This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
Oh yeah, all right
Are you going to be in my dreams
Tonight?
And in the end
The love you take
Is equal to the love you make
Are you going to be in my dreams
Tonight?
And in the end
The love you take
Is equal to the love you make
Lyrics submitted by Ice, edited by Mellow_Harsher
The End Lyrics as written by Paul Mccartney John Lennon
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
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Props to Ringo's awesome drum solo with the constant bass drum. I think Abbey Road was the Beatles best rock album and it was the hright of the Beatles popularity and inspiration to countless artists. George Harrison has very good tone on his guitar and has soem sick solos in this song. The meaning of the last line is the more you give the more you get. (as Paul mentions when he was a guest on SNL) "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" - JFK
@Nolesy101 I was just listening to this and wonder if that was really George Harrison, seemed very different from his typical playing
"Hey...remember that song...n it goes...'the love you take is equal to the love you make'....ya...ya remember that?"
"Yea"
"uh... is that true?"
lol SNL Chris Farely Show feat. Sir Paul McCartney lol i love it
It makes me cry to think of it, and I was never a big Chris Farley fan. But if you look at the clip, he can't contain his excitement to do the sketch. He can't believe he's really sitting next to Paul McCartney. It's touching, and sad that he's gone.
@SpongeBunny - If Chris Farley were still alive and if I ever got the chance to meet him, I would asked him "remember when you did that skit with Paul McCartney?"<br /> Then say" that was pretty cool"
The message here is that what goes around comes around. Create Love and you will get love in return(in time). What you give is what you get. It also makes you think positive and shows that it can work in the negative too.
words to live by.
I suspect Lennon & McCartney are mocking The Nature Boy's moral:<br /> "The greatest thing<br /> you'll ever learn<br /> is just to love<br /> and be loved<br /> in return"<br /> See, The End lyrics can even be sung to The Nature Boy tune:<br /> "And 'in the end<br /> The love you take<br /> Is e'qual<br /> To the love<br /> That you make!" :)
@alluneedislove 'Man cannot live by words alone' -- Daffy Duck
"And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make" = You take out what you put in
I can't think of a more appropriate line to end their last real studio album*
This line was meant to be a send off, kind of like Paul knew that this was going to be it...I feel like this was his way of saying, "It's been fun, but it's time to go!"
At the same time it's a look into how much the groups growing differences effected Paul. He loved everything about making music with these guys and he knew that they couldn't keep their differences from ripping them apart any longer. Lots of people blame Paul for the break up because he was the one that officially called it off but I think he was just following through on what they were all feeling at the time...
I don't know that's my opinion on the matter
great song, great album, great band...
*I know Let It Be came after Abbey Road, but Abbey Road was the last album where they all worked together
It was Yoko.
@SpaceManSpiff02 And yet Paul couldn't even begin to practice what he preached when it came to Ms. Ono
yeah it is, weezerific. Basically what I think this song is saying is that after you've lived your entire life and made many mistakes and had many successes, the only thing that you'll really see is the love that you've recieved and the love that you've given.
but hadn't they been mocking The Nature Boy here, even keeping the metre?
What you get out of life is what you put into it.
It is fitting that THE END is the last song on the last album the Beatles recorded together. (Even though LET IT BE was released later).
@Ferthuko - What about Her Majesty- was it left off some versions, I know I wore a casette of the recording and thought The End was the last song as you did, but I see that Her Majesty is on Sptify's version as well as others
@Ferthuko ... as long as you don't listen to 'Her Majesty' after it
exactly, song4julia. such simple words, but the meaning behind it is incredible.
The last two lines
"and in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make"
is used in the same way as Shakespeare used rhyming couplets to finish off acts of his plays (although, as an aside, most will correctly argue that William Shakespeare did not actually write his plays. That was Thomas Bowdler's job, as Shakespeare put lots of naughty stuff into his plays...)