The Fifth Desk · Evaluation
Act I · The Map
The Beatles · produced by George Martin · Apple · seventeen tracks, about 47 minutes
Mode
The rock album as a finished studio object; one side of songs, one side given mostly to a suite of joined fragments
Mythos
A day and a life’s end: the sun coming, a world turning, a Sun King, then a cradle song, a burden carried and an end; comic English figures along the way
Phase
Seventeen tracks; side one six songs closing on a long riff cut into silence, side two from morning through eight joined fragments to a closing couplet, and a short coda after
Presentation
Album; seventeen tracks, about forty-seven minutes, the last unlisted on the first sleeve; the last album the group recorded, though not the last released
Register
Blues, music hall, a children’s song, a ballad, a pastiche of the 1950s, a madrigal of three voices, a suite; harpsichord, synthesiser, strings and brass
Scale
Love, money and the end of youth, a garden under the sea, and a farewell carried through a side
Governing Proposition
The last album the group recorded sets a side of separate songs, closing on a riff cut off into silence, against a side that runs from morning to farewell through eight unfinished fragments joined into one passage, so that an ending is made out of what was left incomplete, under one warm and exact studio sound.
Act II · The Essay
Movement I
Apple released the record in Britain on 26 September 1969, produced by George Martin: seventeen tracks, about forty-seven minutes, the last of them unlisted on the first sleeve, and the same track list in the United States. It was the last album the group recorded, though not the last released. The first side runs about twenty-five minutes in six tracks; the second about twenty-two in eleven. The songs are Lennon and McCartney’s throughout, with two by Harrison, “Something” and “Here Comes the Sun”, and one by Starr, “Octopus’s Garden”.
“Come Together” opens it, and the playing makes the song: the bass moves as a countermelody under the voice, and Starr’s drumming turns a figure into the song’s whole shape. “Something” follows, Harrison’s love song, which finds love’s inarticulacy and says so. Its bass, too, runs as a second melody, and its guitar solo rises to a real height, exact in line and in tone. Two tracks in, the record has shown both what it can do with a song and how warm and close its sound will be.
The rest of the side is a collection. “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” is slick work on thin material, its violence played as comedy. “Oh! Darling” is a pastiche of the 1950s, sung with force. “Octopus’s Garden”, Starr’s song, is a children’s song of a garden under the sea, with charm and no height. These are four writers’ songs set side by side, and two of them belong to a lighter record than the one the second side will make.
Movement II
“I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” closes the first side and fills nearly a third of it, about seven minutes and three quarters. It is a blues, and for minutes on end it is one riff, repeated and thickened as white noise rises under it, the same few bars pressed harder each time. The weight is in the sound and in the length, and the length is held by its production as much as by its playing.
Then the tape is cut. The riff stops in the middle of its figure, with no fade and no final chord, and the side ends in silence. The silence is the summit of the track, and of the side: the wanting that the riff could not resolve is not resolved, only ended. It is the dreadful height of a record whose other heights are warm, and it was a second risk on a record otherwise made from safety, a blues held for nearly eight minutes and then cut off.
The cut is also a form. A side of separate songs, sequenced rather than made one, is closed by an act that no song on it prepares, and the record turns over on that silence. What follows begins in the morning.
Movement III
The second side opens with “Here Comes the Sun”, Harrison’s, which is lift itself: a guitar figure, the release after winter, the light arriving. It is the plainest of the record’s heights and among the most heard songs of its century. Where the first side ended in a cut, this one begins in a dawn, and the day it opens will run to the end of the side.
“Because” follows, the stillest height on the record. Three voices, each part sung three times, are tuned and blended over harpsichord and synthesiser so that nine voices sound as one instrument, a madrigal suspended over the world turning. The synthesiser is brought into the song, not put on show. Nothing moves fast; the harmonies open further with each hearing, and they are studied still.
Morning, then stillness: the side has placed its two separate songs at the start, and the one sound governs them both, warm, close and finished, the sound that set a standard for the studio records of the decade after. Between the heavy blues at the end of one side and the madrigal near the start of the other, the record holds its two extremes, of wanting and of peace, under one care.
