The Beatles song that was inspired by a 17th-century poem
Abbey Road is widely considered to be one of the greatest albums of all time and saw The Beatles incorporate prog rock, pop, blues, and a distinctive use of synths into their magnum opus.
One unforgettable track from the album is ‘Golden Slumbers’, an effort which Paul McCartney, who wrote the song, once described as “a very beautiful lullaby”. The 1997 book Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now details how the musician wrote the track, which was inspired by a piece of sheet music he received from his step-sister.
One of the pieces that McCartney was particularly drawn to was based on the poem ‘Cradle Song’ by Thomas Dekker, from his play Patient Grissel. Published in 1603, McCartney revealed: “I thought it was very restful, a very beautiful lullaby, but I couldn’t read the melody, not being able to read music.”
Detailing further, he added: “I just took the words and wrote my own music. I didn’t know at the time it was four hundred years old.” He confessed that he “liked the words so much” that he wanted to incorporate them into his own track.
“I remember trying to get a very strong vocal on it, because it was such a gentle theme, so I worked on the strength of the vocal on it, and ended up quite pleased with it.” The finished song makes slight alterations to Dekker’s words, but the basis of the poem is still there.
In an interview with George Harrison, he described Abbey Road as “pretty good,” with ‘Because’ being his favourite track. He was also quoted as saying: “I like, I dunno — I like lots of them. I like ‘You Never Give Me Your Money’ and ‘Golden Slumbers’ and things.”
Although Harrison doesn’t sound the most enthusiastic about Abbey Road, the album reached number one on the UK album charts for 17 weeks and totalled 97 weeks on the charts in total.
In the US, however, Abbey Road remained on the Billboard 200 for 460 weeks in total and stayed at number one for 11 weeks. Unfortunately, ‘Golden Slumbers’ wasn’t released as a single, so failed to chart outside of its place on the album.
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