in the key of A in a mix of "major and minor pentatonic scales with slides, double-stops, repeated notes, low-bass string runs and wailing bends". Gould terms these live studio takes "little character sketches": Paul opens with a characteristically fluid and melodically balanced line that sounds a high A before snaking an octave down the scale; George responds by soaring to an even higher D and sustaining it for half a bar before descending in syncopated pairs of 16th notes; John then picks upon the pattern of George's 16ths with a series of choppy thirds that hammer relentlessly on the second and flattened seventh degrees of the scale. The second time through, Paul answers John's bluesy flattened 7ths with bluesy minor thirds and then proceeds to echo George's earlier line, spiraling up to that same high D; George responds with some minor thirds of his own, while mimicking the choppy rhythm of John's part; John then drops two octaves to unleash a growling single-note line. On this final two-bar solo, Paul plays almost nothing but minor thirds and flattened sevenths in a herky-jerky rhythm that ends with a sudden plunge to a low A; George then reaches for the stars with a steeply ascending line that is pitched an octave above any notes heard so far; and John finishes with a string of insistent and heavily distorted 4ths, phrased in triplets, that drag behind the beat and grate against the background harmony. The final "Ah" is in C with a spiritually evocative Plagal cadence IV–I (F–C chord) on piano while the voices do an F to E shift. "And in the end the love you take" is in A major, but the G/A chord supporting the word "love" begins to dissolve our certainty that we are in A, by adding a VII. The next line shifts us to the fresh key of C, with a iv (F) chord that threatens the dominance of the departing A key's F: "Is eq-ual" (supported successively by IV (F)–iii (Em) chords with an A–G bass line) "to the love" (supported successively by ii (Dm)–vi (Am)–ii7 (Dm7) chords with a F–E bass line) "you make" (supported by a V7 (G7) chord). The final bars in the key of C involve a I–II–III rock-type progression and a IV–I soothing cadence that appear to instinctively reconcile different musical genres. Critical reception Richie Unterberger of AllMusic considered "The