The End ( Beatles song ) - wikipedia The End ( Beatles song ) `` The End '' Song by the Beatles from the album Abbey Road Released 26 September 1969 ( 1969 - 09 - 26 ) Recorded 23 July -- 18 August 1969 Genre Hard rock art rock heavy metal Length 2 : 20 Label Apple Songwriter ( s ) Lennon -- McCartney Producer ( s ) George Martin `` The End '' is a song by the Beatles composed by Paul McCartney ( credited to Lennon -- McCartney ) for the album Abbey Road. It was the last song recorded collectively by all four Beatles, and is the final song of the medley that constitutes the majority of side two of the album. Contents 1 Composition and recording 2 Musical structure 3 Reception 4 Legacy 5 Cover versions 6 Personnel 7 Notes 8 References 9 External links Composition and recording McCartney said, `` I wanted ( the medley ) to end with a little meaningful couplet, so I followed the Bard and wrote a couplet. '' In his 1980 interview with Playboy, John Lennon acknowledged McCartney 's authorship by saying, `` That 's Paul again... He had a line in it, ' And in the end, the love you get is equal to the love you give, ' which is a very cosmic, philosophical line. Which again proves that if he wants to, he can think. '' Lennon misquoted the line ; the actual words are, `` And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make. '' The closing lyrics of `` The End '' inspired this plaque Recording began on 23 July 1969, when the Beatles recorded a one - minute, thirty - second master take that was extended via overdubs to two minutes and five seconds. At this point, the song was called `` Ending. '' The first vocals for the song were added on 5 August, additional vocals and guitar overdubs were added on 7 August, and bass and drums on 8 August, the day the Abbey Road cover picture was taken. Orchestral overdubs were added 15 August, and the closing piano and accompanying vocal on 18 August. All four Beatles have a solo in `` The End '', including a Ringo Starr drum solo. Starr disliked solos ; he preferred to cater drumwork to whoever sang in a particular performance. The take in which he performed the solo originally had guitar and tambourine accompaniment, but other instruments were muted during mixing giving the effect of a drum solo. The additional instruments were restored for a remix on the Anthology 3 compilation album. The drum solo was also later used at the beginning of `` Get Back '' on the 2006 album Love. McCartney, Harrison, and Lennon perform a rotating sequence of three, two - bar guitar solos. The solos begin approximately 53 seconds into the song and end just before the final piano part. Lennon described it in his 1970 interview with Rolling Stone : `` There 's a nice little bit I played on Abbey Road. Paul gave us each a piece, a little break where Paul plays, George plays and I play. '' The first two bars are played by McCartney, the second two by Harrison, and the third two by Lennon, then the sequence repeats. Each has a distinctive style which McCartney felt reflected their personalities : McCartney 's playing included string bends similar to his lead guitar work on `` Another Girl '' from the Help ! album and the stinging style he had first perfected on `` Taxman '' from Revolver ; Harrison 's solo incorporated the melodic yet technically advanced slides that were becoming his trademark ; lastly Lennon 's contribution was rhythmic, snarling, and had the heaviest distortion, echoing his lead work in `` Revolution ''. Immediately after Lennon 's third solo, the piano chords of the final line `` And in the end... '' begin. Then the orchestration arrangement takes over with a humming chorus and Harrison playing a final guitar solo that ends the song. The rough version of `` The End '' that concludes the Anthology 3 is followed by a slow fade - in and fade - out of a piano chord, which acts as a mirror to the long chord that ends `` A Day in the Life ''. `` The End '' was initially intended to be the final track on Abbey Road, but it ended up being followed by `` Her Majesty ''. Although `` The End '' stands as the last known new recording involving all four members of the Beatles, one additional song, `` I Me Mine '', would be recorded by three members of the group ( Lennon being absent due to being on holiday in Denmark ) in January 1970 for the album Let It Be. Musical structure The song commences in A major, with an initial I -- IV -- II -- V -- I structure matching the vocals on `` Oh, yeah, all right ! '' This is followed by a ♯ iv dim -- I pattern ( D ♯ dim to A chord ) on `` dreams tonight. '' During this, the accompanying bass and one guitar move chromatically from A to B and D ♯, while the second guitar harmonises a minor third higher to reach F ♯. An eight bar drum solo as a final statement of recognition to their `` steady, solid drummer '' ends with a crescendo of eighth notes and bass and rhythm