Her Majesty

From Wikipedia:

“Her Majesty” 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 a brief tongue-in-cheek music hall song. On the album, “Her Majesty” appears 14 seconds after the previous song “The End“, but was not listed on the original sleeve. Some observers consider it the first example of a hidden track.

Recording

On 2 July 1969, Paul McCartney performed a 23-second snippet of a song called “Her Majesty” that he had first previewed in the sessions for Get Back, the album that eventually became Let It Be.

McCartney sang and simultaneously played a fingerstyle acoustic guitar accompaniment. Three takes of the song were recorded on 2 July 1969, with the last one being chosen as the best of the three. These took place just prior to beginning work on “Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight“. These three takes can be heard in their entirety on the 50th Anniversary Super Deluxe edition. The album version is missing the final chord, an error from the Abbey Road medley editing process. Originally positioned after “Mean Mr. Mustard”, the decision to exclude it from the medley was made on 30 July.[better source needed]

Structure and placement

McCartney had wanted to throw away the recording tape. However, tape operator John Kurlander had been explicitly instructed by his superiors to not throw away any Beatles material. In accordance with McCartney’s wishes, Kurlander cut the track, but accidentally left out the last note. After McCartney had left, Kurlander picked up the recording from the floor, placed about 20 seconds of red tape before it, and placed it at the end of the editing tape, so that the song was positioned after a 14-second silence after the end of “The End“. After this change, McCartney liked it and approved the track for inclusion on the album. The song wasn’t listed on the original vinyl cover, because it had already been printed; on the reprinted versions, however, it is listed. The CD edition corrected it.

With 23 seconds, “Her Majesty” is the shortest Beatles’ song. In The Beatles Anthology, McCartney classified the situation as “typical Beatles – an accident”. The high chord that occurs in the beginning is the final, as recorded, of “Mean Mr. Mustard“.

Alternative positions

In October 2009, the MTV Networks released a download version of the song (just as the full album) for the video game The Beatles: Rock Band, that gave to the players the capacity to play the last chord that missed. The Apple Corps granted rights to this and other changes to Harmonix Music Systems, which developed the game. The change generated controversy among some fans who preferred the unresolved ending of the recorded version. The 50th anniversary “Super Deluxe Edition” of Abbey Road includes a bonus track, “The Long One”, which consists of an experimental edit and mix of the medley, with “Her Majesty” placed between “Mean Mr. Mustard” and “Polythene Pam“.

Lyrics

Some parts of the lyrics are interpreted as insults to the Queen Elizabeth II. The song is about a man who dreams of a romance with the Queen, but has some reservations about it: “Her Majesty is a pretty nice girl/But she doesn’t have a lot to say/Her Majesty is a pretty nice girl/But she changes from day to day“. Despite the criticism, McCartney prefers monarchy to republic and has praised the Queen for being “smart, fabulous and glamorous”, in addition to understanding the figure of the Queen as a unifying force in British society.

Live performances and covers

McCartney performed the song in front of Queen Elizabeth II at the Palace Party on 3 June 2002, part of the Golden Jubilee celebrations. The American band Pearl Jam performed a cover of the song in tribute to the Queen’s death, hours after her death was announced by Buckingham Palace, during a performance at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, Canada.

The song is one of the least re-recorded in the Beatles’ entire catalogue, having been covered by bands such as Pearl Jam, Art Brut and Chumbawamba (who extended it into a full length version adding three new verses and two bridges). […]