Chaos and Creation at Abbey Road

Chaos and Creation at Abbey Road, recorded on 28 July 2005, was a live concert given by Paul McCartney at Abbey Road Studios, specifically Studio 2, where many of The Beatles' recordings were made.

Chaos and Creation at Abbey Road was meant as a promotion for McCartney's album Chaos and Creation in the Backyard. As the audience was of close friends and selected fans, the concert was intimate in nature and was littered with monologues and song fragments. It was shown on BBC Two in the United Kingdom on 17 December 2005,^[1] and on PBS in the United States on 27 February 2006 as part of the performing arts series Great Performances.^[2]

McCartney plays left-handed and right-handed guitars, drums, harmonium, double bass, Mellotron, and even wine glasses in a reworking of the Wings song "Band on the Run". He also reworks the Beatles' track "Lady Madonna", which he calls "Old Lady in New Clothes", with a much slower tempo and a swung melody line.

The bass McCartney uses on his performance of "Heartbreak Hotel" once belonged to Bill Black, Elvis Presley's bass player who died in 1965.

Track listing

All songs by Paul McCartney, except where noted.

• "Friends to Go"
• "How Kind of You"
• "Band on the Run"
• "In Spite of All the Danger" (McCartney/Harrison)
• "Twenty Flight Rock" (Cochran)
• "Lady Madonna" (Lennon–McCartney)
• "English Tea"
• "Heartbreak Hotel" (Durden/Axton/Presley)
• "Jenny Wren"
• "I've Got a Feeling" (Lennon–McCartney)
• "Blackbird" (Lennon–McCartney)
• "Blue Suede Shoes" (Perkins)

References