How the Beatles’ Shortest Song Accidently Ended Up on ‘Abbey Road’
- edgarstreetbooks
- Dec 26, 2025
- 2 min read
‘200 Greatest 60s Rock Songs Vol. 2’ Book Excerpt
Frank Mastropolo
At 23 seconds long, “Her Majesty” is the shortest tune in the Beatles catalog. Written by Paul McCartney, the song was intended to fit between “Mean Mr. Mustard” and “Polythene Pam” in the Abbey Road medley.
“We did all the remixes and crossfades to overlap the songs,” recalled engineer John Kurlander in The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions.
“Paul was there, and we heard it together for the first time. He said, ‘I don’t like “Her Majesty,” throw it away,’ so I cut it out — but I accidentally left in the last note. He said, ‘It’s only a rough mix, it doesn’t matter.’ I said to Paul, ‘What shall I do with it?’ ‘Throw it away,’ he replied.
“I’d been told never to throw anything away, so after he left I picked it up off the floor, put about 20 seconds of red leader tape before it, and stuck it onto the end of the edit tape.”
“Her Majesty” was included the next day when a lacquer version of Abbey Road was cut. McCartney approved of the accidental edit and the Beatles decided to retain it.
“That was very much how things happened,” said McCartney. “Really, you know, the whole of our career was like that so it’s a fitting end.”
“It’s just a cheeky little song,” McCartney told The Telegraph. “It sort of sums up how things have changed, doesn’t it? You can write songs like that and not get sent to the Tower.
“I totally understand the republican point of view but then I think if they got rid of the royals, who are you gonna replace them with? A politician? I’m not sure that would be an improvement.”
“I did once perform this song for the queen,” McCartney said in The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present. “I don’t know how to break this to you, but she didn’t have a lot to say.”
Frank Mastropolo is the author of 200 Greatest 60s Rock Songs Vol. 2, part of the Greatest Performances series. For more on our latest projects, visit Edgar Street Books.
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