Her Majesty

Ever since I first read of this song's placement at the end of the album Abbey Road in Mark Lewisohn's book The Beatles: Recording Sessions, it has become one of my favorite stories of the group's career.  For such a brief song snippet, the tale surrounding it is rather long and complex.

On July 2nd, 1969, Paul McCartney arrived at the studio first, as was his custom.  He had this little ditty running around in his head and took the opportunity to get it down on tape.  Playing an acoustic guitar, it only required three takes before he was satisfied.  He thought that the song might fit nicely in the long medley that he and producer George Martin were planning, so it was set aside for just that purpose.

By July 30th, every song earmarked for the medley was in some state of production and a rough mix of the proposed running order was assembled for a listening session.  Remarkably, the songs were already laid out in the exact order that we would come to hear them - with one exception.  Her Majesty was placed between two John Lennon compositions, Mean Mr. Mustard and Polythene Pam.  Upon hearing it in that position, Paul felt that his quick acoustic number killed the flow, so he told second engineer John Kurlander to cut it out of the tape and throw it away.

Of course, Abbey Road Studios engineers were instructed to never throw anything away.  Kurlander thus stuck about 20 seconds of leader tape onto the front of the song and attached it to the end of the medley so it would not get lost.  The next time Paul heard the medley, he was surprised to hear his song suddenly play after a long silence.  What made it sound even more surprising was the fact that Kurlander's rough edit began with the final crashing chord of Mean Mr. Mustard.  And it cut off before the final chord of Her Majesty, which makes it seem as if it had been done by design, since the other side of the album ends with a hard edit of I Want You (She's So Heavy).

The Beatles were always fond of embracing happy accidents, and this was no exception.  Early pressings of the album did not even list the song on the back cover, making it a surprise for fans, as well.  This unexpected little delight even serves to undercut the grandiose finale, much like George Harrison's decision to put some laughter after his serious number Within You Without You on Sgt. Pepper.

Bootlegs have given fans the chance to hear the song as originally recorded, including the simple final chord, which is buried under the opening of Polythene Pam on the album, and minus the crashing chord left over from Mean Mr. Mustard.