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Genius Annotation

Let It Be might be the last Beatles album released, but Abbey Road was the last recorded, making “Her Majesty” the last Beatles song of sorts.

“Her Majesty” is a snippet excluded from the Abbey Road Medley, originally between “Mean Mr Mustard” and “Polythene Pam”. The crashing D major chord at the beginning is actually the end of “Mean Mr Mustard”.

It was one of the first hidden tracks to appear on a record. According to Beatles writer Ian MacDonald:

McCartney rightly judged that it didn’t fit and told second engineer John Kurlander to cut it out and throw it away. Kurlander, who had been instructed never to discard anything The Beatles recorded, instead edited it, for convenience’s sake, to the end of the Medley … When McCartney heard this the following day, he liked the random effect.

It is the shortest song in the Beatles repertoire, clocking in at around 26 seconds.

Q&A

Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning

Translations
Genius Answer
Why is the last chord missing from the song?
Genius Answer

According to the Beatles Bible website, “Her Majesty” was recorded in three takes. It was originally supposed to be a part of the Abbey Road Medley, but Paul McCartney didn’t like the way it sounded caught between “Mean Mr. Mustard” and “Polythene Pam,” so he told engineer John Kurlander to get rid of it.

However, Kurlander had also been instructed never to throw anything away, so he dissected the clip and tacked it onto the end of the medley’s edit piece after twenty seconds of silence—perhaps with the intention of removing it later. When the group listened back to the album’s rough mix, they liked the way it sounded after “The End,” so they kept it. McCartney appreciated the happy accident, saying:

That was very much how things happened. Really, you know, the whole of our career was like that so it’s a fitting end.

–from Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now by Barry Miles (1997)

Due to the spontaneity of these last-minute decisions, the final chord of “Mean Mr. Mustard” can be heard at the beginning of “Her Majesty,” and the final chord to “Her Majesty” can be heard at the beginning of “Polythene Pam”—which means it was ultimately omitted from the end of the album itself. The famous missing last chord can be heard in an early mix of the third take:

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