Please Please Me | With the Beatles | A Hard Day's Night | Beatles for Sale | Help! | Rubber Soul | Revolver
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band | Magical Mystery Tour | The White Album | Yellow Submarine | Abbey Road | Let It Be
Past Masters | The Beatles Anthology | The Beatles: Get Back
- Ascended Fanon: The line in "Come Together" is actually "hold you in his arms 'til you can feel his disease", but was almost immediately and universally misheard as "hold you in his armchair, you can feel his disease". It was printed that way in the lyric sheet for The Beatles 1967-1970, and John himself gave it Approval of God, so many cover versions use that line.
- Corpsing: Paul cracks up during the second verse of "Maxwell's Silver Hammer", allegedly because John mooned him in the recording studio as he sang the line "so he waits behind".
- Creative Differences: The album's two halves represented a compromise; John Lennon wanted a traditional release with distinct and unrelated songs while Paul McCartney and George Martin wanted to continue their thematic approach from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by incorporating a medley.
- Creator Backlash:
- Everyone except Paul McCartney hated doing "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" because of all the time they spent working on it (it took almost a month to record). John even called it "Paul's granny shit" at one point.
- Part of this may have to do with the fact that the song was one of the first ones written for the famously tense and disastrous Get Back sessions and the band were probably not pleased at having to revisit it.
- Lennon ultimately said that he disliked the album as a whole and felt that it lacked authenticity, calling McCartney's contributions "[music] for the grannies to dig" and not "real songs", and describing the medley as "junk ... just bits of songs thrown together".
- Everyone except Paul McCartney hated doing "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" because of all the time they spent working on it (it took almost a month to record). John even called it "Paul's granny shit" at one point.
- Creator's Favorite Episode: John Lennon named "Something" as his favourite song on the album, while Paul McCartney named it as his favourite George Harrison composition.
- Cut Song: During the sessions for the medley, Paul McCartney recorded "Come and Get It", playing all the instruments. It was assumed to be a demo recording for another artist but McCartney later said that he originally intended to put it on the album. It was instead covered by Badfinger.
- Inspiration for the Work: "Because" was inspired by John Lennon listening to Yoko Ono playing Ludwig van Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" on the piano. He recalled he was "lying on the sofa in our house, listening to Yoko play ... Suddenly, I said, 'Can you play those chords backward?' She did, and I wrote 'Because' around them." The only problem with this is that "Because" isn't actually based on the opening of the "Moonlight Sonata" played backwards, but John was clearly under the impression that it was.
- Pop-Culture Urban Legends: Contrary to rumors,
"Maxwell's Silver Hammer" has nothing to do with a silver hammer used by the pope's camerlengo (chamberlain) who uses a ceremonial silver mallet for breaking the pope's ring and signet, or allegedly tapping him on the head to determine if he's actually dead and not just sleeping. In A Hard Day's Write, a book discussing the origins of The Beatles' songs: "John told me that ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ was about the law of karma,” says former Apple employee Tony King. “We were talking one day about ‘Instant Karma’ because something happened where he’d been clobbered and he’d said that this was an example of instant karma. I asked him whether he believed in that theory. He said that he did and that ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ was the first song that they’d made about that. He said that the idea behind the song was that the minute you do something that’s not right, Maxwell’s silver hammer will come down on your head.” Paul said that the song "epitomizes the downfalls of life. Just when everything is going smoothly, ‘bang, bang’ down comes Maxwell’s silver hammer and ruins everything.” - Short Run in Peru: Happened with the Compact Disc release of the album of all things. Abbey Road was the only Beatles album to make its debut on CD before the catalog-wide reissue campaign in 1987, via a Japanese release in 1983 on EMI imprint Odeon Records. While officially relegated to No Export for You status, it quickly became a popular import among early CD adopters, until EMI UK caught wind of its release and had it deleted circa 1985, considering it unauthorized. Because the "official" 1987 CD release used a different master, oftentimes touted as inferior to the 1983 one, the Odeon CD has since become highly-coveted among Beatles fans and CD collectors alike.
- Swan Song: Nobody died (yet), but the album was intended to be this. After the disastrous Get Back sessions, they decided to pull it together for one more album before their breakup. It was the final album recorded. However, Apple Records brought in Phil Spector to salvage the Get Back tapes, and the result was Let It Be, the band's final album by release date.
- Throw It In!: Paul chuckles in the middle of the second verse of "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" because an annoyed John Lennon mooned him from the control room.
- Troubled Production: Compared with their last couple albums, this one was more productive, as the band knew it would be their last work together. Still, tensions were high, with Lennon bringing Yoko Ono to the sessions and her clashing with the other Beatles, John and Paul having an extensive argument, and Paul's obsession on fine-tuning "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" (which he saw as a potential single) displeasing the other members.
- What Could Have Been:
- The original plan for the album cover was to have the band at the foot of Mount Everest, tying in with its Working Title, Everest. The idea was rejected after the band proved unwilling to fly out to the Himalayas.
- The medley structure as well was different: "Her Majesty" was actually suppose to be between "Mean Mr. Mustard" and "Polythene Pam". However Paul absolutely hated the way "Her Majesty" sounded within the medley and asked for it to be cut and even destroyed from the final product. While it was removed from the medley all together, EMI's policy on not destroying Beatle songs caused it to be salvaged. The tape operator of Abbey Road Studios John Kurlander instead added the song at the end of "The End" after its fade-out. The Beatles were impressed by it and decided to keep it as a Hidden Track.
- The transition between "You Never Give Me Your Money" and "Sun King" was originally a single, stretched out organ note; this was changed to various ambient noises recorded by Paul in the final version of the medley.
- Working Title: Everest, after one of Geoff Emerick's favorite cigarette brands; the band renamed the album when they took the cover photo at Abbey Road instead.
