On this day (October 1) in 1969, the Beatles released Abbey Road in the United States. It was five days after the album hit shelves in the United Kingdom. While it wouldn’t be the last album they released, it was the last one they recorded. In fact, John Lennon announced his decision to leave the band roughly a week before the album dropped in their home country.
Before working on Abbey Road, the band recorded Let It Be, which wasn’t released until 1970. Tensions and creative differences within the band made those sessions difficult. The presence of the production crew for the Let It Be documentary didn’t help. Things eventually got so tense that George Harrison left the band for a short time. The sessions that resulted in Abbey Road were much easier for everyone involved.
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Tensions between the band members remained. At the same time, they were constantly running into business issues with Apple Corps. However, when they came together in the studio, they were able to put it all aside. “In spite of all the things, the Beatles really could play music together when they weren’t uptight,” John Lennon said. “If I get a thing going, Ringo knows where to go. Like that. We’ve played together so long that it fits. That’s the only thing I sometimes miss is being able to just sort of blink or make a certain noise and I know they’ll all know where I’m going on an ad lib thing.”
The Beatles Say a Fine Farewell to Fans
It is a common misconception that the Beatles believed Abbey Road would be their final album. However, that’s not the case. They were actively trying to work out their differences even after the album hit shelves. However, producer George Martin recalled that there was a feeling of finality about the sessions.
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“Nobody knew for sure that it was going to be the last album–but everybody felt it was,” he said. “The Beatles had gone through so much and for such a long time. They’d been incarcerated with each other for nearly a decade, and I was surprised that they had lasted as long as they did. I wasn’t at all surprised that they’d split up because they all wanted to lead their own lives,” he added.
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