Song of the Day 1/19: The Beatles, “The End”

If this is indeed the end of the American Republic – I tend to doubt it, but I’m safely overseas – then I think it should bow out with the words of Paul McCartney. The amount of love Trump and his testosterone-poisoned minions will take will indeed equal the amount they make. That number, whether measured by metric or imperial standards, is zero.

The song was supposed to close “Abbey Road” (“Her Majesty” was cut from its original spot in the Side 2 medley before being restored as a hidden track), and “The End” was the last song all four musicians recorded together. Their last song contained a couple of Beatles firsts. It contains the only “drum solo” Ringo Starr ever performed on a Beatles record, though he didn’t know he’d played one when he did. Starr disliked drum solos, and his part was originally recorded with guitar and tambourine that were dropped from the mix afterwards.

“The End” also contains the closest thing to a jam the band indulged in on record. the only record on which the other three Beatles all take solos. The guitar section starting at 0:53 consists of McCartney, George Harrison and John Lennon, in that order, trading three rounds of two-bar solos live in the studio.

Though the tune, like all their Beatles output, is credited to Lennon and McCartney, Lennon told Playboy in one of his last interviews that the couplet was Paul’s. It is, Lennon said, “a very cosmic, philosophical line. Which again proves that if he wants to, he can think.”