Movement IV
From “You Never Give Me Your Money” to “The End” the side runs as one passage, about sixteen minutes in eight tracks, five of them under two minutes. It begins as the record’s nearest thing to a statement: youth spent and ending in money and the disenchantment of business, and the one sweet dream left, to get in the car and go. The song does not close. It opens into the next.
What follows is made of fragments, each a song abandoned: “Sun King”, then “Mean Mr. Mustard”, “Polythene Pam” and “She Came In Through the Bathroom Window”, figures of the English comic type, cartoons rather than persons, slight on their own. The joins are engineered so that the fragments run as one passage, and their incompleteness becomes motion. A rock album gives most of a side to a medley of unfinished songs, a form the group had not tried and few rock records had attempted at that length.
“Golden Slumbers” turns a cradle song into a farewell, and its cry runs straight into “Carry That Weight”, the oldest burden there is, over Martin’s strings and brass. There the theme of “You Never Give Me Your Money” comes back, as the past returns at a parting. The suite of fragments recurs through the art rock of the decade after, and later bands took it up at length; here it is the way a group makes its ending out of what it had left unfinished.
Movement V
“The End” is built as its own meaning: Starr’s one drum solo on the record, three guitarists trading in turn, then the couplet, “the love you take” equal to the love you make, and the closing chord. The moral is a balance more aphorism than discovery. The music around it is as high a close as any rock record has, and the farewell it completes is carried by the sequence, a lullaby, a weight, an end, without ever being named.
Then comes “Her Majesty”, a joke left on the tape, unlisted on the first sleeve, which undoes the ending on purpose. The record knows its limits and does not hide them. The farewell’s depth is completed partly outside the record, by the knowledge that this was the group’s last work; the orders of life it holds, love, money, a garden under the sea, are listed more than held; the family appears only as a cradle song, history and labour only as money. The first side is a container, the second a form.
What it has outlasted is long. It is in continuous print, and the stereo master is the record still sold; “Here Comes the Sun” and “Something” are among the most played songs of the century, and the sleeve is known to people who have never heard the record. The synthesiser tones and the music hall of “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” are of 1969, and little else is. At the end of a side of fragments the record stops on a chord, and then, as if to refuse its own solemnity, adds one more.
Act III · The Twelve
Two sides, two tests, and the record passes most of both. The long passage of side two, from “You Never Give Me Your Money” to “The End”, is built of fragments that could not stand alone and are required where they are: “Golden Slumbers” runs into “Carry That Weight”, which brings back the theme of “You Never Give Me Your Money”, and “The End” answers the whole with its single couplet. The fragments exist only as passage, so the part that most invites cutting resists it. “Here Comes the Sun” and “Because” open the side as morning and stillness. On side one, “Come Together”, “Something” and “I Want You” are required. What holds the figure: “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” and “Octopus’s Garden” are passengers, and “Her Majesty” is a joke left on the tape.
Score: 8.4 / 10
What is uncovered is real, and more of it is carried by sound than by words. “You Never Give Me Your Money” is the record’s nearest thing to a statement: youth ends in money and in the disenchantment of business, and the one sweet dream left is to get in the car and go. The passage that follows carries a farewell without naming it: a lullaby, a weight to carry, an end. “Something” finds love’s inarticulacy and says so. The three voices of “Because”, the riff of “I Want You” cut off mid-figure and the guitars traded in “The End” disclose what the words do not. Held below the gate: the condition is chiefly a mood of valediction, and the stated meanings are few, “the love you take” among them, a balance more aphorism than discovery.
Score: 8.2 / 10
Elevation comes often, mostly warm, once dreadful. “Something” rises to a guitar solo of real height. “Here Comes the Sun” is lift itself, the guitar figure and the release after winter. “Because” is the stillest height on the record, three voices tripled over harpsichord and synthesiser, suspended. “I Want You” is the dreadful sublime: a riff repeated and thickened with white noise for minutes until the tape is cut and the silence is the summit. The medley climbs from the bells of “You Never Give Me Your Money” through the cry of “Golden Slumbers” to the trading of guitars in “The End” and the closing chord, as high a close as any rock record has. Against this, “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” and “Octopus’s Garden” have charm, not height. Ten or so of seventeen tracks rise.
