Why We Love The Beatles (v2) 43 of 100

The true last album which somehow became the penultimate album: Abbey Road. Abbey Road was actually recorded six months after Let it Be. But the latter - because of endless wrangling was released much later and hence became the full stop, the period in The Beatles oeuvre. And for those who see Abbey Road as the truly final album it is a joyous legacy to their work: individuals at work to their greatest abilities but tempered by their buddies.

Unlike the Get Back sessions.

The band had been falling apart. No longer a high performance team, more a disparate group of amazing musicians with very different views of how they wanted to run their lives. Whereas at ages 21, music had been 95% of their lives (the remaining component split between girls and chip butties), music close to a decade on was rapidly dwindling as a priority as they steadily discovered the stuff they hadn't had access to as youths. And the stuff money could buy.

Paul as ever was trying to pull the band together psychologically: to give them the clear purpose which had never failed in the past: re-create the world's greatest little band. Hence the Get Back sessions, as in get back to basics. But perhaps it was the fact that guys were all out of balance, maybe it was the cold or the sheer volume of the empty Twickenham Studios, where the project was held (chosen so the session could be filmed, too). But It was a disaster, so much so that the full audio/video tapes have never been released. The music was recorded and at one stage all of the Fab Four hoped it would never see the light of day.

Was this the end? Thankfully not.

No. Back to the womb. Back to the studio. Back to Abbey Road.

That’s another reason we love The Beatles.

The Back-Story

Reason 1: Story-tellers; 2: Sgt. Pepper; 3: Eternally optimistic; 4: Still cool; 5: George Harrison.; 6: Love Me Do

7: Work Ethic ;8: Synchronicity; 9: The Roof-top Concert; 10: Candlestick Park; 11: Lennon & McCartney

12: I Saw Her Standing There; 13: Liverpool; 14: Black & White; 15: Album Covers; 16: John Lennon

17: Lennon & McCartney; 18: Rock 'n Roll; 19: They Never Made it Easy; 20: Ringo

21: Meditation & Massage; 22: The Back of a Commer Van; 23: George Martin.

24: Simply Different

25: A Time to Think

26: Revolver