Index
Home
Vorige
The End
Composer(s) : Lennon and McCartney
Year : 1969
Chords/Tabs: The End
Notes on "The End" (TE)
KEY A Major -> C Major
METER 4/4
FORM Part 1 -> Part 2 -> Part 3 (Finale) w/complete ending
GENERAL POINTS OF INTEREST
Style and Form
- The already exceedingly fervent mood of the
GS/CTW pairing is taken up
yet one more euphoric notch in "The End" (TE), providing _Abbey Road_
with what is likely the the single grandest finale gesture on any album
of The Beatles.
- The form here is a mini-medley of three parts in which the loose
relationship between the first two parts adds some sense of unity,
and the proportional division of time by all three parts creates some
feeling of A-B-A symmetry despite the fact that the the two outer parts
are based on separate materials. By parsing the long drum solo as still
part of the first part we find the following budget of time on the track:
Part 1 34
Part 2 55
Part 3 35
Total 124 seconds (2:04)
Melody and Harmony
- The melodic content of the first two parts is more in the realm of booster
chanting than they are of a "tune," though the final part features one nice
extended and outstretched melodic arch.
- The home key of the track is A Major with a last minute shift, in the
second half of the final part, to the key of C. This gambit of a migrating
home key goes against the entire philosophy of more traditional "tonal"
music, though it does have its ample precedents in so-called "classical"
early 20th century music, and is arguably something very much at the
technical and emotional core of the Beatles' "Huge Melody" we've been
studying.
Arrangement
- Most of the track is backed by the rock ensemble of guitars, bass,
and drums, with the small small orchestra joining in at the end, just
around the same time the music modulates to C Major.
- The large amount of showy solo instrumental work is unusual if not
outright unique for the Beatles, as is the funky stereo imaging of the
drum solo.
- Paul is nominally the vocal soloist for the two outer parts. The
middle part uses a group choral chant as part of the background.
The final part features a novel effect where Paul's solo is gradually
refracted like light through a prism into 3-part vocal harmony that
includes John and George.
SECTION-BY-SECTION WALKTHROUGH
Part 1: Oh yeah, all right
- Notation-wise, I've backed myself over the past few articles into a
pattern where the quarter note beat from here to the end is very fast.
I'll grant that some (many?) would be more comfortable with my treating
my quarter notes as eighths, and thus dividing the number of measures in
half. Please bear with me for now.
- TE begins with a pickup that springboards right off the ending of
CTW.
The first part of the song is based around the following eight
measure phrase which establishes the home key by unusual means:
3 4 |1 2 3 4 |1 2 3 4 |1 2 3 4 |1 2 3 4 |
A |D |- B |E |- A |
A: V-of-IV IV V-of-V V I
|1 2 3 4 |1 2 3 4 |1 2 3 4 |1 2 3 4 |
|- |- B#7|- |- A |
#ii dim. 4/2 I
- The harmonic shape on paper appears to be closed at both ends, but
opening A chord sounds much more like V of D than I of A, and it makes
the phrase sound much more harmonically convergent than closed.
- I'm fussy about labelling the diminished 7th chord above as rooted on
the apparently unusual note of B# because it's the clearest/cleanest
way to denote the neighbor tone voice leading that underlies its resolution
to A Major in the following measure:
F# ->E
D# ->E
B# ->C#
A -
- The heavily syncopated effect of changing chords on the fourth beat of
the measure in this very fast tempo is a not at all unpleasantly wrenching
effect that runs straight through the next part of the song, with the way
in which the backing vocal of "love you" is handled.
- The first iteration of the above phrase is entirely instrumental
and is followed by a four-measure drum solo, the last measure of which
loops back to repeat the phrase, this time with a screaming double
tracked Macca vocal:
|1 2 3 4 |1 2 3 4 |1 2 3 4 |1 2 3 4 |
|- |- |- |- A |
V-of-IV
- The second iteration is followed by a longer drum solo of 16 full
measures. The solo heads toward a unique point of climax which coincides
with the beginning of TE's second part, though that sense of strong
undertow is cleverly and effectively held back until relatively late
in the proceedings.
Part 2:
- The second part of TE is built on a 14-fold repeat of the following
four-measure frame which has the harmonic shape of a Plagal cadence:
Love you Love you
|1 2 3 4 |1 2 3 4 |1 2 3 4 |1 2 3 4 |
|A |- |D |- |
I IV
- The series of 14 iterations sorts out like this:
1 - 2 Instrumental backing, only.
3 - 5 Add choral "Love you," which stays through
for the duration. The instrumental backing
gets noticeably thicker in frame #5.
6 - 14 Dueling guitar solos. The first one sounds
like it spans two frames of the backing,
but the rest of them more obviously rotate
on each successive frame boundary.
