The Beatles’ “The End” appropriately marks the conclusion of Abbey Road, the last album the Fab Four ever recorded (with the exception of the album’s hidden “real” last track, “Her Majesty”). Ironically, it also marked some notable firsts for the group, both as an ensemble and as individuals.
The Beatles’ “The End” Features Ringo Starr’s First Drum Solo
Throughout the Beatles’ extensive discography, they featured airtight harmonies, ripping solos on the guitar, piano, and bass, and experimental effects that defined the band’s 1960s sound. But drum solos were notably missing, and as Paul McCartney explained to Mark Lewisohn in his book The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, that was Ringo Starr’s doing.
“Ringo would never do drum solos,” McCartney said. “He hated drummers who did lengthy drum solos. We all did. And when he joined the Beatles, we said, ‘Ah, what about drum solos then?’ thinking he might say, ‘Yeah, I’ll have a five-hour one in the middle of your set,’ and he said, ‘I hate them.’ We said, ‘Great! We love you!’ And so he would never do them. But because of this medley, I said, ‘Well, a token solo?’ He really dug his heels in and didn’t want to do it.”
In an interview with MusicRadar, chief engineer Geoff Emerick recalled, “The thing that always amused me was how much persuasion it took to get Ringo to play that solo. Usually, you have to try to talk drummers out of doing solos. He didn’t want to do it, but everybody said, ‘No, no, it’ll be fantastic!’ So, he gave in and turned in a bloody marvelous performance.”
John Lennon’s Usual (And Unusual) Behavior Around The Song
Geoff Emerick also recalled a notable moment between John Lennon and his fellow guitarists, George Harrison and Paul McCartney, during the session for “The End.” After the trio decided to record a series of interlocking solos, Emerick said Lennon uncharacteristically asked his then-wife, Yoko Ono, to stay out of the studio.
“Yoko was about to go into the studio with John—this was commonplace by now—and he actually told her, ‘No, not now. Let me just do this. It’ll just take a minute,’” Emerick told MusicRadar. “That surprised me a bit. Maybe he felt like he was returning to his roots with the boys—who knows? You could really see the joy in their faces as they played; it was like they were teenagers again. One take was all we needed. The musical telepathy between them was mind-boggling.”
Even with Lennon’s brief reprieve from “JOHNANDYOKO” (as he described himself in the scathing letter he wrote to Paul McCartney years later), the ex-Beatle was up to his usual antics when discussing “The End” in a later interview from David Sheff’s All We Are Saying. “That’s Paul again, the unfinished song, right?” Lennon said of the track. “Just a piece at the end. 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” (via Far Out Magazine).
Lennon’s backhanded compliment misquoted the lyric slightly, although it didn’t take away from the zinger he was throwing Macca’s way. The actual line is, And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.
