On August 20th, 1969, the four members of The Beatles gathered in Studio 2 of Abbey Road with producer George Martin. They were putting the finishing touches to a song as they often did, overdubbing harmonised backing vocals and instrumental takes the same way they’d done since their early singles. At the time, though some might have had an inkling, no one was aware that this would be the last time they’d all be making music together.
In the days that followed, John Lennon went on holiday before performing at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival in mid-September. He had effectively left the group and informed his bandmates of the decision formally at a meeting to renew The Beatles’ contract with Capitol Records in the United States on September 20th.
Paul McCartney explained in the band’s Anthology documentary that he was trying to encourage Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr to return to the “little gigs” of their early days. But Lennon had a surprise for him. “Well, I think you’re daft,” he told his songwriting partner. “I wasn’t going to tell you till we signed the Capitol deal, but I’m leaving the group!”
McCartney and then-Beatles manager Allen Klein pressed Lennon to keep the news quiet. He stuck to his word despite a slew of single releases making it obvious to the public that his solo career had already begun. Yet McCartney got the public relations jump on Lennon, Klein and the rest of The Beatles the following April when he announced he was quitting the band immediately prior to the release of his debut solo album.
But what was the band recording in that final session?
Fittingly, the very last thing the four members of The Beatles recorded together was the very end of their song ‘The End’, the full stop at the end of an expansive eight-song medley on the second side of the album they’d named after their famous studio, Abbey Road. On August 20th, they recorded the three-part, wordless vocal harmony heard during the climax of the song, which unusually included Starr alongside the other three Beatles.
Last-minute short instrumental overdubs to polish off the song were likely also recorded during the same session. The main instrumental material for the song, including intertwining guitar licks from Lennon, McCartney and Harrison, and Starr’s only drum solo for the band, had already been completed earlier in the month.
Two days before that last session, the track’s famous final lyrics, an epigrammatic couplet that seemed to signify the end of an age, was put down on tape, as well as its piano accompaniment. What better way for the four teenage friends from Liverpool, who’d brought us seminal moments of the 1960s like ‘She Loves You’ and ‘All You Need Is Love’, to give one another a final send-off? Singing in unison: “The love you take / is equal to the love you make.” It was almost too perfect.
The Beatles decided it was and tacked the hidden track ‘Her Majesty’, a throwaway McCartney ditty cut from the final listing for Abbey Road, on the end of the LP. It was irreverent to the last, but an ending fit for rock royalty.
