Скрытый трек "Her Majesty" на Abbey Road

Hidden track on the album Abbey Road

"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. McCartney is the only musician 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. Some observers consider it the first example of a hidden track.

The song was recorded in three takes on 2 July 1969, prior to the Beatles beginning work on "Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight". McCartney sang and simultaneously played a fingerstyle acoustic guitar accompaniment. The decision to exclude it from the Abbey Road medley was made on 30 July. It runs only 23 seconds, but the Beatles also recorded a longer version during the Get Back sessions. In the song, the singer muses about Queen Elizabeth II and his plan to someday "make her mine".

The song was originally placed between "Mean Mr. Mustard" and "Polythene Pam"; McCartney decided that the sequence did not work and it was edited out of the album's closing medley by Abbey Road Studios tape operator John Kurlander. He was instructed by McCartney to destroy the tape, but EMI policy stated that no Beatles recording was ever to be destroyed. The fourteen seconds of silence between "The End" and "Her Majesty" are the result of Kurlander's lead out tape added to separate the song from the rest of the recording. 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 they had already been printed; on reprinted sleeves, however, it is listed. The CD edition corrects this. The fiftieth anniversary "Super Deluxe Edition" of Abbey Road includes a bonus track, "The Long One", that consists of a trial edit and mix of the medley, with "Her Majesty" placed between "Mean Mr. Mustard" and "Polythene Pam".

The song has been covered by such bands as Pearl Jam, Art Brut, and Chumbawamba, who developed it in an extended version with new lyrics, turning it into an attack on the Royal Family.