guitar in seventh chords to the chant `` Love you. '' The sequential three guitar solos rotate through I ( A chord ) -- IV ( D chord ) changes in the key of A in a mix of `` major and minor pentatonic scales with slides, double - stops, repeated notes, low - bass string runs and wailing bends ''. Gould terms these live studio takes `` little character sketches '' : Paul opens with a characteristically fluid and melodically balanced line that sounds a high A before snaking an octave down the scale ; George responds by soaring to an even higher D and sustaining it for half a bar before descending in syncopated pairs of 16th notes ; John then picks upon the pattern of George 's 16ths with a series of choppy thirds that hammer relentlessly on the second and flattened seventh degrees of the scale. The second time through, Paul answers John 's blusey flattened 7ths with bluesy minor thirds and then proceeds to echo George 's earlier line, spiraling up to that same high D ; George responds with some minor thirds of his own, while mimicking the choppy rhythm of John 's part ; John then drops two octaves to unleash a growling single - note line. On this final two - bar solo, Paul plays almost nothing but minor thirds and flattened sevenths in a herky - jerky rhythm that ends with a sudden plunge to a low A ; George then reaches for the stars with a steeply ascending line that is pitched an octave above any notes heard so far ; and John finishes with a string of insistent and heavily distorted 4ths, phrased in triplets, that drag behind the beat and grate against the background harmony. The final `` Ah '' is in C with a spiritually evocative Plagal cadence IV -- I ( F -- C chord ) on piano while the voices do an F to E shift. `` And in the end the love you take '' is in A major, but the G / A chord supporting the word `` love '' begins to dissolve our certainty that we are in A, by adding a ♭ VII. The next line shifts us to the fresh key of C, with a iv ( F ) chord that threatens the dominance of the departing A key 's F ♯ : `` Is eq - ual '' ( supported successively by IV ( F ) -- iii ( Em ) chords with an A -- G bass line ) `` to the love '' ( supported successively by ii ( Dm ) -- vi ( Am ) -- ii ( Dm ) chords with a F -- E bass line ) `` you make '' ( supported by a V ( G ) chord ). The final bars in the key of C involve a I -- II -- ♭ III rock - type progression and a IV -- I soothing cadence that appear to instinctively reconcile different musical genres. Reception Richie Unterberger of Allmusic considered `` The End '' to be `` the group 's take on the improvised jamming common to heavy rock of the late ' 60s, though as usual The Beatles did it with far more economic precision than anyone else. '' John Mendelsohn of Rolling Stone said it was `` a perfect epitaph for our visit to the world of Beatle daydreams : ' The love you take is equal to the love you make. ' '' Legacy The song is included as the encore on The Beatles : Rock Band. McCartney 's second guitar solo, Lennon 's last guitar solo and Starr 's drum solo were used in the intro to `` Get Back '' in the Beatles ' Love. In Ralph Bakshi 's 1972 film Fritz the Cat, Fritz quotes the line `` the love you give is equal to the love you get '' when deciding not to plant a bomb in a nuclear power plant and rejecting violent revolutionary politics. The character 's creator, Robert Crumb, denounced this dialogue as `` red - neck and fascistic ''. The Beastie Boys sampled a portion of `` The End '' for their track `` The Sounds of Science '' from Paul 's Boutique. Chris Farley famously asked McCartney on the Chris Farley Show skit on Saturday Night Live, whether it was true that `` the love you take is equal to the love you make. '' McCartney replied, to Farley 's delight, that, in his experiences, it was, saying `` the more you give, the more you get. '' Paul McCartney performed the closing couplet of `` The End '' at the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony just prior to closing the event with a performance of the song `` Hey Jude. '' Peter Brown used the song 's lyric as the title of his book about the Beatles, The Love You Make. The closing couplet is sung by k.d. lang and partly spoken by Robin Williams ( as the character Lovelace ) at the end of the movie Happy Feet. The final episode of the long - running, American TV series ER ( 1994 -- 2009 ) is titled after some of the song 's lyrics, `` And in The End... ''. Cover versions When Mojo released Abbey Road Now ! in 2009, part of a continuing series of CDs of Beatles albums covered track - by - track by modern artists, `` The End '' was covered by The Loose Salute. Beatallica covered the song using the melody of Metallica 's `` The End of the Line ''. Personnel Paul McCartney -- lead and backing vocals, bass guitar, piano, guitar solo John Lennon -- backing vocals, rhythm guitar, guitar solo George Harrison -- backing vocals, rhythm and lead guitar, guitar solo Ringo Starr -- drums, backing vocals on the `` Love you '' chorus Personnel above per Ian MacDonald George Martin -- orchestration Notes Jump up ^ James M Lowrance. A Fan 's Tribute to the Beatles : Growing up with John, Paul, George and Ringo. Some of the songs they recorded are easily included in the heavy metal category, including ; Revolution, Helter Skelter, The End... ^ Jump up to : MacDonald 2005, p. 361. Jump up ^ Miles 1997, p. 558. Jump up ^ Sheff 2000, p. 204. Jump up ^ Hal Leonard 1993, pp. 252 -- 253. ^ Jump up to : Lewisohn 1988, p. 181. Jump up ^ Lewisohn 1988, pp. 185 -- 186. ^ Jump up to : Lewisohn 1988, p. 190. Jump up ^ Larry King Show 2007. Jump up ^ Apple Records 1996. Jump up ^ The Beatles 2000, p. 337. Jump up ^ Wenner 2000, p. 22. Jump up ^ Dominic Pedler. The Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles. Music Sales Limited. Omnibus Press. NY. 2003. pp. 392 -- 394 Jump up ^ Jonathan Gould. Ca n't Buy Me Love : The Beatles, Britain and America. Piatkus 2007 pp. 589 -- 590. ^ Jump up to : Gould, p. 590 Jump up ^ Pedler, p. 669 Jump up ^ Pedler, p. 33 Jump up ^ Pedler, pp. 669 -- 670 Jump up ^ Pedler, p. 671 Jump up ^ Unterberger 2007. Jump up ^ Mendelsohn 1969. Jump up ^ Maremaa, Thomas ( 2004 ) ( 1972 ). `` Who Is This Crumb ? ''. In Holm, D.K. R. Crumb : Conversations. Univ. Press of Mississippi. p. 28. ISBN 1 - 57806 - 637 - 9. Jump up ^ Search Jump up ^ `` Abbey Road Now - Track Listing - Mojo Cover CDs - The Definitive List ''. Jump up ^ `` Beatallica - Carry That Weight is another Jaymz tune, so... - Facebook ''. References Anthology 3 ( booklet ). The Beatles. London : Apple Records. 1996. 34451. The Beatles ( 2000 ). The Beatles Anthology. San Francisco : Chronicle Books. ISBN 0 - 8118 - 2684 - 8. The Beatles -- Complete Scores. Milwaukee : Hal Leonard Publishing Corporation. 1993. ISBN 0 - 7935 - 1832 - 6. `` Interview Transcript ''. Larry King Show. 26 June 2007. Retrieved 25 April 2009. Lewisohn, Mark ( 1988 ). The Beatles Recording Sessions. New York : Harmony Books. ISBN 0 - 517 - 57066 - 1. MacDonald, Ian ( 2005 ). Revolution in the Head : The Beatles ' Records and the Sixties ( Second Revised ed. ). London : Pimlico ( Rand ). ISBN 1 - 84413 - 828 - 3. Mendelsohn, John ( 15 November 1969 ). `` Review of Abbey Road ''. Rolling Stone. Retrieved 1 March 2007. Miles, Barry ( 1997 ). Paul McCartney : Many Years From Now. New York : Henry Holt & Company. ISBN 0 - 8050 - 5249 - 6. Sheff, David ( 2000 ). All We Are Saying : The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. New York : St. Martin 's Press. ISBN 0 - 312 - 25464 - 4. Unterberger, Richie ( 2007 ). `` Review of `` The End '' ``. Allmusic. Retrieved 1 March 2007. Wenner, Jann S ( 2000 ). Lennon Remembers ( Full interview from Lennon 's 1970 interview in Rolling Stone magazine ). London : Verso. ISBN 1 - 85984 - 600 - 9. External links Wikiquote has quotations related to : Abbey Road Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics Abbey Road Songs Side one `` Come Together '' `` Something '' `` Maxwell 's Silver Hammer '' `` Oh ! Darling '' `` Octopus 's Garden '' `` I Want You ( She 's So Heavy ) '' Side two `` Here Comes the Sun '' `` Because '' `` You Never Give Me Your Money '' `` Sun King '' `` Mean Mr. Mustard '' `` Polythene Pam '' `` She Came In Through the Bathroom Window '' `` Golden Slumbers '' `` Carry That Weight '' `` The End '' `` Her Majesty '' Non-album single `` The Ballad of John and Yoko '' `` Old Brown Shoe '' Outtakes `` Come and Get It '' `` Ai n't She Sweet '' Related articles Abbey Road, London The Beatles discography Break - up of the Beatles Iain Macmillan McLemore Avenue The Other Side of Abbey Road Please Please Me With the Beatles A Hard Day 's Night Beatles for Sale Help ! Rubber Soul Revolver Sgt. Pepper 's Lonely Hearts Club Band Magical Mystery Tour The Beatles ( White Album ) Yellow Submarine Abbey Road Let It Be Past Masters Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_End_(Beatles_song)&oldid=802908977 '' Categories : 1969 songs Song recordings produced by George Martin Songs written by Lennon -- McCartney The Beatles songs Songs published by Northern Songs Hard rock songs Hidden categories : Use British English from August 2010 Use dmy dates from January 2011 Articles with hAudio microformats Talk Search Contents About Wikipedia Brezhoneg Español Français 한국어 Italiano עברית ქართული 日本 語 Norsk Norsk nynorsk Polski Português Русский Simple English Svenska Türkçe 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 29 September 2017, at 06 : 32. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution - ShareAlike License ; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. 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Question: who wrote the love you take is equal to the love you make
Answer: McCartney