Derrière les murs des Studios Abbey Road

After attending an advance screening of Mary McCartney's If These Walls Could Sing, I was reminded of that old adage "the recording studio doesn't make the artist, the artist makes the studio."

While that isn't strictly true - there are numerous excerpts regarding the unique timbre of Studio 2 - it is the unique cast of characters who recorded at Abbey Road which make it the name it is today. The Beatles, Cliff Richard, Pink Floyd to name a few.

It is to McCartney's credit as a director that she gives ample focus to the players, both through interviews and archival footage/recordings, while also reminding viewers of the omnipotent force that is the studio itself.

She uses beautiful shots of the studio rooms empty in modern times, which flow nicely into the archival footage. The interviews were especially popular with the audience, with a Liam Gallagher segment regarding Oasis' ill-fated Be Here Now recording sessions drawing a lot of laughs.

The one complaint I have is that at 90 minutes, it almost felt too short. McCartney stated in a post-viewing audience Q&A that her initial rough cut was two and a half hours long. I said to her afterwards that I would love to see more of this material released. (Maybe a podcast is in the cards?)

If Walls is about crediting artists for making the most of their surroundings and drawing influence from those that came before, then I think we must credit Mary McCartney for making a great film using the same methods. I can only hope that this is just the first in a series of music films from McCartney, and not a one-off. If These Walls Could Sing premieres on December 16th on Disney+

Wow. Any music lover will get goosebumps hearing these classic songs being recorded at Abbey Road. What a joy to see and hear these old legendary recordings!

The Abbey Road studio was originally just a huge mansion, redesigned in the thirties into an ernomous recording studio, which saw the likes of The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, Pink Floyd record monumental albums (Dark Side of the Moon). Later on film music (Star Wars) was being recorded there as well, with one room creating a wall of sound, which can be best heard in the song "Goldfinger" by Shirley Bassey. Powerful stuff!

Paul McCarthy gets special attention in this documentary, and that's totally fair, since most folks got to know Abbey Road because of the Beatles and especially through their last record called Abbey Road, with the famous zebra crossing picture. Lots of funny interview clips and insights how certain legendary Beatles songs were born.

Highly recommended watch AND listen for any music fan of the sixties and seventies!

An entertaining documentary that fails to really get under the skin of the subject; it's a fairly superficial overview that spends too much time covering well-worn topics (specifically The Beatles, in particular songs like 'A Day in the Life' and 'Blackbird', which have been covered to death). Rather than telling a linear story of the studio's up and downs over the decades, it jumps around to just profile a handful of big names that McCartney has access to, spending as much time discussing their general achievements as their time at Abbey Road. Other documentaries telling the stories of iconic studios, like Muscle Shoals or Sound City, managed to tease out what made the studios special: be that the time, the place or the specific technical aspects of the equipment; Mary McCartney seems to land on the Abbey Road staff being the key to its enduring success, so it's a shame they aren't better profiled. Who were these talented "boffins" who could bring the artists' ideas to life? This film feels like it only scratches the surface, delivering some facts and a few new interviews, but no great insight.

If These Walls Could Sing was a fascinating documentary directed, interviewed, and narrated by Mary McCartney (Paul McCartney's daughter) in her directorial debut, i did already familiar with Mary McCartney's before (and so Stella and Heather McCartney) and like i mention it is a fascinating deeper look into the Abbey Road studios, the studios that giving birth to some of the greatest songs and albums out there, from The Beatles to Pink Floyd to Elton John to Oasis and so on, a very well documented film with great and interesting topics, also fills with great footage, and great editing, If These Walls Could Sing is a great presentation of an iconic studios with a great extraordinary story in it, i enjoy If These Walls Could Sing so much, it is entertaining and fascinating to watch, and i'm happy to watch it, thumbs way up!.

Although this is pitched as a documentary about Abbey Road, I think it is much more "simply" a documentary about how music is made. And it is a very informative documentary about how music is made. So if you have an interest in music, but no specific interest in Abbey Road, do give it a go. I doubt you will be disappointed.

Even at "only" 90 minutes, this documentary is perfectly paced, with unrushed recollections from many musicians.

I'm not sure it's worth subscribing to Disney+ purely to see this, but I found it to be one of the more interesting things they had to offer in January 2023. Hope you enjoy it too, if you decide to give it a go.