Brit Music Scene

Beatles Fans Celebrate 40th Anniversary Of Abbey Road

Posted: 10 Aug 2009 01:04 PM PDT

This past weekend saw the 40th anniversary of the day the classic cover of The Beatles’ Abbey Road album was shot. The occasion was commemorated by hundreds of fans who converged on the zebra crossing in order to recreate the famous pose and pay their respects to the greatest band the world has ever seen.

Rather unsurprisingly, the zebra crossing is located next to the Abbey Road studios in north London where The Beatles recorded the LP which would end up being their penultimate album. It’s a very ordinary street in a very ordinary part of London, but its place in history is now set in stone.

Abbey Road was originally going to be called Everest and have a shot of the Himalayas on the cover. But a sketch Paul McCartney had made showing four stick figures crossing a road inspired the band to look a little closer to home. So on August 8, 1969, the Fab Four were photographed crossing the road a number of times by Iain Macmillan, who like John Lennon and George Harrison is now no longer with us.

Brian Southall, author of the history of Abbey Road Studios, told BBC News what happened that day, recounting how the photographer had 15 minutes to capture a suitable image. A policeman stopped traffic, the four members of The Beatles crossed back and forth, and about seven or eight shots were taken. One shows the band walking the other way, one has McCartney wearing sandals, but the one chosen has now become as famous as any photo in history.

The image chosen fed into the ‘Paul Is Dead’ conspiracy theory. McCartney is shown without shoes, as if he is a corpse, and is out of step with the others as if he’s out of place. By what they’re wearing, it also appears as if Lennon is a priest, Ringo Starr an undertaker, and George Harrison a gravedigger. It now appears as if this was all mere coincidence but it’s easy to see how rumors start.

The Abbey Road album cover has been used as inspiration and spoofed by many other bands. But it remains iconic to this day, with the 40th anniversary prompting hordes of people descending on the venue to recreate the cover for their own photo albums. And why not? After all, it’s one of the easiest album covers to recreate - involving just crossing the road at a certain junction in London.

[Photo Source: Amazon.co.uk]

Post from: Brit Music Scene