Sunday Music – Here Comes The Sun

Today’s music video is ‘Here Comes The Sun’ from The Beatles.

I couldn’t let today go by without posting a Beatles song, and then explaining why today.

Today marks the 40th anniversary of this famous photograph. On this day in 1969, the four members of the band had this image at left taken for the cover of their final album ‘Abbey Road’. Click on the image to open it in a new and larger window.

This image has become an icon, not only for the music industry, but in general life. This was their last album, and there was opinion that the band was just so good, that the four of them on their own in solo careers would not be as good as they were as a unit. That proved to be spectacularly wrong, and for that, we can be thankful. Each of them had what can only be described as the same success in their solo careers that they had as members of this iconic band. They changed the direction of music, and, in what now can only be termed as a relatively short career, when taking into account that some bands have been around for decades, they produced some of the best music that there was at the time. Never afraid to change their style, they went through many different phases, and all of them proved spectacular. Each album sold off the scale even before it was released.

This was their last album, and some say that’ Let It Be’ was their last album. All the music for ‘Let It Be’ was recorded before the ‘Abbey Road’ set, but the album for ‘Let It Be’ was released after ‘Abbey Road’. There is some conjecture on that front, but the band members themselves say that the music for ‘Abbey Road’ was the last they did as a unit.

This album ‘Abbey Road’ contains hits whichever song you look at, but  ‘Something’, ‘Come Together’, and this song ‘Here Comes The Sun’ were the biggest hits from the album, but all songs received some airplay, well except maybe for the small hidden song, ‘Her Majesty’.

So much can be said about the album. It has sold many millions of copies. It spent 11 weeks at Number one in the U.S., in fact three separate times it reached number one. It was Number one album in Australia for 5 months. It was number one in the UK for 17 weeks. When it was released on CD in 1987 the album again entered the charts and again sold off the scale.

This iconic album cover is also many times copied over the years. The VW ‘Beetle’ at the left belonged to a resident in one of the nearby flats. Upon the album’s release, that cars number plate (tags) was repeatedly stolen, and in 1986, the car was sold at auction for $23,000 and is currently on display at the Volkswagen museum in Germany.

Fans from all over the World have gathered at this spot today to mark the anniversary. This story from Australia is just one of the stories covering the anniversary. The Abbey Road Studio where The Beatles recorded most of their music is close to this crossing, and in fact, at the front of the Studio is a live webcam directed to this famous crossing, and this link takes you directly to that webcam with live images.

I have selected this song ‘Here Comes The Sun’ as today’s music video. There are some clips showing the song with different images of the band itself, but again, music videos were still in their infancy when this album was released, so there are no real videos of the band actually performing the song, so this video overlays images over the band’s song.

Over the next four weeks I will select a song from each of the individuals from their solo careers.

This video was posted to You Tube by felix945