The EPIC guitar masterpiece that closes the Abbey Road album! One of the final songs the Beatles recorded together, "The End" features solos by all members of the band, including an extended section of trading guitar solos by Paul, George and John. The rest of the song likewise features tight guitar parts by George and John, showing that their guitar chemistry was ever present until the end.

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The basic track for "The End" was recorded on July 23, 1969, and photos from the session show George playing his red Lucy Gibson Les Paul and John on his sanded Epiphone Casino. The photos reveal that John was experimenting with a capo at the 5th fret, however, the low E notes heard on his presumed recorded guitar part contradict this. Based on my analysis of the guitar parts (and assuming George played the bending lead parts at the beginning), John did not perform the final version of "The End" with the capo.

After the first few bends, both guitars play a mostly chromatic walkup, with both parts blending to sound like one giant guitar (0:04). This is accomplished by John playing a lower, more tightly harmonized walkup with George playing a part that includes a monotonous A note on the first three notes (C#, D, D#). George then transitions to playing single notes for the E, F, and F# notes (0:05). To conclude the phrase, George plays a bluesy lick while John smacks muted E and A power chords (0:07).

Not much changes for the repeat of the introduction (0:11). However, John's guitar on the chromatic walkup sounds a little bit more distorted, so I increased the volume of my Epiphone Casino just beforehand (0:13).

After Ringo's drum solo, both guitars play a repeating A7 to D7 pattern. For the very first hit of A7, John's guitar is slightly muted, and for the second hit, he plays a lower, growling power chord (0:20). The A7 chord George plays features a more prominent G note, leading me to believe he played his A7 in the open position. However, the voicing of this A7 chord is the same as the one John plays at the 5th fret, except for the high A note. This means that George might have played in the same positions as John, but the loud G note leads me to believe he played it in the way shown in the video. John's guitar part has a clear high D note on the D7 chords, meaning he played it at the 10th fret. Starting at 0:35, John played the D7 chord with a high E note, which he repeats until 4 repetitions before the end of the solo section.

Now the solo section begins! (0:40). The solos were recorded live on the floor of Abbey Road Studio 2 in one take on August 7, 1969. The section features blistering guitar phrasing by Paul, George, and John, each with a slightly different sound. Paul's phrases tend to be in your face single note lines, while George plays Clapton-esque bends and vibrato. John's guitar is extremely distorted, and his phrasing tends to include Chuck Berry style double stops.

One point of analysis is exemplified by this awesome solo section. None of the Beatles are particularly exemplarily improvisers. Throughout their careers, they largely favored planning and forethought with their recordings and live performances. This is evidenced by listening to recordings of the Beatles where the solos are played similarly again and again ("I Saw Her Standing There", live), as well as the fact that solos were often left to be overdubbed so they could be composed. Having said this, The Beatles are masterful composers, meaning that their guitar solo phrasing was often unlike any of their more improvisational peers, which had a tendency to repeat similar pentatonic scale licks. As mentioned in Geoff Emerick's book, the Beatles took time to think about what they would play for "The End" solo section, and the phrases that were put to tape are, to this day, still unique.

There is a lot of pickup switching during the solo section. George uses the middle pickup for his second phrase, and the click is audible during the end of Paul's solo (0:55). John likewise changes from the neck pickup to the bridge back to the neck. George plays an extraneous A note at 1:05.

Description continued in the pinned comment below!

Instruments Used:
George Harrison Guitar: 2006 Gibson Les Paul Standard
John Lennon Guitar: 2001 Epiphone Casino Standard (modified)
Paul McCartney Guitar: Epiphone Casino Elitist
Amplifier: Fender Custom Vibrolux Reverb (1995)
Pedal: Xotic AC Booster
Leslie: 1967 Leslie 16

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