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A good part of my youth was spent in front of my old fam­i­ly hi-fi sys­tem, lis­ten­ing to Bea­t­les records. This was music I knew no longer exist­ed in the mod­ern world—not on con­tem­po­rary pop radio, and not on MTV… nowhere but on what seemed to me those ancient plas­tic disks. To my untrained ears, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s, Mag­i­cal Mys­tery Tour, and espe­cial­ly Abbey Road sound­ed like they had come down from an advanced alien civ­i­liza­tion.

What I was hear­ing in part—especially on Abbey Road—was the per­fec­tion of the stu­dio as an instru­ment, and the major influ­ence of the last, best fifth Bea­t­le, George Mar­tin. Not to dimin­ish the incred­i­ble musi­cian­ship and song­writ­ing abil­i­ties of the Bea­t­les them­selves, but with­out their engi­neers, with­out Mar­tin at the con­trols, and with­out the state-of-the-art studios—EMI, then, of course, Abbey Road—those albums would have sound­ed much more down to earth: still great, no doubt, but not the sym­phon­ic mas­ter­pieces they are, especially—in my opin­ion—Abbey Road, the last album the Bea­t­les record­ed togeth­er (though not their final release).

So how did such a bril­liant record­ing come to being? You can piece its con­struc­tion togeth­er your­self by sort­ing through all of the stuff that didn’t make it on the record—outtakes, alter­nate album cov­er pho­tos—as well as through inter­views with Mar­tin and the band. At the top of the post, see one of the cov­er pho­tos that didn’t make the cut. A self-effac­ing­ly-named blog called Stuff Nobody Cares About has sev­er­al more alter­nate pho­tos from that ses­sion on August 8, 1969 (which McCart­ney con­cep­tu­al­ized before­hand in a series of sketch­es). Before the album got its icon­ic look, it came together—pun intended—as icon­ic sound. Just above, you can hear George Mar­tin describe the process of pro­duc­ing the band’s last record­ing, a “very hap­py record,” he says, com­pared to the tense, unhap­py Let it Be. After­ward, hear George, Paul, and Ringo rec­ol­lect their bit­ter­sweet mem­o­ries of the ses­sions.

Near the end of the doc­u­men­tary clip, Paul McCart­ney says, “I’m real­ly glad that most of the songs dealt with love, peace, under­stand­ing….” If that’s what “Mean Mr. Mus­tard” or “Maxwell’s Sil­ver Ham­mer” are about, col­or me sur­prised, but I’ve nev­er been one to get too hung up on the mean­ings of the Bea­t­les songs—it’s the menagerie of sounds I love, the unusu­al chord changes, and the wit­ty lit­tle nar­ra­tives, touch­ing vignettes, and almost shock­ing­ly apt lyri­cal images (“Hold you in his arm­chair / You can feel his dis­ease”).

But like the band them­selves com­ing back togeth­er, the songs on Abbey Road—includ­ing that mas­ter­ful clos­ing med­ley—didn’t imme­di­ate­ly fall into place; they were the prod­uct of much stu­dio noodling and idio­syn­crat­ic Bea­t­les brainstorming—an activ­i­ty one part music hall com­e­dy improv, one part genius hap­py acci­dent, and one part good-natured fam­i­ly squab­ble. In the three clips above and below, hear the pow­er­ful Abbey Road med­ley come togeth­er, in fits and starts, with plen­ty of play­ful ban­ter and off-the-cuff inspi­ra­tion.

Hear­ing the mak­ing of Abbey Road doesn’t take away from the oth­er­world­ly final prod­uct, but it does bring the exalt­ed per­son­al­i­ties of the band back down to earth, show­ing them as hard­work­ing musi­cians and nat­ur­al writ­ers and come­di­ans who just hap­pened to have made—with no short­age of help—some of the most mind-blow­ing music of the 20th cen­tu­ry.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Short Film on the Famous Cross­walk From the Bea­t­les’ Abbey Road Album Cov­er

Hear the Iso­lat­ed Vocal Tracks for The Bea­t­les’ Cli­mac­tic 16-Minute Med­ley on Abbey Road

