Fifty years ago today, on August 8th, 1969, the Beatles walked back and forth across a street they knew well: Abbey Road. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr lined up and crossed a few times, while a cop held up traffic, right outside the studio where they were already booked to show up for work that day. The whole photo session took only 10 minutes. Yet this became their most iconic image: sky of blue, trees of green. It sums up the sunny confidence of the most popular album the Beatles ever made which also turned out to be the last. Abbey Road turned a zebra-stripe crosswalk on an ordinary London street into holy ground. Oh, that magic feeling.
Fifty years later, the Abbey Road story takes a new turn with the revelatory Super Deluxe Edition, which drops on September 27th in time for the anniversary. It sheds new light on the essential weirdness of this music how did the Beatles create such warmth and beauty while they were in the middle of breaking up? Its the Last Supper, producer Giles Martin, son of the late George Martin, tells Rolling Stone. Its having great sex with an ex-girlfriend. They said, Lets do one last great thing.
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The new Abbey Road edition follows the model of the Sgt. Pepper and White Album sets from the past couple of years. And like them, it explores the vaults to find fresh surprises in music you think you already know by heart. Its the Beatles best-selling album but its also a bittersweet finale from four friends preparing to go their separate ways forever. Its their farewell but you can also hear the smiles returning to their faces. The last time John, Paul, George and Ringo played together was when they cut I Want You (Shes So Heavy). Yet all four were on fire as songwriters even Ringo, who contributes Octopus Garden. The music has a childlike warmth. Abbey Road is a kids album, Martin nods. Come Together is a blues groove but its also my 11-year-old daughters favorite Beatle song.
Theres a new mix from Martin and engineer Sam Okell in stereo, 5.1 surround sound and Dolby Atmos. Theres a coffee-table book with Paul McCartneys foreword. Theres also 23 outtakes and demos to enhance the original album. Compared to Sgt. Pepper or the White Album, the sessions were orderly and civilized. George Martin, still wary after the madness of 1968, agreed to come back and produce only if they promised to be on their best behavior. So these outtakes dont include the same kind of far-flung studio experiments. Theyre not really jamming, Giles Martin says. Its not like the White Album with this record, maybe to protect against arguments, they had a pretty damn good idea about the direction each song was going to go in before they recorded it.
In early 1969, the Beatles tried to make Get Back, the album that turned into Let It Be. It turned into open warfare, nearly ripping the band apart. It was Paul who talked the others into giving it one more go. They came in knowing that this was the end, Martin says. There was never the illusion that this was going to be the big start of something new.
But since these four boys were the Beatles, they couldnt stop showing off for each other, for the world, for themselves. So facing the final curtain just fired up their competitive edge. There wasnt that element of continuation: Well put it out, then do something else. It wasnt the White Album, where it feels like, This is where we are right now, and where well be in six months time, who knows, but were on this journey and this is part of the journey, says Giles Martin. They knew this was it. The way I would explain it is, youve only got a certain number of breaths or heartbeats left in your life, and you want to make sure theyre important. Thats the essence of Abbey Road they knew how important it was.
In a previous unheard version of I Want You (Shes So Heavy), the Beatles bash away at Johns heaviest riff in Sohos Trident Studios, at top volume. But this posh address is a little different from Abbey Road the session gets interrupted by neighbors complaining about the late-night noise. Surprisingly, John agrees to turn it down, after one more take. He tells the band, The loud one last go. Last chance to be loud! Martin says, Its so funny hes so polite. He should have said, Fuck off, were the Beatles!
The studio banter brings the sessions to life even at this late stage, the lads cant resist trying to crack each other up. When its time for a coffee break, one of Pauls ballads turns into You never give me your coffee. John plays around with Polythene Pam, sneering, His sister Bernice works in the furnace. I like trying to find as much speech as possible it humanizes it, Martin says. You hear John Lennon talk, then he suddenly starts singing, and you think: Its that fucking simple? Thats all I have to do? He just starts singing and it makes the sound of John Lennon? Theres no process there? Its the same microphone? Theres no switch being turned? I think that changes it. You listen to I Want You (Shes So Heavy), when they stop and start talking. Wait these people are making thatnoise?
The extras also include Paul demos for two hits he gave away Goodbye for Mary Hopkins and Come and Get It for Badfinger. There are three takes of Her Majesty. (But if youre among the many fans who consider Maxwells Silver Hammer a pataphysical gaffe, dont necessarily get your hopes up that Take 12 will change your mind.) Maybe Ringo couldnt have written Octopus Garden without a little help from his friend George but he still deserves an eight-tentacled round of applause.
The Quiet One brought in only two tunes as John sniped in NME at the time, George has got songs hes been trying to get on our records since 1920. But they turned out to be the best-loved highlights, Here Comes The Sun and Something. In fact, George might deserve the credit for the albums quality he threw a scare into the others. Theyre pretty bloody big songs, Martin says. It must have shaken things up for John and Paul they were nothing if not competitive. Theres no question that the catalyst for their demonic level of songwriting here was Something and Here Comes the Sun.
Theyre not at all like Georges White Album or Pepper songs theyre broad, emotionally direct, not the least bit quizzical. (For that matter, they dont sound like the solo songs he was already demoing for All Things Must Pass.) But in itself, thats a sign he was leaving the Beatles behind. After his bitter experience trying to get them to play All Things Must Pass at the Get Back sessions John responded by ignoring him and plucking a Chuck Berry riff until George stormed out he wasnt bringing them his personal cosmic riddles anymore. As Giles Martin says, He was planning his solo album. He knew what his next plan was. He was definitely fed up with life with John and Paul. And the Beatles didnt function without John and Paul functioning.
John was also stretching himself he added the harmony ballads Because and Sun King, as if he knew this was his last chance to write songs for these three voices to sing together. These are Beatle songs, very different from anything hed write for himself and Yoko to sing. For John and George, this was their last chance to be Beatles; instead of battling for self-expression, they came together. For The End, all three trade off guitar solos, tracking it live Paul, George and John, in that order.
As on the Pepper and White Album sets, Ringo nearly steals the show. His drums have their own track, for one thing crazy as it seems, this was the first (and only) album the Beatles recorded on eight-track, a little late in the game. Its much bigger-sounding eight tracks, a transistor desk. Its the only Beatles album that was recorded in stereo theres no mono version. Giles Martin points out a sonic detail that jumps out from the new mix of Something: you can hear Paul play the high-hats in the middle eight. Ringo is playing toms with both hands, and then in the middle bit, Paul goes over to hit the high-hat. It took the two of them to play drums on that bit.
But for all the team spirit on Abbey Road, theres something wistful. Pauls sense of loss is all over the Side Two suite, right up to The End itself. You do get the impression with Abbey Road that Paul was trying to hold on to the dream and my dad as well. Giles makes the argument that it resembles George Martins subsequent work rather than theirs. Sonically, its more like his work with [the band] America. Abbey Road has that precision everythings in tune, it has the right fit, and thats how he liked things to be.
But the Beatles and their producer were heading into the unknown as if cramming in all the experiments they knew theyd never get a second chance to try together. In the middle of Side Two, Paul sings, Soon well be away from here / Step on the gas and wipe that tear away. On Abbey Road, all of them sneak a look back at the past theyve shared. And then walking as boldly as they do on the album cover they cross the road into the future.