Even if you don’t listen to anything else this month, close the curtains, switch off your phone, put the cat out, disable your home assistant of choice… and indulge yourself in 2 minutes, 41 seconds of sonic perfection. Track 39 of the new Abbey Road 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition, the majestic isolated strings and brass track from Something, is as good as it gets. George Harrison’s stirring contribution to The Beatles’ final masterpiece was John Lennon’s favourite song on the album; for what it’s worth, it’s probably my favourite Beatles song of all. Of course, you already own Abbey Road, you know it inside out from Come Together to Her Majesty and even dutifully refrain from skipping track 3; so, well you might wonder why the most polished of all Beatles records needed revisiting at all; but it’s moments such as these that lay bare the extreme musicality and vision that still coursed through the band and George Martin as The End approached. Facing up to the challenge of “how do you make it more hi-fi?”
You might wonder why the most polished of all Beatles records needed revisiting