Carry That Weight

Song facts

From Wikipedia:

“Carry That Weight” is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1969 album Abbey Road. Written by Paul McCartney and credited to Lennon–McCartney, it is the seventh and penultimate song in the album’s climactic side-two medley. It features unison vocals in the chorus from all four Beatles, a rarity in their songs. It is preceded by “Golden Slumbers” and segues into “The End“.

The middle bridge, featuring brass instruments, electric guitar and vocals, and reprises the beginning of “You Never Give Me Your Money“, but with different lyrics. The ending also reprises the arpeggiated guitar motif from the end of that track, which is itself reminiscent of the figure featured prominently in the George Harrison–written track “Here Comes the Sun“, which opens side two of Abbey Road.

Interpretation

Music critic Ian MacDonald interpreted the lyric as an acknowledgement by the group that nothing they would do as individual artists would equal what they had achieved together, and they would always carry the weight of their Beatle past. McCartney said the song was about the Beatles’ business difficulties and the atmosphere at Apple at the time. In the film Imagine: John Lennon, Lennon says that McCartney was “singing about all of us”.

Recording

The Beatles began recording “Golden Slumbers”/”Carry That Weight” as one piece on 2 July 1969. McCartney, Harrison and Ringo Starr recorded 15 takes of the two songs while Lennon was in a hospital recovering from a car accident in Scotland.

The rhythm tracks featured McCartney on piano, Harrison on bass guitar and Starr on drums. The best were takes 13 and 15, which were edited together on 3 July. That day and the next, McCartney overdubbed his lead vocals and rhythm guitar, Harrison added lead guitar, and all three sang the chorus.

On 30 July, they added more vocals, including Lennon, who had rejoined the sessions on 9 July. More vocals, timpani and drums were overdubbed on 31 July. The orchestra that marked 30 musicians altogether was recorded on 15 August. […]

It’s like a story. A bit like ‘Act Naturally’, where a tag line keeps coming up, you know, ‘So and so and so and so,’ but all he said was ‘Act naturally’. It’s like your troubles, but it was like a comedy when I first heard it. There was a verse about a drunkard who got drunk, got in trouble with the wife, and, ‘I woke up the next morning with a weight upon my head and found it was my head.’ It’s like the normal kind of trouble that everyone has. It’s one of those songs where you’ve got everything and you’ve got everything going great but, you know, ‘This morning, one of my eggs broke.’ It’s just so trivial. ‘My bright shoes are a bit tight.’

Paul McCartney – From “The Beatles: Off the Record” by Keith Badman

I’m generally quite upbeat but at certain times things get to me so much that I just can’t be upbeat any more and that was one of the times. We were taking so much acid and doing so much drugs and all this Klein shit was going on and getting crazier and crazier and crazier. Carry that weight a long time: like for ever! That’s what I meant.

Paul McCartney – From “Many Years From Now” by Barry Miles, 1997

There was what my Aunty Jin would have called a bad atmosphere “Oh, I can feel the atmosphere in this house, love.” It wasn’t difficult, she wouldn’t have liked it there. It was “heavy”. “Heavy” was a very operative word at that time “Heavy, man” but now it actually felt heavy. That’s what “Carry That Weight” was about: not the light, rather easy-going heaviness, albeit witty and sometimes cruel, but with an edge you could exist within and which always had a place for you to be. In this heaviness there was no place to be. It was serious, paranoid heaviness and it was just very uncomfortable.

Paul McCartney – From “Many Years From Now” by Barry Miles, 1997

The whole period [of the business problems at Apple Record] weighted on me to such an extent that I even began to think it was all tied in with the idea of original sin. Even though my mum had christened me as a Catholic, we weren’t brought up Catholic, so I didn’t buy into the concept of original sin on a day-to-day basis. It’s really very depressing to think that you were born a loser.

The idea of carrying a weight may have been influenced by The Band’s song ‘The Weight’, which had appeared on Music From Big Pink in Juy 1968.

Paul McCartney – From “The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present” book (2021)

The business problems at Apple Records […] really were horrible. The business meetings were just soul-destroying. We’d sit around in an office, and it was a place you just didn’t want to be, with people you didn’t want to be with. There’s a great picture that Linda took of Allen Klein, in which he’s got a hammer like Maxwell’s silver hammer. It’s very symbolic. And that’s why we have the little nod and a wink in the middle section to “You Never Give Me Your Money”, in the lines “I never give you my pillow / I only send you my invitations”

Paul McCartney – From “The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present” book (2021)

From The Usenet Guide to Beatles Recording Variations:

[a] stereo 18 Aug 1969. crossfaded 19 Aug 1969.
UK: Apple PCS 7088 Abbey Road 1969.
US: Apple SO-383 Abbey Road 1969.
CD: EMI CDP 7 46446 2 Abbey Road 1987.

The 2d generation was an edit of two takes.

The crossfade joins this to the following song, The End; the join is in the guitar work after the last “carry that weight a long time”.

Last updated on December 31, 2021

Lyrics

Variations