ABSTRACT
On Abbey Road, their final recording project together, the Beatles broke new ground on several fronts. It was their first album recorded mostly on eight-track tape machines; their first using solid-state electronics; their first album released exclusively in stereo. And it presented the most extended composition in the group's catalog: the track beginning with “You Never Give Me Your Money” and finishing with “The End,” which comprises most of the album's side-two. The track came to be called the medley, though that fails to describe the piece's true nature. This essay is a comprehensive analysis of the track's interactive elements. In addition to musical and lyric syntax and structure, topics of study include analysis of sonic texture and textural narrative, stereo choreography, and performance styles. I hope to illuminate the compositional techniques by which the Beatles’ recording team achieved the overarching flow and connectivity that makes this track such a fitting finale to one of the greatest recording careers of the 1960s.
