Beatles Expert Reveals Band's Plans for an LP after 'Abbey Road'

As we near the 50th anniversary of Abbey Road, there will no doubt be a lot of talk about how it was the final album The Beatles' recorded. However, according to Beatles-historian Mark Lewisohn, the album that literally ends with "The End" was not intended to be the end. The author of the ongoing, exhaustive, three-volume biography The Beatles: All These Years, told the Guardian that there is a tape of John, Paul, and George discussing the format for a post-Abbey Road album (Ringo was in the hospital with gut issues). The tape was recorded on September 8, 1969, just 18 days before the release of Abbey Road.

Lewisohn reports that John wanted separate credits for the non-collaborative Lennon and McCartney songs included on the disc, which he also wanted to be more democratic, with four songs apiece by those at the meeting and two by Ringo. Things get snippy when Paul complains about the quality of George's pre-Abbey Road material and George defends himself while John takes a swipe at the quality of Paul's own "Maxwell's Silver Hammer," which his bandmates famously loathed. Nevertheless, Lewisohn insists that the vibes were generally good and that a lead-off single was even being planned for X-Mas 1969. Read more in the profile of Mark Lewisohn over at the Guardian here.