55 Years Ago: The Beatles’ Last Day at Abbey Road
The Beatles marked a sad occasion on Aug. 20, 1969: the last time that all four were at EMI Studios at 3 Abbey Road, London NW8. Given the animosity within the band at the time, perhaps it's fitting that no actual music was recorded.
They’d finished their overdubs over the previous few days, according to Mark Lewisohn’s The Beatles Recording Sessions: The Official Abbey Road Studio Session Notes, 1962-1970. So, the first part of the day was spent mixing "I Want You (She’s So Heavy)" over a three-and-a-half-hour session.
The track, per John Lennon’s instructions, was compiled from two different versions of the same master. One had Moog synthesizer and white noise tacked onto the instrumental ending and the other contained some guitar overdubs. The edit was relatively easy; it was made in the silence at 4:37, after they sing “She’s so …”
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Still, the Beatles had to figure out how to end the song, which then stretched out over eight minutes. Rather than fade it, Lennon wanted to cut the tape to create an abrupt ending right at the 7:44 mark, the aural equivalent of pulling the plug.
When that was completed, the four bandmates spent some seven hours discussing song sequencing. At the time, "Octopus's Garden" and "Oh! Darling" were in opposite places. More interestingly, the sides were reversed, with the LP's famous medley closing out the first side and "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" ending Abbey Road.
They decided to make those last two changes by the time the final master was set five days later.
Some of the Beatles would gather again at Abbey Road. They recorded "I Me Mine" on Jan. 3, 1970, but Lennon was on vacation in Denmark at the time and doesn't appear on the song. The next day, overdubs were made to "Let It Be."
Three months later, on April 1, Phil Spector’s controversial orchestral overdubs to "Across the Universe," "The Long and Winding Road" and "I Me Mine" were recorded, with Ringo Starr adding drums on the last-ever Beatles session. Various solo sessions followed, but all four were never in the same room together again.
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