60: Your Sweet Voice

The story of Track 13, the Beatles' Abbey Road Medley is complicated, and fascinating to me. The medley appears on side 2 of the LP Abbey Road.

I am going to quote Wikipedia's entry on "Her Majesty" to tell the rest of the story:

"Her Majesty", tacked on the end, was originally part of the side two medley, appearing between "Mean Mr. Mustard" and "Polythene Pam", like this:

• "You Never Give Me Your Money"
• "Sun King"
• "Mean Mr. Mustard"
• "Her Majesty"
• "Polythene Pam"
• "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window"
• "Golden Slumbers"
• "Carry That Weight"
• "The End"

McCartney requested "Her Majesty" be removed from the medley. However, second engineer John Kurlander had been instructed never to throw out anything, so Kurlander spliced 14 seconds of red leader tape onto the end of the reel, and spliced "Her Majesty" immediately after the leader tape. When Malcolm Davies at Apple received the tape, he (also trained not to throw anything away) cut a playback lacquer which included the 14-second gap and "Her Majesty". The Beatles liked this effect and this sequence was retained for the album:

• "You Never Give Me Your Money"
• "Sun King"
• "Mean Mr. Mustard"
• "Polythene Pam"
• "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window"
• "Golden Slumbers"
• "Carry That Weight"
• "The End"
• (14 seconds of silence)
• "Her Majesty"

The reason the all-acoustic "Her Majesty" opens with a loud, crashing chord? That's the last note of "Mean Mr. Mustard", which was not needed when "Mustard" is spliced directly into the first note of "Polythene Pam". Meanwhile, the final note of "Her Majesty" is missing on the LP because it was left behind in the medley, as part of the first note of "Polythene Pam".

Track 13 on this mix is a bootleg copy of the original rough mix of the medley. Thank you Napster!

1. Walls (No. 3): Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
2. Some Guys Have All The Luck: Rod Stewart
3. When Heroes Go Down: Suzanne Vega
4. Hero Takes a Fall: The Bangles
5. I'm Going Down: Bruce Springsteen
6. The Real Life: John Cougar Mellencamp
7. "Peace Tonight" I really like this Indigo Girls song, not only for its melody and lyrics, but I love the horn section. Every song is better with a horn section!
8. Dirty Boulevard: I am not a Lou Reed fan. At all. However, I liked this song when it came out when I was in high school, and the advent of Napster allowed me to acquire the song (on MP3) without paying anything. Score!
9. Footprints: Squeeze
10. You Get What You Give: New Radicals
11. Next Year: Foo Fighters
12. Your Sweet Voice: Matthew Sweet
13. "Abbey Road Medley" [rough mix] The Beatles
14. Fifty Years After The Fair: Aimee Mann
15. What Makes You Happy: Liz Phair