- Much has been written about how the three guitar playing Beatles
participate round robbin in the series of solos, with detailed speculation
as to which Beatle plays which segments. I'm neither going to replicate
this material here nor take sides on points of dissention. For now, let's
just note generally that the effect they apparently were after was one in
soaring melodic effects alternate with others more grungy and rhythmic in
character.
Part 3: And in the end
- The third part begins where the 15th frame of part two would otherwise
have started. It is made up of one unusually long phrase which navigates
two modulations of meter and tempo (not to mention home key) before it is
finished.
- This part of the track is introduced by four measures of plain piano
simply vamping on the A Major chord. The momentary change of texture
is so dramatic that your ears need a few beats to get used to it; kind
of like what happens to your eyes when bright lights are suddenly dimmed
way down.
- Paul's lead vocal starts off by filling eight measures of this vamping
tempo. The second line of four measures superimposes a G Major chord in
the treble against that unchanging A natural in the bass line. Your ear
digests this as a pedal point with no grammatically significant root change
of chord.
- The words in both four-measure lines are scanned in the syncopated 3 + 3
+ 2 pattern we saw elsewhere on this album; e.g.
"Here Comes The Sun."
Paul's single thread is spread out into three part harmony starting in
the second line and continues through to the end. The high point of
the overall melodic arch of this section coincides (quel suprise!)
on the word "love:"
------------------------------- 2X ------------------------------
And in the end the
|1 2 3 4 |1 2 3 4 |1 2 3 4 |1 2 3 4 |
chords: |A |- |- |- |
bass: |A |- |- |- |
I
love you take is
|1 2 3 4 |1 2 3 4 |1 2 3 4 |1 2 3 4 |
chords: |G |- |- |- |
bass: |A |- |- |- |
- The next line of music makes a metrical modulation, shifting to 3/4
for just four measures, keeping the quarter value constant.
- Harmonically this line features an unusual kind of pedal point in which
the two *inner* voices are held constant (instead of the bass note), while
the outer two voices descend in parallel 6th:
3/4 (where quarter == quarter)
e- qual to the
soprano:|F |e |d |a |
alto: |C |- |- |- |
tenor: |A |- |- |- |
bass: |A |G |F |E |
flat VI
C: IV
- The pedal effect again allows you to hear the above line as being without
significant root chord change. The fateful pivot to C Major occurs at
the start of the the line with the F Major chord.
- The next (and final) line of the section makes yet another metrical/tempo
modulation; back to 4/4 but with the tempo made much slower by setting the
value of the new quarter note equal to a full measure of the previous 3/4
meter.
- The impending ending of the track is now clearly forecast by the setup
of a ripe full cadence, and the partial thickening of the backing track
by the reappearance of strings. The syncopation motif appears again in
the way the final word, "make," is sung just before the next downbeat:
4/4 (where 3/4 == quarter)
love you make
1 2 3 4 &
chords: |d7 G7 |
bass: |D G |
ii V
- The texture is further thickened back to "tutti" for the last four
measures with drums and brass. The reappearance of the high pitched,
singing lead guitar at this point is a deft unifying effect with the
middle part of the track.
- Harmonically the final stretch contains yet another pedal point which
at least partially disguises the stepwise chord stream of Major triads
used. In fact, if you ignore the interpolation of the E flat chord
(think of it as being in parenthesis), you can actually discern here
what is none other than a Beatles signature progression found at the
start of the likes of
"Eight Days A Week" and the title track of
"Sgt. Pepper."
chords: |C |D |Eb F |C |
bass: |C |- |Eb F |C |
I V-of-V (flat III)IV I
- The manner in which the treble strings and winds are sustained a brief
afterglowing instant after the voices and other instruments have ceased
making sound is IMHO sublime.
SOME FINAL THOUGHTS
- The mood of the very ending of this album is strangely reminsicent
of what a decade or so later would appear from the pen of one composer
for the cinema, John Williams, as his signature way of rolling the credits
over a musical backing of ultimate, happy ending, philharmonic triumph.
Almost any of his films will do for an example, though I think _ET_,
in particular, bears some direct comparison with TE; and even the letters
of both acronyms are related :-)
- Even more so, the dramatic ethos of this track is that of the curtain
closing number you sometimes encounter on the musical "stage." The drama
itself has already come to its formal conclusion, and now, the pit orchestra
blazes on without missing a beat for however much time it takes for each
of the the lead players to come out and take his curtain call and maybe even
squeeze in one seemingly impromptu and hammy last petit reprise, while the
audience applauds its head off.
Regards,
Alan (awp@world.std.com)
---
"We've got only half an hour till the final run-through." 013000#191
---
Copyright (c) 1995 by Alan W. Pollack
All Rights Reserved
This article may be reproduced, retransmitted, redistributed and
otherwise propagated at will, provided that this notice remains
intact and in place.
Ook op Abbey Road:
(c) 2024 Serge Girard