Score: 8.9 / 10
Myth is evoked across the record and built on side two by its sequence. The side runs as a day and a life’s end: the sun coming, the world turning in “Because”, a Sun King, then a journey home that ends in a cradle song, a burden and an end. “Golden Slumbers” turns a lullaby into a farewell, and “Carry That Weight” is the oldest burden there is; the order of the side, not any single song, makes the pattern bear weight. Along the way stand comic English figures: Mean Mr. Mustard, Polythene Pam, Maxwell with his hammer. What holds the axis below the gate: the figures are cartoons rather than persons, and part of the farewell’s depth is completed outside the record, by the knowledge that this was the group’s last work.
Score: 8.4 / 10
The inheritance is the group’s own: the studio records of 1966 and 1967 and the plain playing of 1968, beside the pop suite and the rock opera of the late 1960s. The turn is real and lies chiefly on side two: a rock album gives most of a side to a medley of unfinished songs, stitched into one passage with returning themes, a form the group had not tried and few rock records had attempted at that length. “I Want You” is a second risk, a blues held for nearly eight minutes and then cut. The synthesiser is brought into the writing of songs rather than displayed. What holds it at the bar: the group stood above commercial risk, side one returns to polished song, and the suite and the long form had proven paths.
Score: 8.5 / 10
Change the form of side two and the knowledge goes. The medley knows that the end of something can be made of its unfinished parts: fragments, each a song abandoned, joined so that their incompleteness becomes passage, and the theme of “You Never Give Me Your Money” returns in “Carry That Weight” as the past returns at a farewell. In “The End” the form is the meaning: one drum solo, three guitarists trading in turn, then the couplet and the chord. The sequence, counted here once, is built: side two runs from sunrise to ending, and side one closes on a riff cut off into silence before the record turns over. Held from the top because side one’s songs are sequenced rather than made one, and “Her Majesty” undoes the ending on purpose.
Score: 8.8 / 10
Evidence over fifty-seven years, much of it formal. Musicians, producers and scholars have returned to the record without exhausting it: the joins of the medley and its key relations, the voicings of “Because”, the bass playing throughout and the guitar trading of “The End” are studied and taken apart. The return is real in the record: the medley gives more each time its themes are heard to return, the harmonies of “Because” open further with each hearing, and the line of “Something” rewards the ear. What holds the figure: the semantic return is thinner than the formal, the words of most songs yield what they say at once, the reading of farewell leans partly on knowledge outside the record, and part of the return is ritual, the known object replayed.
Score: 8.9 / 10
The field is the album of the 1960s. The intrinsic force is real: the medley showed that a rock side could be a suite made of fragments, a form later bands took up at length; the record set a standard of warm, finished studio sound for the decade after it; it brought the synthesiser into the making of songs. Achieved reach is scored with intrinsic force, and the reach is very large: “Here Comes the Sun” became one of the most heard songs of its century, the medley form recurs through the art rock of the 1970s, and the record’s sound and its sleeve became models. What holds it: the record perfects more than it reorganises, and stands below Revolver and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band at 9.4, which made the larger reorganisations.
Score: 8.9 / 10
Survival is weighed over fifty-seven years, on form, presence and fabric. The form is whole: the record survives as issued, in continuous print, and the stereo master is the record still sold. Presence is as wide as any album’s of its age: continuous sale and broadcast, “Here Comes the Sun” and “Something” among the most played songs of the century, and a sleeve known to people who have never heard the record; popularity is credited as presence, not proof. The fabric bears its moment lightly: the synthesiser tones and the music hall pastiche of “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” are of 1969, and little else is topical. It stands at the head of the records of its age, level with Revolver at 9.0, above 2001: A Space Odyssey at 8.8, and far below what has lasted centuries.
Score: 9.0 / 10
Command of the recorded medium, read to the same anchors as every other art, and load-bearing on most tracks. The bass carries “Come Together” and “Something” as countermelody. In “Because” three voices, each part sung three times, are tuned and blended so that nine voices sound as one instrument. Starr’s drumming makes the figure of “Come Together” the song and gives “The End” its one solo. The joins of the medley are engineered so that eight fragments run as one passage, with Martin’s strings and brass under “Golden Slumbers” and “Carry That Weight”. The faults: “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” is slick work on thin material, “Octopus’s Garden” is plain, and the length of “I Want You” is held by its production as much as its playing. A tenth below The Dark Side of the Moon and Low at 9.0.
