TRACK EIGHT
- WRITTEN BY: Lennon
- VOCALS: Lennon,
McCartney, Harrison
John Lennon was lying on the sofa
at home listening as Yoko Ono, who
had been classically trained as a girl in
Japan, played Beethoven’s “Moonlight
Sonata” on the piano. That moment of
domestic tranquility was interrupted
by a Lennon request that might have
caught Beethoven himself by surprise.
“ ‘Can you play the chords backward?’ ”
he asked, recalling the moment in a
1980 interview with Playboy’s David
Sheff. She did, and around them
Lennon composed his own cantata
of celestial wonderment: “Because
the world is round, it turns me on.”
It became a vocal showcase for the
“complicated and exquisite three-part
harmony” by John, Paul and George,
noted author Mark Hertsgaard. And af-
ter the low gravity of “I Want You (She’s
So Heavy),” Lennon’s angelic soaring
comes almost as a sweet surprise.
SONG BY SONG
TRACK NINE
- WRITTEN BY: McCartney
- LEAD VOCAL: McCartney
“This was me directly lambasting [Bea-
tles manager] Allen Klein’s attitude to us:
No money, just... promises ,” McCartney
told biographer Barry Miles in 1997. His
melodic screed marks the moment for
modern-day Abbey Road listeners to dis-
able the shuffle function on their music-
delivery systems. From this track through
the end of the album, the Beatles (with
an assist from producer George Martin)
deliver a 16-minute-long, eight-song
medley, which critics have likened to a
symphony with distinct movements and
repeated themes. McCartney’s opening
track is itself a rhapsody of varying styles:
It begins as a ballad and builds until the
band is going at full gallop, then fades
into a nursery rhyme (“all good children
go to heaven”) and finally, to the sounds
of bells tinkling and crickets chirping,
dissolves into the next tune....
‘ALL THE
MONEY’S
GONE’ Pop-art
pioneer Andy
Warhol also
had money on
his mind.
