We just celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the classic album Abbey Road, with a release extravaganza of several formats having just been released. People can choose from basic album remasters on CD and LP to more elaborate editions, including boxed sets with numerous outtakes and alternative takes, a hardbound book, and Blu-ray audio. It would be remiss of this page to not acknowledge this jubilee a wee bit.
For some reason, I feel like looking at the end of the album. Those who picked up the album back in 1969 saw The End listed as the final song in the track listing. And what a perfect bookend that song is – not just to the final album the Beatles recorded together, but also as a final statement from them as a whole.
But then, after bit of silence, Her Majesty appears.
A 23 second short track. A silly, tongue-in-cheek, almost throwaway acoustic ditty. More than anything it seems like a secret bonus track, added as an afterthought, definitely separated from the rest of the album.
And indeed, that may be the best way of looking at it. Something hidden, something extra. A surprise. A last laugh. The song wasn’t meant to survive the album making process, but found its way onto the album anyway.
It appears 14 seconds after the previous song The End, but was not listed on the original album sleeve. This makes it one of the first examples of a hidden track in rock music.
Consisting of a lone verse and nothing else, the track was a perfect candidate for inclusion in the Abbey Road medley, or “the long one” as it was known during recording. The band had a lot of song fragments when they reconvened for the Abbey Road album, and rather than forcing the writing, they decided to combine them into a medley.
They had tried something similar on smaller scale before on Sgt. Pepper, when A Day In the Life was built by combining Lennon’s half (titled In the Life of…) with McCartney’s untitled half (sometimes referred to as I Went Into A Dream) with enormous success. They were interested in seeing if this approach could work with several smaller ideas. Plus, they had a lot of unfinished ideas. This could be a way of finishing them.
Her Majesty was just one of these smaller ideas, recorded by McCartney alone on 2 July 1969 when he arrived before the rest of the group at Abbey Road. They were due to meet up to record Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight that day.
The song itself had been attempted during the discarded Let It Be sessions, and a longer version from those sessions exists. That original take starts similarly, except Paul sings a whole octave higher. A second verse adds electric guitars by George and a subtle Ringo drum beat.
On Abbey Road, the track was initially placed between Mean Mr. Mustard and Polyethene Pam in the medley. With the release of the working demos on the 50th Anniversary Edition of the album, we can now hear an early version of ‘the long one’ with Her Majesty in that position. It is a bit weird to hear it there, and with its sparse finger-picking acoustic arrangement it feels a little out of place between the much fuller arrangements of the other songs. McCartney came to the same conclusion on 30 June 1969 when he listened through a tentative full mix of the complete piece. It wasn’t a good fit, so he asked sound engineer John Kurlander to edit out Her Majesty and throw the recording away.
Kurlander had however received very strict instructions from George Martin to never throw away anything at all that the Beatles had recorded. When McCartney had left the studio, he recovered the tape from the bin and stuck it onto the very end of the reel – just in case anyone would need it anyway. He made sure to add twenty seconds of connecting tape (soundless tape used to connect recordings) between The End and Her Majesty so that nobody would think the latter recording was part of the album.
The next day, Malcolm Davies made a new acetate of “the long one” for yet another screening. He noticed the connecting tape and read the instruction that Her Majesty should not be included, but he had also heard of Martin’s instructions that nothing should be thrown away. With this in mind, he included Her Majesty on the transfer, but kept the twenty second break.
McCartney was surprised to hear the track come up at the end, but really liked the surprise effect that the break gave. With this, he liked the piece much better and felt it could stay after all – as a surprise ending. The other guys in the band concured.
In the spirit of that surprise, Her Majesty was not added to the album’s track listing initially. This caused some rumblings with Northern Songs (the publishing house owning the Lennon/McCartney song catalogue) as they noticed that they were losing royalties by not having the track listed. This was an argument between them and McCartney for years, but things were worked out in time for the CD release of the album in 1987 and it has been listed on every format since.
Many have wondered why the track ends so suddenly. It almost seems like the last chord is missing, and that is exactly the case. That last chord was left hanging over the first chord of Polythene Pam and was lost when Kurlander removed Her Majesty from the medley. It can no longer be heard on the album, as the chord was removed in the clean-up for the album’s final sound mix. We can however still hear the final chord of Mean Mr. Mustard play as Her Majesty begins.
A complete, uncut recording of the track existed and could have been used, but the band decided to use the edit as it was, overlaps and sudden endings and all. The 50th Anniversary release of the album finally gives us a glimpse of the complete track, in the form of several complete takes with the first and final chords intact.
Her Majesty is not the only Beatle track to directly refer to Queen Elizabeth II, the others being Penny Lane, Mean Mr. Mustard and For You Blue.
In 2002, McCartney was due to headline the ‘Party At The Palace’ concert celebrating the Queen’s Golden Jubilee. Before the band came on, Paul appeared alone with an acoustic guitar and played Her Majesty. It had rarely been performed before so this was a surprising, if somewhat fitting, occasion. “I’m sorry, but I just had to do it” he said, addressing the Queen from stage.
Macca and the Queen have met several times and seem to have a good rapport. During one of their meets, the Queen famously once said “We have many Beatles records at home.” Paul responded “That’s great! I have many Queen records at home too!” The Queen laughed quite heartily at this.
And why wouldn’t she? Her Majesty really is a very nice girl. She just hasn’t got a lot to say.
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