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Focus on Reading Material

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. Although credited to the band, McCartney is the only Beatle to appear on the track. “Her Majesty” is the final cut on the album and appears 14 seconds after the previous song “The End,” but was not listed on the original sleeve. It is considered one of the first examples of a hidden track in rock music.

The loud chord that occurs at the beginning of the song is the ending, as recorded, of “Mean Mr. Mustard”. “Her Majesty” ends abruptly because its own final note was left at the beginning of “Polythene Pam”. McCartney applauded Kurlander’s “surprise effect” and the track became the unintended closer to the LP. The crudely edited beginning and end of “Her Majesty” shows that it was not meant to be included in the final mix of the album; as McCartney says in The Beatles Anthology, “Typical Beatles – an accident.” The song was not listed on the original vinyl record’s sleeve as these had already been printed; on reprinted sleeves, however, it is listed. The CD edition corrects this.