | |||
| Abbey Road track listing | ||||
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"The End" is a song by The Beatles composed by Paul McCartney (credited to Lennon/McCartney) for the album Abbey Road. It was the last song recorded collectively by all four of The Beatles,[1] and is the final song of the medley that dominates side two of the LP version of the album.
Contents |
[edit] Composition and recording
McCartney said, "I wanted [the medley] to end with a little meaningful couplet, so I followed the Bard [Shakespeare] and wrote a couplet."[2] In his 1980 interview with Playboy, John Lennon acknowledged McCartney's authorship by saying, "That's Paul again ... He had a line in it, 'And in the end, the love you get is equal to the love you give,' which is a very cosmic, philosophical line. Which again proves that if he wants to, he can think."[3] Lennon misquoted the line slightly; the actual words are, "And, in the end, the love you take/ Is equal to the love you make."[4]
Recording began on 23 July 1969, when The Beatles recorded a one-minute, 20-second master take that was extended via overdubs to two minutes and five seconds. At this point, the song was called "Ending."[5] The first vocals for the song were added on 5 August, additional vocals and guitar overdubs were added on 7 August, and bass and drums on 8 August, the day the Abbey Road cover picture was taken.[6] Orchestral overdubs were added 15 August, and the closing piano and accompanying vocal on 18 August.[7]
All four Beatles have a solo in "The End", including Ringo Starr's only drum solo for The Beatles.[8] Starr disliked solos; he preferred to cater drumwork to whoever sang in a particular performance.[9] The take in which he performed the solo originally had guitar and tambourine accompaniment,[5] but other instruments were muted during mixing giving the effect of a drum solo. The additional instruments were restored for a remix on the Anthology 3 compilation album.[10] The drum solo was also later used at the beginning of "Get Back" on the 2006 album Love.
McCartney, Harrison, and Lennon perform a rotating sequence of three, two-bar guitar solos.[1][8] The solos begin approximately 53 seconds into the song and end just before the final piano part. Lennon described it in his 1970 interview with Rolling Stone: "There's a nice little bit I played on Abbey Road. Paul gave us each a piece, a little break where Paul plays, George plays and I play."[11]
"The End" was initially intended to be the final track on Abbey Road, but it is followed by "Her Majesty". In the first practice mix of the medley, constructed on 30 July, "Her Majesty" followed "Mean Mr. Mustard" (on the released version of the album, "Her Majesty" begins with the excised final chord of "Mean Mr. Mustard"). According to sound engineer John Kurlander, McCartney said, "I don't like 'Her Majesty,' throw it away." Kurlander cut it out, but said, "I'd been told never to throw anything away, so after he left I picked it up off the floor, put about 20 seconds of red leader tape before it, and stuck it onto the end of the edit tape." When McCartney heard "Her Majesty" in its new position he liked it and decided that it should remain on the album.[12]
[edit] Reception
Richie Unterberger of Allmusic considered "The End" to be "the group's take on the improvised jamming common to heavy rock of the late '60s, though as usual the Beatles did it with far more economic precision than anyone else."[13] John Mendelsohn of Rolling Stone said it was "a perfect epitaph for our visit to the world of Beatle daydreams: "The love you take is equal to the love you make."[14].
[edit] In popular culture
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Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles. (April 2009) |
- Ringo's drum solo is re-created by Rick Moranis (playing Ringo) in an episode of SCTV.[citation needed]
- The Beastie Boys sampled a portion of "The End" for their track "The Sounds of Science" from "Paul's Boutique."[citation needed]
- In the end of the movie "Happy Feet" the quote "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make" is said.[citation needed] It was also covered by k.d. lang in a mashup with Golden Slumbers in the movie. The recording is featured on the album "Happy Feet: Music from the Motion Picture".
- During the 1990s, Milwaukee Brewers radio broadcasts began with the signature guitar riff from "The End".[citation needed]
- Les Fradkin recorded an instrumental cover version of the song for his 2005 release While My Guitar Only Plays. He recreated all the guitar solos playing identical guitars to the models The Beatles used on the original version.[citation needed]
- In an episode of the second series of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, Barry Taylor (Timothy Spall) rephrases the ending lyrics in a conversation with his peers when he says "As John Lennon said, the love you take is equal to the love you make! I was never quite sure what he meant by that actually." It was however McCartney who is credited for the ending lyrics.[citation needed]
- In an episode of Saturday Night Live, Chris Farley asked Paul McCartney: "You remember, like, on Abbey Road, how umm you sang 'and in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make'? Umm... is that true?"
- Progressive metal band Dream Theater recorded a cover of "Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End" in the demo sessions for their first album, When Dream and Day Unite.
- The horrorcore rap group Twiztid sampled the song on their Cryptic Collection album on the song "Dr Jeckel Mr Bones".
- As the last song on the last album recorded by the Beatles, it appears as the final track in the Career mode of The Beatles: Rock Band.
- The last episode of the NBC medical drama, ER, takes its name from a lyric in the song: "And In The End..."
[edit] Personnel
- Paul McCartney – vocal and backing vocal, bass, piano, and lead guitar
- John Lennon – backing vocal, lead guitar
- George Harrison – backing vocal, rhythm and lead guitar
- Ringo Starr – drums
- Personnel above per Ian MacDonald[1]
- George Martin – orchestration[7]
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b c MacDonald 2005, p. 361.
- ^ Miles 1997, p. 558.
- ^ Sheff 2000, p. 204.
- ^ Hal Leonard 1993, pp. 252–253.
- ^ a b Lewisohn 1988, p. 181.
- ^ Lewisohn 1988, pp. 185–186.
- ^ a b Lewisohn 1988, p. 190.
- ^ a b The Beatles 2000, p. 337.
- ^ Larry King Show 2007.
- ^ Apple Records 1996.
- ^ Wenner 2000, p. 22.
- ^ Lewisohn 1988, p. 183.
- ^ Unterberger 2007.
- ^ Mendelsohn 1969.
[edit] References
- (1996) Album notes for Anthology 3 by The Beatles [booklet]. London: Apple Records (34451).
- The Beatles (2000). The Beatles Anthology. San Francisco: Chronicle Books. ISBN 0-8118-2684-8.
- The Beatles - Complete Scores. Milwaukee: Hal Leonard Publishing Corporation. 1993. ISBN 0-7935-1832-6.
- "Interview Transcript". Larry King Show. 26 June 2007. http://beatle.wordpress.com/2007/06/27/beatles-reunion-on-larry-king-interview-transcript/. Retrieved 25 April 2009.
- Lewisohn, Mark (1988). The Beatles Recording Sessions. New York: Harmony Books. ISBN 0-517-57066-1.
- MacDonald, Ian (2005). Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties (Second Revised ed.). London: Pimlico (Rand). ISBN 1-844-13828-3.
- Mendelsohn, John (15 November 1969). "Review of Abbey Road". Rolling Stone. http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/thebeatles/albums/album/206268/review/5943715/abbey_road. Retrieved 01 March 2007.
- Miles, Barry (1997). Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now. New York: Henry Holt & Company. ISBN 0-8050-5249-6.
- Sheff, David (2000). All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-25464-4.
- Unterberger, Richie (2007). "Review of "The End"". Allmusic. http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=33:40ngtq5zxu42. Retrieved 01 March 2007.
- Wenner, Jann S (2000). Lennon Remembers (Full interview from Lennon's 1970 interview in Rolling Stone magazine). London: Verso. ISBN 1-85984-600-9.
