What is the best song off of "Abbey Road"?

Previous polls (still active): Please Please Me, With the Beatles, A Hard Day’s Night, Beatles For Sale, Help!, Rubber Soul, Revolver, **Sgt. Pepper’s**, Magical Mystery Tour/Yellow Submarine, and The White Album (Discs One and Two).

A few of the track combinations may be controversial. Still, given the choices in front of you, there can be only one–which would you choose?

I chose “You Never…” because it’s, imho, one of the finest melodies written by the Beatles. It just sounds so weary, which matches the attitude of the band that played it.

I had to go with *Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End *because of the dueling guitars and Ringo’s only drum solo.

I can’t think of any other album that plays in it’s entirety more like one continuous, interwoven, co-dependent song than Abbey Road. But if you must have one… Here Comes The Sun.

Here’s a guess: To mess with us, SDMB poster Mean Mr. Mustard will declare his hate for this album. :wink:

First impulse, just upon seeing the album title, is to say “Come Together.” After browsing through the song list, though, I’m going with “You Never Give Me Your Money.” An epic in miniature.

Easy one for me: “Something.” Along with “God Only Knows” by the Beach Boys, it is one of two perfect love songs from that era.

Yep - pretty much automatic for me. While I bashed While My Guitar Gently Weeps in the White Album thread, Harrison nailed everything right here.

I put down Mean Mr. Mustard, but really everything from You Never Give me Your Money to “The End” is one suite, and what I’d really vote for. It is the Beatles freeing themselves, just for a while, from their art, their productions, their hostility, and just being an awesome rock and roll band.

A tough call between Come Together and Here Comes the Sun. I voted for Come Together.

That’s a great summation.

However, I voted for “Here Comes The Sun” because it truly is a wonderful song.

Usually, somewhere around mid-March, I’ll hear this song on the radio, and I will turn it up loud, and sing along, and will for the rest of my life.

I voted for the simplicity and joy of Here Comes The Sun.

I’d pick the entire medley, but the high point is Mean Mr. Mustard etc.

BTW, “Mean” doesn’t mean “nasty.” It means “stingy” (“lives in the dark trying to save paper”).

Had you grouped the entire medley together as a single track (LIKE YOU SHOULD HAVE!!!) then it would win hands down.

As it is, with the medley broken up into 4 seperate selections, I have to go with Here Comes the Sun as the best on the album, with Something as a close #2 and the last Golden Slumbers/Carry that Weight/The End as a slightly more distant #3 with Come Together leading the best of the rest.

Unfortunately, none of the other bits of the medley have enough weight on their own to carry them into the top spot, which is a shame since I really love She Came in Through the Bathroom Window.

ETA: anyone else think that Because doesn’t really belong on this album? It’s a great song, but feels totally out of place to me, like it should have been on The White Album. It’s too similar to The Sun King, but doesn’t fit in with the Medley the way that the Sun King does, and is totally different in tone from all the other non Medley songs.

Probably “You Never Give Me Your Money” is my favorite, but I wanted to give some love to “Oh! Darling” - it’s a good song, and I love singing it at karaoke.

Ditto to everything he said—except that for me, “Something” just edges out “Here Comes The Sun.”

Because through The End is one song, and it is the Sistine Chapel of rock n roll. If you have to pull them apart, none of them are as good as Something or Here Comes The Sun

You forgot the option “All of the Above.” It was impossible for me to choose a “Best” because they’re all amazing, so I chose a personal favorite, “Her Majesty.” It’s such a silly, minor, ditty compared to the other songs, but it always makes me smile, especially how it ends so abruptly.

The ironic think about that is that song actually is a bit more complex than first meets the ear. The “Sun Sun Sun Here It comes Part” breaks down to 11/8, 4/4, 7/8. Harmonically and melodically, it is pretty straightforward, although, once again, the “Sun Sun Sun” part ventures off around the Circle of Fifths. This is exactly one of those things I love about the Beatles. They’ll give a pretty standard pop structure, then throw in a couple songwriting curve balls to subvert it a bit.

Is Because generally considered to be part of the Medley? I usually think of the Medley as starting with You Never Give Me Your Money.