{"id":798345,"date":"2019-08-08T07:30:34","date_gmt":"2019-08-08T13:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=868805"},"modified":"2019-08-08T07:30:34","modified_gmt":"2019-08-08T13:30:34","slug":"the-unheard-abbey-road-an-exclusive-preview-of-beatles-expanded-final-masterpiece","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/the-unheard-abbey-road-an-exclusive-preview-of-beatles-expanded-final-masterpiece\/","title":{"rendered":"The Unheard \u2018Abbey Road\u2019: An Exclusive Preview of Beatles\u2019 Expanded Final Masterpiece"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fifty years ago today, on August 8th, 1969, the Beatles<\/a> walked back and forth across a street they knew well: Abbey Road. John Lennon<\/a>, Paul McCartney<\/a>, George Harrison<\/a> and Ringo Starr<\/a> 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 \u2014 which also turned out to be the last<\/a>. Abbey Road<\/em> turned a zebra-stripe crosswalk on an ordinary London street into holy ground. Oh, that magic feeling.<\/p>\n

Fifty years later, the Abbey Road story takes a new turn with the revelatory Super Deluxe Edition<\/em>, which drops on September 27th in time for the anniversary. It sheds new light on the essential weirdness of this music \u2014 how did the Beatles create such warmth and beauty while they were in the middle of breaking up? \u201cIt\u2019s the Last Supper,\u201d producer Giles Martin, son of the late George Martin, tells Rolling Stone<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s having great sex with an ex-girlfriend. They said, \u2018Let\u2019s do one last great thing.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The new Abbey Road edition follows the model of the Sgt. Pepper<\/em> 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. It\u2019s the Beatles\u2019 best-selling album  \u2014but it\u2019s also a bittersweet finale from four friends preparing to go their separate ways forever. It\u2019s their farewell \u2014 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 \u201cI Want You (She\u2019s So Heavy).\u201d Yet all four were on fire as songwriters \u2014 even Ringo, who contributes \u201cOctopus\u2019 Garden.\u201d The music has a childlike warmth. \u201cAbbey Road is a kids\u2019 album,\u201d Martin nods. \u201cCome Together\u2019 is a blues groove \u2014 but it\u2019s also my 11-year-old daughter\u2019s favorite Beatle song.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a new mix from Martin and engineer Sam Okell in stereo, 5.1 surround sound and Dolby Atmos. There\u2019s a coffee-table book with Paul McCartney\u2019s foreword. There\u2019s also 23 outtakes and demos to enhance the original album. Compared to Sgt. Pepper<\/em> 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 don\u2019t include the same kind of far-flung studio experiments. \u201cThey\u2019re not really jamming,\u201d Giles Martin says. \u201cIt\u2019s not like the White Album \u2014 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

In early 1969, the Beatles tried to make Get Back<\/em>, the album that turned into Let It Be<\/em>. It turned into open warfare, nearly ripping the band apart. It was Paul who talked the others into giving it one more go. \u201cThey came in knowing that this was the end,\u201d Martin says. \u201cThere was never the illusion that this was going to be the big start of something new.\u201d<\/p>\n

But since these four boys were the Beatles, they couldn\u2019t stop showing off \u2014 for each other, for the world, for themselves. So facing the final curtain just fired up their competitive edge. \u201cThere wasn\u2019t that element of continuation: \u2018We\u2019ll put it out, then do something else.\u2019 It wasn\u2019t the White Album, where it feels like, \u2018This is where we are right now, and where we\u2019ll be in six months time, who knows, but we\u2019re on this journey and this is part of the journey,\u2019\u201d says Giles Martin. \u201cThey knew this was it. The way I would explain it is, you\u2019ve only got a certain number of breaths or heartbeats left in your life, and you want to make sure they\u2019re important. That\u2019s the essence of Abbey Road \u2014 they knew how important it was.\u201d<\/p>\n