Beatles - Golden Slumbers/The End

Cafe Society
1

I just finished listening to Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End. Can anyone shed light on the following myths/truths:

  1. In “The End”, is Paul McCartney doing the drum solo?

  2. Paul, John and George take turns soloing. Is the super-distorted, banging out chords part really John? How about the other leads? Who’s playing what?

2

  1. Ringo played the drum solo; in fact he gets quite annoyed when anyone suggests he didn’t.

  2. Yes, that’s John playing the “chugging” guitar. I’m not at home and can’t check in which order the guitarists come up, but if memory serves, it’s Paul-George-John, then repeat.

3

Biffy has it right on both counts.

Ringo’s doing the solo and that’s the ONLY recorded solo he ever did with the Beatles.

The order on the guitar solos is indeed Paul-George-John-repeat.

About the only other instance I can recall of John playing lead guitar in the Beatles is on “You Can’t Do That”; maybe he did on “Revolution” too but I’m not sure about that.

4

A lot of Beatles songs really had two or more rhythm parts, so its hard to say which one was the ‘lead’. But John played solos on:

“Yer Blues”
“Get Back”
“I Want You (She’s So Heavy”)

Also all guitars on “The Ballad of John and Yoko”.

Paul played lead on many others, “Taxman”, “Ticket To Ride”.

5

BTW, the lyrics to “Golden Slumbers” were not written by the Beatles. It’s from a poem by Thomas Dekker dating from 1603.

6

I’m pretty sure George did the solo in Revolution. I think I remember reading in the Anthology that he hated the fuzzy sound of the guitar solo, but John really wanted it that way.

Didn’t John and Paul do The Ballad of John and Yoko by themselves, with Paul taking the drums?

7

Yes. There’s reportedly a charming moment on the master tape where John says to Paul something like “Ready, Ringo?” and Paul replies “Okay, George.”

8

pvenkman

Beatles’ drum solos. What about “Birthday” from the “White Album”? Doesn’t that count?

9

The lyrics to Golden Slumbers were written by Paul see this. A few lines are shared amongst the two and it is obvious that he borrowed from the poem, but Dekker didn’t write the whole thing.

And yes, of course it counts wolf_meister, I don’t see why everyone always forgets the drum solo in Birthday.

10

I think Paul McCartney played drums on Birthday.