[Purchase]
The Beatles Complete on Ukulele project, spearheaded by
Roger Greenawalt, aimed to offer up the entire Beatles collection for free. The
main caveat: there had to be a ukulele in the music. For the first few years
(there are currently in excess of 180 songs in the collection), you could
download each and every song in the collection. Not so any more. I haven’t been
able to find out the reason for the change: the collection is still available
for listening online (http://beatlescompleteonukulele.com
and/or http://thebeatlescompleteonukulele.com),
but they are now charging to download the songs.
The Beatles included Her Majesty on Abbey Road. As with all the other
downloadable copies of these songs, the downloadable ukulele version includes
informative inline notes – both about the ukulele version and about the
original. For this song, these notes claim that “… the song was originally placed
between Mean Mr Mustard and Polyethelene Pam… “ but McCartney asked to have it
removed and destroyed. However, EMI policy was that no Beatles recordings
should be destroyed and the song eventually ended up as the close to the album
(in spite of the song “The End”, which should have been the end of the album.) I assume "her majesty" is Queen Elizabeth?
This version, by Jon Albrink, includes additional lyrics and
it sure sounds like he is having a good time. He does the guitar and vocals (http://www.jonalbrink.com/) while John
Benthal plays the uke in this 2011 recording. Depending on your browser, the linked file may well show you the "liner notes" I reference above.