Score: 8.9 / 10
One law is proposed: a farewell made of finish and fragment, under a warm, close sound. The two most distant elements are “I Want You”, a heavy blues ending in a hard cut, and “Because”, a still madrigal of three voices; they obey one law as sound, the same studio and the same care, and as the record’s two extremes, of wanting and of peace. Side two obeys its law closely: the medley’s themes return, and its parts are one passage. The range is wide: blues, music hall, a children’s song, a ballad, a pastiche of the 1950s, a madrigal, a suite. What holds the figure: side one sets four writers’ songs side by side, and “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” and “Octopus’s Garden” belong to a lighter record. The halves are joined more than fused.
Score: 8.4 / 10
Judged on what the record holds, with no discount for the album form. Love is held, in “Something”, “Oh! Darling” and the wanting of “I Want You”. Money and the end of youth are present in “You Never Give Me Your Money”. The natural order appears as the sun, the turning world and the sea of “Octopus’s Garden”; childhood as a lullaby and a garden under the sea; violence as comedy in Maxwell’s hammer; the state as a joke at Her Majesty’s expense. The farewell joins the orders of side two into one passage. What holds the figure lowest: the orders are listed rather than held, consciousness is a mood, the family is absent but for a cradle song, history and labour are absent but for money, and the figures who might carry a world are caricatures.
Score: 7.3 / 10
Act IV · The Reckoning
8.6 / 10 · Final Average
Placement: Tier IV · Canonical
Strongest Dimensions
The Imperishable at 9.0, then The Sublime, The Bottomless Well, Pressure on Tradition and The Made at 8.9. A presence as wide as any album’s of its age, ten or so of seventeen tracks rising, several to the top of the medium, fifty-seven years of return to its joins and voicings, a suite of fragments that later bands took up, and a making in which nine voices sound as one instrument. Below them, The Living Form at 8.8: a side whose form is an ending made of its unfinished parts.
Limiting Dimension
The Encompassed at 7.3: love, money, the natural world and childhood are present but listed rather than held; consciousness is a mood, and the family, history and labour are nearly absent. Below the rest, The Unconcealment at 8.2: what the record discloses is chiefly a mood of valediction, carried more by sound than by its few stated meanings.
The Necessity Cap clears at 8.4 against a threshold of 7.5. The Coherence Floor clears with room: The Living Form at 8.8, The Made at 8.9, The Inner Law at 8.4, each against 7.0. The Epochal Gate is unmet: The Imperishable at 9.0 and Pressure on Tradition at 8.9 clear the bar of 8.5, and The Swerve meets it exactly at 8.5, but The Archetypal Deep at 8.4 and The Unconcealment at 8.2 fall short of it: the farewell is built by the sequence and completed outside the record, and what is disclosed is chiefly a mood. The Universal Minimum is met: no axis but The Encompassed falls below 8.2, against 7.5, and The Encompassed, which is exempted, clears its own floor of 6.0 at 7.3. Four of the five summit conditions are met. The summit is withheld by the Epochal Gate and by the aggregate, which stands at 8.6, below the 9.0 the summit requires.
Basis · the UK album as released by Apple on 26 September 1969, seventeen tracks in their original order on two sides, about forty-seven minutes, the last track unlisted on the first sleeve; produced by George Martin; judged from knowledge of the recording, its words and its reception. No recording or lyric sheet was in hand, and running times are approximate. The American issue carried the same track list and is not weighed separately; later remixes and performances by others are evidence, not the object. Songs are cited by title, and no lyric is quoted beyond a fragment of four words. Facts that could not be verified, among them the engineers, the studios and dates of recording, the console and tape used, which tracks carry a synthesiser and of what make, the source of the words of “Golden Slumbers”, the origin of the chords of “Because”, the sleeve photographer and the number of recordings of “Something” by others, are not given.