The Bea­t­les’ Rooftop Con­cert: The Last Gig Filmed in Jan­u­ary 1969

The Bea­t­les’ Final, “Painful” Pho­to Shoot: A Gallery of Bit­ter­sweet Images

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

After every ter­ri­ble tragedy in the West, we expect celebri­ties to weigh in. And they do, with com­ments insight­ful and heart­felt, appalling and boor­ish, per­func­to­ry and banal. Often, the larg­er the pub­lic pro­file, the more self-serv­ing the sound­bite. One take in par­tic­u­lar has pro­voked sneers and ridicule: Bono—who paid respects with his band at music venue Le Bat­a­clan—told an inter­view­er, “this is the first direct hit on music we’ve had in this so-called War on Ter­ror.” Twit­terati, the Com­men­tari­at, and, well, folks, did not take kind­ly to the state­ment, with many point­ing out an ear­li­er “hit on music” in Feb­ru­ary and accus­ing U2’s front­man of mak­ing the mon­strous attacks on the Paris music venue about him­self.

One can under­stand the sen­ti­ment, with­out excus­ing the ver­biage. Le Bataclan—scene of what has right­ly been called a “blood­bath”—has occu­pied a sig­nif­i­cant place in pop music his­to­ry since it start­ed book­ing rock bands in the 1970s; and it has host­ed famous musi­cians and singers—like Edith Piaf—since its open­ing in 1864. It does not min­i­mize the tremen­dous pain of the hor­rif­ic mur­der of 89 Eagles of Death Met­al fans this past Fri­day to say that the assault has also deeply dis­turbed musi­cians and music fans world­wide.

Grief leads us to remem­brance, and we can memo­ri­al­ize le Bat­a­clan (named after the French operetta Ba-ta-clan) for its long his­to­ry before last Fri­day’s hor­ror. One of the most his­toric con­certs there occurred in 1972, when John Cale reunit­ed with his for­mer Vel­vet Under­ground band­mates Lou Reed and Nico for acoustic ren­di­tions of “Hero­in,” “The Black Angel’s Death Song,” and “Femme Fatale.” We cov­ered that con­cert in a pre­vi­ous post. See it again at the top of this one. The fol­low­ing year, a band at the height of its career—or the first phase of it anyway—graced le Bataclan’s stage before going on to blow minds at London’s Shep­per­ton Stu­dios. Just above, see the Peter Gabriel-front­ed Gen­e­sis play “The Musi­cal Box,” “Supper’s Ready,” “Return of the Giant Hog­weed,” and “The Knife.”

Too many oth­ers to name have played le Bat­a­clan through the years—from Prince (who jammed out Zeppelin’s “Whole Lot­ta Love”) to Oasis. Per­haps one of the most mov­ing per­for­mances the venue host­ed came from Jeff Buck­ley in 1995, whose con­cert there was released as a live album the fol­low­ing year. Buck­ley sang his med­ley of Edith Piaf’s “Je N’en Con­nais Pas La Fin/Hymne A L’Amour” (above)—in hind­sight an espe­cial­ly poignant ren­di­tion two years before his untime­ly death. “By the time Buck­ley switch­es over to French,” writes All­mu­sic, “the crowd erupts at the end of every phrase, catch­ing him off guard with their enthu­si­asm.” He end­ed the show with the near­ly 10-minute ver­sion of Leonard Cohen’s “Hal­lelu­jah” below, a song he became known for and that serves as well as any oth­er as a trib­ute to le Bat­a­clan in these dark days of mourn­ing, war, and ret­ri­bu­tion. “Love is not a vic­to­ry march,” sings Buck­ley, his voice crack­ing, “It’s a cold and it’s a bro­ken Hal­lelu­jah.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Gen­e­sis (from the Peter Gabriel Era) Per­form in a Glo­ri­ous, 1973 Restored Con­cert Film

Lou Reed, John Cale & Nico Reunite, Play Acoustic Vel­vet Under­ground Songs on French TV, 1972

Édith Piaf’s Mov­ing Per­for­mance of ‘La Vie en Rose’ on French TV, 1954

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness