Sir Paul McCartney has opened up on his memories of recording at Abbey Road Studios in new Disney+ documentary If These Walls Could Sing.
The Fab Four recorded nearly all of their music at the St John’s Wood studio, even naming their penultimate album after the street the on which the EMI-owned venue is situated.
As artists on the EMI-owned Parlaphone record label, The Beatles enjoyed free and unfettered access Abbey Road.
“In our contract we had limitless recording time,” McCartney explained in the documentary.
“This was our home, really – we spent so much time here.”
In the documentary, Giles Martin, the son of Beatles producer George, said that Abbey Road became The Beatles’ “bunker” following their decision to stop touring in 1966.
“The Beatles were one of Britain’s biggest export industries and Brian [Epstein] had them as this boy band. And it was scary. It wasn’t enjoyable. So they needed to either split or go to a bunker. And that bunker was Abbey Road,” he said.
The idea behind 1967’s Sergeant Pepper was to “make a record and send it on tour”, McCartney explained.
“The lunatics started to take over the asylum. Sometimes we’d have one mix going on in the control room in [studio] number two and we’d have another one going on in number three – so you’d have the run of the building.”
Directed by Paul’s daughter Mary McCartney, If These Walls Could Sing features interviews with a range of musicians to have recorded at the famous venue, which was originally opened in 1931 by Sir Edward Elgar.
This includes Elton John, Roger Waters, Liam Gallagher, John Williams, Celeste and Sheku Kanneh-Mason, among others.
“In London we had used other studios besides Abbey Road, but we always like this the best,” McCartney explained in the documentary.
“It’s just a great studio. All the microphones work. That sounds silly to say but you can go to some studios where they don’t.”
