The Beatles: For 15 Minutes, Tremendous

By NIK COHN

Individually, the numbers are nothing special. ``Mean Mr. Mustard'' is a catchy melody line; ``Polythene Pam'' is a nice snatch of Liverpudlia; there are four beautiful bars during ``Golden Slumbers,'' and a brief passage of Merrill E. Moore barrelhouse piano on ``You Never Give Me Your Money.'' Apart from that, it's all pretty average stuff. Most of the melody lines have been used elsewhere, and some of the lyrics are quite painful. Still, for three main reasons, it works.

The first reason is just that it's brilliantly produced: the Beatles know as much about recording as anyone outside of Phil Spector, and the whole medley is perfectly paced; it builds just right.

The second reason is that it carries genuine surprises. Over the last four years the Beatles have become increasingly verbose; no chance of a one-liner where a 10-minute sermon might do. But here they suddenly stop the bull -- before you get a chance to be bored by anything, something new is happening and, by the end, there's a real sense of speed, they're almost flying.

The third reason, by far the most important, is the sheer range of melodic invention. Faced by such a giant jumble of tunes, all piled one on top of another, there's no way of escaping the fact that Lennon-McCartney do write a prodigious number of true songs. Not just riffs and patterns, but the real thing, genuine melodies.

As it happens, most of the lines here are steals, partly pinched from other people and partly from other Beatle albums. The fact remains that no one else in rock could have achieved the same result. What with counterstrains and links, there are maybe 15 tunes in as many minutes -- all of them instantly hummable, all of them potential hits. It's a tour de force and it's terrific.

The total effect is a bit like a jam session. Of course, one knows well that it isn't spontaneous in the least, that each fragment has been worked over endlessly, but the sense of ease survives. Melodies drift in, drift out, are re-echoed, are merged with something fresh. Good is intertwined with bad, new with old, and it doesn't matter too much which is which. In the end, it's all just music-making and it's hard to resist.

The great drawback is the words. There was a time when the Beatles's lyrics were one of their greatest attractions. Not any more. On ``Abbey Road,'' you get only marshmallow.

Originally, Lennon-McCartney had one major lyrical strength -- they sounded real. Maybe they didn't attempt anything very profound, but what they did attempt was always personal. ``She was just 17, you know what I mean''; it wasn't great art, but on its own level, it worked just right. It was strong and it was evocative.

That's all changed now. On ``Abbey Road'' the words are limp-wristed, pompous and fake. Clearly, the Beatles have now heard so many tales of their own genius that they've come to believe them, and everything here is swamped in Instant Art. Give me just five minutes in the privacy of your own home and I can make you a super-bard. Here the very sensitive Paul McCartney shows us how:

She came in through the bathroom window,

Protected by a silver spoon

But now she sucks her thumb and wanders

By the banks of her own lagoon.



Still, I shouldn't grouse. Lyrics and all, the ``Abbey Road'' medley remains a triumph.

Having said that I must also say that the rest of this album is unmitigated disaster.

The six tracks on the first side and the opening two tracks on the flip are all write-offs: there's a Ringo Starr nursery rhyme; a quick burst of sub-Brian Wilson; two songs by George Harrison, mediocrity incarnate; yet another slice of Paul McCartney twenties nostalgia, and an endless slow blues.

The badness ranges from mere gentle tedium to cringing embarrassment. The blues, for instance, is horribly out of tune, and Ringo's ditty is purest Mickey Mouse. The only interesting failures are two numbers by John Lennon, ``Come Together'' and ``Oh! Darling.''

``Come Together'' is a slowed-down reworking of Chuck Berry's ``You Can't Catch Me'' and is intriguing only as a sign of just how low Lennon can sink these days. ``You Can't Catch Me'' is a very great song, after all, and lumbering it with the kind of ``Look Ma, I'm Jesus'' lyrics that Lennon unloads here is not a crime that I'd like to have on my conscience.

``Oh! Darling'' is more complex. Basically, it's just a 1950's ballad, the kind of thing that the Platters or the Penguins might have done. Lennon has always had a terrific voice, and here he halfway tears his lungs out. Just the same, it doesn't sound right. Why not? Just because he tries too hard.

Slow 1950's rock was something very formal, a ritual as classic and changeless as bullfighting, in which each embellishment and each progression had its own exact function. On ``Oh! Darling,'' Lennon flounders in an orgy of gulps, howls and retches, flung together at random, and the whole point is lost.

This kind of overkill, in fact, has become very much a Beatles trademark. It ruined their last double-album, and it ruins two-thirds of ``Abbey Road.'' The great strength of the medley is that it doesn't overkill -- no repetitions, no heavy breathing. It gets back toward the kind of ease and style that the Beatles had five years ago.

Really, the medley should have carried on throughout the whole album, and that might have been something marvelous. Counting the unreleased ``Get Back'' album, the Beatles have cut upward of 60 tracks in a year, and at least two-thirds of those have been dead wood. But if only they'd taken the 20 best and woven them together, they'd have made one tremendous album.

As it stands, ``Abbey Road'' isn't tremendous. Still, it has 15 fine minutes and, by rock standards, that's a lot.