ABBEY ROAD

Abbey Road was certainly a change in direction for The Beatles. I heard it the day it was released to record stores in the United States. Over and over. My best friend's nineteen year old brother had just bought it and played it non-stop the entire day while I was there. He kept coming out of his room saying things like, "Are you hearing this?" "Isn't this amazing?" I was hearing and feeling an album very different from the heavily-played-at-home-by-my-mother Sgt. Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour--both of which I loved. I wasn't disliking what I was hearing, I just wasn't sure of how I felt. Ambiguous. The feelings the album was evoking in me were ones of simplicity, peace, patience, determination, ennui, clarity, steady pacing, and spacing. None of these were feelings that I had typically associated with Beatles songs or albums. So, needless to say, it took me a while to digest and appreciate Abbey Road. Plus, I was distracted for a while by the album's added fuel to the raging fire around the "Paul is dead" rumors. (I had friends who were quite fanatical about all of the "evidence" in the albums, covers and literature. On this one Paul's bare feet on the album cover picture were sure signs that he was the cadaver, Ringo, in black, the undertaker, John, in white, the minister/priest, George, in jeans, the lay representative--stuff like that!) When my brother brought home the album all we ever really heard was Side One. The radio was playing "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" a lot (which I always thought was a silly song-- more like a medieaval nursery rhyme). The music was at times too heavy for my delicate tastes ("Come Together" and "She's So Heavy") and because of my language disability, the lyrics were non-objects to me. (I do not hear lyrics; that is, I am unable to make sense of spoken or sung words--unless I read them repeatedly along with listening to the song. I am too distracted by the music. To me, singing is merely another instrument added to the tapestry of the fabric.) Plus, some of the songs shifted radically or went on longer than the two-to-three minutes to which I was accustomed. (I was a young, unworldly 11 years old.) To this day, the impression left on me by Abbey Road is one of ennui; I could really care less if it were ever made or if I ever hear it (or it's songs) again. (Though "Octopus's Garden" and "Here Comes the Sun" were fun for my child-raising/parenting experience.) As to a more cerebral, intellectual perspective on the value to the album to the future of music and to the inception of "prog," I do believe it added to the world's views as to what directions were possible for musical exploration. Is it the most influential Proto-prog album of all-time? I do no think so. Not by a long shot. Don Ellis Orchestra Live at Monterey, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper, Days of Future Passed, several Frank Zappa albums, Are You Experienced?, and even Magical Mystery Tour all rate higher than Abbey Road for me.