User Reviews

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!

Filmmaker Mary McCartney does a solid job showing the breadth of legendary musicians who recorded at Abbey Road Studios, but it's no surprise that the Beatles provide the gravitational pull to this 2022 documentary, especially since Mary is Paul's daughter and an accomplished photographer in her own right. Paul is prominently interviewed as is Ringo Starr. While they share that it was a special space for them during their salad days, the film doesn't delve that much into why it was special other than the association with the Beatles. There are nice archival clips of recording sessions stretching almost seven decades, and this will clearly hold interest to musical historians, but the sum felt more episodic than revelatory.

Abbey Road is the music studio in London most famous for the Beatles final recorded album. Let it Be waas recorded earlier but released later.

As someone old enough to remember the music of the 1960's, seeing the four Liverpool lads creating their unforgettable music made the documentary by Mary McCartney worth the watch. Her father Paul is the star but Roger Waters and others provide additional good material.

Two of my favorite albums are Abbey Road by the Beatles and Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd and listening to Paul and Roger Waters recall their magical days at the studio made the film worthwhile for me.

Unfortunately, one of the final segments includes Kanye West. Given recent events, Ye belongs on the cutting room floor.

If These Walls Could Sing is a fine viewing for any music lover.

This is just excellent on so many levels. First, Mary McCartney did a great job with this - and then beyond that it's just history. It's musical monument - there are so many great artists that contributed to this - they share great Ariana memories - and it again just a walk through time. Well done - very enjoyable. And now I'm just going to ramble for a couple of hundred more words - because no one can write a good review unless it's at least six hundred words long. It's not enough to say you really like it, or it was great - you need to ramble on for a while and say a type a bunch of stuff that no one will ever read.

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.

This is a great piece of history, and it is amazing to see all of the great performers that recorded here. From EMI records to the new name Abbey Road. These walls witnessed the beginning of the Beatles, from when their first meeting /audition with George Martin, to their unforgettable walk (now a landmark) and their album titled Abbey Road. I loved the interviews and memories of Paul McCartney, Elton John, Giles Martin, Pink Floyd, Liam Gallagher, etc. One thing I didnt know, was all the amazing George Lucas' movie scores that were recorded here.

All and all, an amazing show, and i think the tittle is perfect if only "These walls could sing".

Great job Mary!

Yes I liked this a lot. It is perhaps geared towards fans of the Beatles who will be the ideal audience for this film, given that the band made the space famous - and given that most of the movie's first third traces the Beatles' evolution, from "Love Me Do" to "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."

It also covers Abbey Road recordings, across decades and genres, from Pink Floyd to John Williams to Kate Bush to Oasis. Some artists only had a minutes coverage i.e. Nile Rodgers, it's amusing when he can't find his picture on the walls there. Some nice contributions from Jimmy Page and Shirley Bassey, and the guys from the Hollies.

Being only really interested in vintage music I didn't know who Celeste was, or Matilda Mann. Iconic studio, the most famous studio in the world and it was great getting a visual tour, well worth watching , the running time shot by in a flash. Great documentary.

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!.

Just leave Liam Gallagher out of an intelligent documentary.

He just adds irrelevant nonsense.

The Gallagher brothers didn't feature much in the documentary but at least Noel brings a little detail to Oasis's time there.

If you're an LG fan boy don't waste you're time. Please just watch him butcher all the classics over and over at every gig since lockdown.

Great input from the rest of the cast who bring an interesting story to their time in AR.

From Cliff to Celeste (whom, by the way is top of my next play list) this is a brilliant insight to the ups and downs of the best recoding studio in the World.

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 (2022, Disney Plus)

No. 3 Abbey Road, a private residence purchased by The Gramophone Company in 1931, is by all accounts a magical place where all the microphones work, and the top notch loyal staff and technicians, (innovative, cool boffins, artists in their own right), remain for decades. You can feel the magic of past projects seeping through the hallowed walls creating an atmosphere that inspires musical artists to push creative boundaries. Paul McCartney muses, "If These Walls Could Sing," in reference to memories of musical greatness hanging out in that space, attached to the very walls.

Mary McCartney, daughter of Paul and Linda McCartney, directed this wonderful documentary about the history of Abbey Road in London, formerly EMI Studios, made famous in large part by her father and his Beatles bandmates, John, George, and Ringo.

A good chunk of the film is devoted to The Beatles legacy. The boys arrived as buskers, the balance engineers mixed as they went along, and they left bona fide legends thanks to their talent, the efforts of genius producer and label head George Martin, manager Brian Epstein, and their contact, which allowed them free use and the run of the studio; they used it as an experimental playground.

Their home was Studio Two, where they had access to Mrs. Mill's piano. Daniel Barenboim's classical Steinway, among other instruments. For A Day in the Life, Paul wanted an Orchestral orgasm to end the song, which George Martin helped to direct.

There is footage of Macca singing Blackbird in Studio Two as he tapped his feet on the floor to create that marvelous sound. Ringo's special memory is of hauling all the instruments into Studio Three to make a wall of sound for Yer Blues.

This film history includes much more than the Lads from Liverpool. Studio One, which is the ideal size room for an orchestra has hosted recordings for the likes of Daniel Boirbaum and his then wife, virtuoso cellist Jacqueline du Pré playing the Elgar Concerto, as well as John Williams directing scores for George Lucas' films using The London Symphony in the 1970s as the studio usage sought a reawakening.

At Abbey Road, Pink Floyd made their first album while The Beatles made Abbey Road. Wings, Sir Edward Elgar, Cliff Richard, (an early ambassador of Rock and Roll), then-studio musician Jimmy Page, Kate Bush, Noel and Liam Gallagher, Celeste, and Dame Shirley Bassey, who held the last note of the James Bond theme sooooooo long -- until the credits ended, that she collapsed on the floor.

Oasis, Elton John, the irrepressible Feli Kuti, Roger Waters, Cilia Black, The Hollies, Nile Rogers, and Giles Martin, all took part in interviews. Each story is high caliber and spans time, countries, and genres.

The film is on Disney Plus. I bought a month long membership just to see it. I loved it so much I watched it twice. I was lucky enough to visit 3 Abbey Road multiple times in my life and take a picture on the Zebra Crossing. Music is my prayer and this studio is hallowed ground to me.

If you make a music documentary about a studio, why wouldn't you have first a look about other such music documentaries to get an idea? There are some really good music documentaries about record labels and studios out there, for example Hitsville: The Making of Motown, Muscle Shoals, Respect Yourself The Stax Records Story, Blue Note Records - Beyond the Note, I even enjoyed way more Rudeboy The Story Of Trojan Records. I watched over 500 music documentaries. This one was just boring. Other documentaries of this kind are just more entertaining, people are more enthusiastic about the whole thing, visual more exiting etc.