(Credits: Far Out / Album Cover)

To many, The Beatles‘ highest moment came on Abbey Road. The 1969 album was the band’s true swan song – after the contentious sessions that characterised the Get Back project, the band re-teamed with producer George Martin and returned to EMI Studios to cut what turned out to be their final LP together. With the addition of former engineer Geoff Emerick and major leaps in technology available to them, The Beatles created the most lush and pristinely produced album of their entire career. Just before Abbey Road hit store shelves, John Lennon announced that he was out of the group, truly making it the final curtain call for the world’s biggest band.

Except that’s not really how it shook out. After Lennon’s departure, Michael Lindsay-Hogg completed his documentary covering the Get Back sessions. As such, the recorded material was assembled into what would be the final album released by The Beatles, Let It Be. Although Lennon had privately departed the group first, the conflicts between the scheduled release dates of Let It Be and Paul McCartney’s debut solo album caused McCartney to claim that he had no plans to work with his bandmates in the near future. That statement was interpreted as a breakup by the press as McCartney was viewed as the main conspirator.

By most accounts, The Beatles seemed to understand (directly or otherwise) that Abbey Road would be their final project together. After the final mixing sessions for ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’ on August 20th, 1969, the four band members would never again be in the same studio together. Although it was generally seen to be more harmonious than the Get Back sessions, the Abbey Road sessions continued some of the ongoing conflicts that would eventually lead to the band’s breakup less than a year later.

Abbey Road features a significant step away from the band’s rock and roll roots that were the impetus of the Get Back sessions. Instead, the group embraced ambitious compositions, orchestral arrangements, and intricately layered harmonies. The album’s second side features a long medley that represented the group’s most ambitious composition. Still, Lennon remained unhappy with the final product, dismissing the medley as “junk” and derisively calling McCartney’s ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ “granny music”.

During its initial release, Abbey Road received a mixed critical reception. The album became George Harrison’s coming out party as an equal songwriter, but the whiplash-inducing qualities of the medley were a point of derision. There were also accusations that the album was overproduced and didn’t hold together as a final product. Nevertheless, Abbey Road became one of the biggest-selling albums of all time and remains one of The Beatles’ most beloved and admired works.

The range of music that appears on Abbey Road remains eclectic and diverse. From doo-wop to music hall to experimental drone music and delicate ballads, Abbey Road synthesised the “everything and the kitchen sink” approach to music that The Beatles embraced on The White Album and condensed it into a 45-minute opus. The material that appears on the record is certainly varied, but it all adds up to one of the most unique LPs of all time.

For this list, we’ve decided to rate each song as a separate entity. That means that every song that appears in the side two medley, plus the ending track ‘Her Majesty’, will be judged on their own individual merits and not as a part of a longer piece. Here is how every song on Abbey Road stacks up against each other.

The Beatles’ Abbey Road songs ranked:

17. ‘Her Majesty’

What a sad reality that a 25-second snippet has to compete against major heavyweights in the band’s canon like ‘Something’ and ‘Come Together’. But that’s just the way that this list goes, and the fact that ‘Her Majesty’ is barely a song means that it has to go at the bottom of this list.

Originally, ‘Her Majesty’ was supposed to be slotted between ‘Mean Mr. Mustard’ and ‘Polythene Pam’ in the side two medley, and through a series of somewhat random events, it eventually appeared at the tail end of the record. Original prints of the album don’t even include the song’s name, making it perhaps the first hidden track in pop music history, but that’s probably the song’s only real distinction.

16. ‘Mean Mr. Mustard’

John Lennon had some choice words for ‘Mean Mr. Mustard’ later in life. He called it “a bit of crap I wrote in India” in the Anthology book. He told David Sheff that the song was “a piece of garbage” in 1980. As it stands, it very well may be the song that Lennon hated most out of all of his released Beatles material. And that’s saying something.

On its own merits, ‘Mean Mr. Mustard’ is a perfectly fine distraction. It’s one minute long, decently catchy, and relatively inoffensive. That’s not going to score it any points here, with its only real interesting section coming as the band switches from 4/4 to 3/4 in the song’s final moments.

15. ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’

Make no mistake: the rest of The Beatles hated recording ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’. Lennon was dismissive, Harrison was agitated at the song’s appearance, and even Ringo Starr was miffed that McCartney was so insistent on getting it right. For a goofy-ass music hall ode to murder that’s as frumpy and plodding as any Beatles song ever was, it’s hard not to see their side of things.

McCartney initially presented ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ during the Get Back sessions and continued to labour over the track (much to his bandmates’ collective chagrin) for most of the Abbey Road sessions. If you’re in the right mood, ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ can be a silly and fun time, but if you’re at all irritated by McCartney’s cutesy approach, it’s going to be a major slog.

14. ‘Polythene Pam’

Another song that suffers from the fact that it’s not a complete composition, ‘Polythene Pam’ nevertheless has some fun energy that other tracks on the album don’t quite have. The real thing holding back ‘Polythene Pam’ is the complete nonsense lyrics that John Lennon spits out. It sounds as though Lennon took one or two passes at the words, decided it was good enough, and let it just hang loose.

The song sounds great, especially the fullness of Starr’s tom-tom drums and the floating harmonies that make Abbey Road such an enthralling listen, but they’re put to better use elsewhere on the album. ‘Polythene Pam’ is undeniable filler, but it’s enjoyable filler.

13. ‘She Came In Through The Bathroom Window’

Unlike the medley songs that we’ve already talked about, ‘She Came In Through The Bathroom Window’ has the distinction of sounding like it was a full composition that had to be trimmed down by necessity to fit into the medley. With a rich doo-wop vocal blend and a shifting harmonic centre, ‘Bathroom Window’ actually seems like more than meets the eye.

That doesn’t negate the fact that it’s still a two-minute diversion that works best in the full context of the medley. But just listen to McCartney’s bouncy bass line, or Starr’s creative fills, or Harrison’s slinky lead guitar work. For a song that probably didn’t need this much attention to detail, ‘Bathroom Window’ contains a surprising amount of depth.

12. ‘Carry That Weight’

We might never know what Paul McCartney was really thinking when he penned ‘Carry That Weight’. During the album’s recording, there were no real plans to break up the band. It was mostly business as usual at EMI Studios. McCartney later claimed that the impetus for the song came from the band’s precarious financial problems that plagued them at the time.

But with the benefit of hindsight, it seems obvious that ‘Carry That Weight’ was about more than business woes. Instead, it seems like an acknowledgement of what the four Beatles accomplished together and how it was going to hang over them for the rest of their lives.

11. ‘The End’

The side two medley needed to go out with a bang, so what had to be done? How about everyone in the band, including Ringo Starr, taking a solo and jamming together one last time? Then, as things reach an apex, a simple message of “And in the end / The love you take / Is equal to the love you make” sends the song and the album soaring to a brilliantly lush conclusion.

It’s a lot to put in just over two minutes, but ‘The End’ still stands as an iconic Beatles composition. It’s the perfect capper to the album’s ending medley, giving each member a chance to shine on his own while still showing off the unity and chemistry that came so naturally to them. While ‘Her Majesty’ is technically the final song, ‘The End’ is the iconic end to The Beatles’ career synthesised in one song.

10. ‘Octopus’s Garden’

And now, ladies and gentlemen, Ringo Starr. It would be easy to throw ‘Octopus’s Garden’ near the bottom of this list. In fact, if you’re not privy to Ringo’s charms, everything that was said about ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ could also apply to ‘Octopus’s Garden’. It’s simple, goofy, and not nearly at the level that most of the other full-length songs are at. Hell, even some of the brief medley additions are better.

But ‘Octopus’s Garden’ is just so much damn fun that it’s impervious to any real stinging criticisms. Starr is perfectly in his element singing about underwater caves and safe refuges, while the rest of the band bolster him up with their most infectious aquatic sing-along since ‘Yellow Submarine’. Maybe it’s at the same level as the best of his bandmates’ material, but I defy anyone not to enjoy ‘Octopus’s Garden’ the next time they spin Abbey Road.

9. ‘Golden Slumbers’

Hidden within the side two medley is one of McCartney’s most impressive ballads. ‘Golden Slumbers’ has the structure of a simple lullaby, but since its writer was reaching something of a peak when it came to ambitious orchestration and poetic imagery, the song gets elevated into something much bigger.

From McCartney’s yearning for home to the melancholy string section adding palpable drama and tension, ‘Golden Slumbers’ is one of the more epic compositions on Abbey Road. It’s short, sweet, and to the point, with no excess fat or meandering. It’s a lovely track that fits perfectly into the medley but might be even better outside of it.

8. ‘You Never Give Me Your Money’

Technically speaking, this is where the side two medley begins. That might seem a bit strange given that ‘You Never Give Me Your Money’ is recorded and structured like its own independent entity. But in terms of setting the stage for what’s to come, ‘You Never Give Me Your Money’ works so perfectly that it even gets its own little reprise in ‘Carry That Weight’.

Born out of the bitter legal battles that were coming out of Apple Corps at the time, ‘You Never Give Me Your Money’ is vitriolic, funny, and beautiful all at the same time. From its delicate intro to its explosive “out of college” barrelhouse piano section to the rumbling “one sweet dream” section to the descending coda that leads perfectly into ‘Sun King’, ‘You Never Give Me Your Money’ is bursting at the seams with creativity.

7. ‘Sun King’

After the hectic maximalism of ‘You Never Give Me Your Money’, The Beatles slow things down and descend into the most relaxing and dream-like song in their entire discography. Taking a cue from Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Albatross’, ‘Sun King’ conjures up a specific atmosphere that isn’t felt anywhere else on Abbey Road.

The sounds of buzzing insects and delicate mallet percussion from Starr set up ‘Sun King’ as a truly chill experience. Put that together with some intricate guitar work, pitch-perfect harmonies, and a hypnotic bass line from McCartney, and you get the most immersive song on Abbey Road. Not even the nonsense faux-French at the conclusion can detract from the final product.

6. ‘Oh! Darling’

Paul McCartney had a problem: his voice was too pristine for ‘Oh! Darling’. Pretty much everyone in the world would kill to have McCartney’s “problem”, but he decided to get his voice a little more tough and ragged for the old-school doo-wop pleading of ‘Oh! Darling’. And you know what? It worked out perfectly.

An underrated and complex track, ‘Oh! Darling’ seems like a basic pastiche of a 1950s ballad on its surface. But with every new listen comes new layers to unpack from the song, from its haunting augmented chord to McCartney’s titanic lead vocal performance to some classic John Lennon guitar stabs. It’s almost impossible not to get swept up in the excitement of the track, especially when the song explodes into its final chorus and nails its tricky landing.

5. ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’

Here’s the truth: there are only 14 words used throughout the entirety of ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’. Across eight minutes of looping doom rock, Lennon manages to say so much with so little. Communicating love, madness, lust, desire, and anxiety in just 14 words is a major accomplishment. For anyone who’s gotten lost in the tumbling swirl of ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’, you know that there’s not a second wasted.

At once the rawest and most experimental song on the album, ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’, adds some necessary tension and grit to an album that is otherwise pristine. It’s a slap in the face, whereas the rest of the album is a warm hug. It’s a necessary jolt just as you’re getting lulled to sleep. It’s a wild experience that reaches a frightening apex before coming to a sudden end that leaves you feeling cold and uncertain. That’s all to say that it’s a near-perfect composition.

4. ‘Come Together’

John Lennon was asked to write an anthemic political song for LSD visionary Timothy Leary and his campaign to become Governor of California. The campaign song fell through, but Lennon was left with the remnants of Leary’s slogan: “Come Together – Join the Party!” From there, he created a swampy song that paired a genius Paul McCartney bass line with a bluesy structure and came out with one of his most beloved compositions.

When you check under the hood, there are plenty of elements to ‘Come Together’ that make it seem like it’s not the most original or durable of songs. For one, Lennon clearly riffs off of Chuch Berry’s ‘You Can’t Catch Me’, so much so that he was sued into recording a whole album’s worth of rock covers in the 1970s. There’s also the fact that most of the song’s lyrics are complete gibberish. And yet, none of those factors seem to detract from the fact that ‘Come Together’ is the perfect album opener and a classic slice of hypnotic psychedelia.

3. ‘Here Comes The Sun’

George Harrison was fed up. He was tired of the control that Lennon and McCartney had exerted over him, the lack of say he had in the band’s material, and especially the constant business meetings that had become part of the daily grind that came with being a Beatle. During an unseasonably warm day, Harrison decided to play hooky, ditch his scheduled meetings, and abscond over to his friend Eric Clapton’s garden. While there, Harrison formed the basis of one of his greatest songs of all time.

More than anything else, ‘Here Comes The Sun’ represents the barely-contained creativity that was practically bursting out of Harrison at the time. With a genius melody at his disposal, Harrison also crafted a perfect composition featuring meter changes, Moog synthesiser, and heavenly harmonies between him and McCartney. The result is pure sonic bliss, the likes of which Harrison would explore more thoroughly once he shook off The Beatles for good.

2. ‘Because’

After a major bout of writer’s block crippled his contributions during the Get Back sessions, Lennon came back swinging on Abbey Road. Between the sinister lust of ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’ and the engrossing blues of ‘Come Together’, Lennon was back on top of his game. But pound for pound, Lennon’s most enthralling composition on the album has to be ‘Because’.

With a little bit of help from Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight Sonata’ and George Martin’s steady hand on the harpsichord, ‘Because’ has a firm foundation. But it’s when Lennon, Harrison, and McCartney add their soaring harmonies that the song truly comes alive. By far the single most impressive group vocal performance of the band’s career, ‘Because’ shows why all four members of the band worked better in tandem than they were apart.

1. ‘Something’

As Paul McCartney and John Lennon saw their creative partnership falter toward the end of the 1960s, George Harrison emerged as a true equal. Completely independent and underappreciated, Harrison had evolved into a talented songwriter, wonderful singer, and keen musician outside of his given duties of “lead guitarist”. Harrison had things to say, songs to sing, and people to impress. That all came to a head with ‘Something’, easily the most impressive and fascinating song on Abbey Road.

Perfectly fusing the elements of a classic love song with timeless musical ideas and a genius orchestral overdub, ‘Something’ feels like a song that was forged in time and had always existed. Everyone is on top of their game in ‘Something’, from McCartney’s jaunty bass line to Starr’s understated fills and even Lennon’s rollicking bridge piano part. But it’s Harrison who comes out as the force to be reckoned with on ‘Something’, blowing his bandmates out of the water without even trying.

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