Abbey Road

Abbey Road is the 11th studio album by the English rock band the Beatles, released on 26 September 1969 in the United Kingdom and on 1 October 1969 in the United States. The recording sessions for the album were the last in which all four Beatles participated. Although Let It Be was the final album that the Beatles completed before the band's dissolution in April 1970, most of the album had been recorded before the Abbey Road sessions began. A double A-side single from the album, "Something"/"Come Together", released in October, topped the Billboard chart in the US.

Abbey Road is a rock album that incorporates genres such as blues, pop and progressive rock, and it makes prominent use of the Moog synthesizer and the Leslie speaker. Side two contains a medley of song fragments edited together to form a single piece. The album was recorded amidst a more collegial atmosphere than the Get Back/Let It Be sessions earlier in the year, but there were still frequent confrontations within the band, particularly over Paul McCartney's song "Maxwell's Silver Hammer", one of four tracks on which John Lennon did not perform. He had privately left the group by the time the album was released and McCartney publicly quit the following year.

Abbey

An abbey (from Latin abbatia, from Latin abbās, derived from Aramaic abba, "father") is a Catholic, Anglican, or Orthodox Christian monastery or convent. Abbeys usually fall under the authority of an Abbot or an Abbess who serves as the spiritual father or mother of the community.

The term can also refer to a former abbey (for example, Westminster Abbey).

Origins

The formation of monastic communities dates back to pre-Christian times, as witnessed by the Essenes. The earliest known Christian monasteries consisted of groups of huts built near the location of a famous ascetic or other holy person. As these communities of disciples grew, they attracted people who desired to study the ascetic's doctrine and imitate his or her way of life.

In the earliest age of Christian monasticism, the ascetics were accustomed to living alone. Ascetics would typically live near a village church, supporting themselves while also donating their excess food to the poor. Increasing religious fervor and persecution drove them farther away from civilization into solitude. The deserts of Egypt hosted some of the "cells" or huts of these anchorites.

Road

A road is a thoroughfare, route, or way on land between two places that has been paved or otherwise improved to allow travel by foot or some form of conveyance, including a horse, cart, bicycle, or motor vehicle.

Roads consist of one or two roadways (British English: carriageways), each with one or more lanes and any associated sidewalks (British English: pavement) and road verges.

Roads that are available for use by the public may be referred to as public roads or as highways.

Definitions

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) defines a road as "a line of communication (travelled way) using a stabilized base other than rails or air strips open to public traffic, primarily for the use of road motor vehicles running on their own wheels," which includes "bridges, tunnels, supporting structures, junctions, crossings, interchanges, and toll roads, but not cycle paths."

In urban areas roads may diverge through a city or village and be named as streets, serving a dual function as urban space easement and route. Modern roads are normally smoothed, paved, or otherwise prepared to allow easy travel. Historically many roads were simply recognizable routes without any formal construction or maintenance.

The Beatles

The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960. With members John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, they became widely regarded as the foremost and most influential act of the rock era. Rooted in skiffle, beat, and 1950s rock and roll, the Beatles later experimented with several genres, ranging from pop ballads and Indian music to psychedelia and hard rock, often incorporating classical elements in innovative ways. In the early 1960s, their enormous popularity first emerged as "Beatlemania", but as the group's music grew in sophistication, led by primary songwriters Lennon and McCartney, they came to be perceived as an embodiment of the ideals shared by the counterculture of the 1960s.

The Beatles built their reputation playing clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg over a three-year period from 1960, with Stuart Sutcliffe initially serving as bass player. The core of Lennon, McCartney and Harrison went through a succession of drummers, most notably Pete Best, before asking Starr to join them. Manager Brian Epstein moulded them into a professional act and producer George Martin enhanced their musical potential. They gained popularity in the United Kingdom after their first hit, "Love Me Do", in late 1962. They acquired the nickname "the Fab Four" as Beatlemania grew in Britain over the following year, and by early 1964 they had become international stars, leading the "British Invasion" of the United States pop market. From 1965 onwards, the Beatles produced what many consider their finest material, including the innovative and widely influential albums Rubber Soul (1965), Revolver (1966), Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), The Beatles (commonly known as the White Album, 1968) and Abbey Road (1969).

Golden Slumbers

"Golden Slumbers" is a song by the Beatles, part of the climactic medley on their 1969 album Abbey Road. The song begins the progression that leads to the end of the album and is followed by "Carry That Weight". The two songs were recorded together as a single piece, and both were written by Paul McCartney (credited to Lennon–McCartney), strings and brass arranged and scored by producer George Martin.

Sources

"Golden Slumbers" is based on the poem "Cradle Song", a lullaby by the dramatist Thomas Dekker. The poem appears in Dekker's 1603 comedy Patient Grissel. McCartney saw sheet music for Dekker's lullaby at his father's home in Liverpool, left on a piano by his stepsister Ruth. Unable to read music, he created his own music. McCartney uses the first stanza of the original poem, with minor word changes, adding to it a single lyric line repeated with minor variation. Abbey Road does not credit Dekker with the stanza or with the title. Thomas Dekker's poem was set to music by Peter Warlock in 1918, also by Charles Villiers Stanford and Alfredo Casella.