Revisiting Abbey Road 40 years on

BBC News ^ | Friday, 7 August 2009 09:54 UK | Lawrence Pollard

[a fool in paradise]

Forty years ago on Saturday, one of the pop world's most infamous and imitated album covers was shot in a little side street in north London...

On the 8 August 1969 that the Fab Four walked out of No 3 Abbey Road, having finished basic work on what would be - and they subsequently said they knew would be - their last album.

A policeman held up the traffic, the band walked back and forth a few times and that was that

...A lesser noted curiosity is that the album cover has no writing on it and is just the picture...

"I insisted we didn't need to write the band's name on the cover," he says.

"They were the most famous band in the world after all - EMI said they'd never sell any albums if we didn't say who the band was, but I got my way, and got away with it."

And it is hard to think of an album cover that has been so thoroughly repeated.

Dozens of bands have put stripes on their cover, like the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, but of course the biggest tribute comes from the thousands of fans and tourists who go to leafy north London every year...

If you want to check the crossing now, there's a webcam.

Watch it for a while and you will see scampering fans snatching at a gap in the traffic to recreate the shoot - much to the annoyance of local drivers...

"All they're doing is posing on the crossing. Someone's going to get mown down one of these days there's no doubt about it."

Here's hoping Ron avoids the crossing on Saturday morning when Beatles fans will stage a mass crossing in honour of the photo shoot...

[a fool in paradise]

[a fool in paradise]

Abbey Road crossing webcam

http://www.abbeyroad.co.uk/visit/

[JRios1968]

[FrdmLvr]

Wow! 40 years? I’m getting old!

[a fool in paradise]

Here’s another clue for you all, the Beatles were playing gigs 50 years ago!

[willgolfforfood]

So are they. The two of them left, anyway.

Pretty good album, too.

[FrdmLvr]

I love the album. I remember the day I bought it, too, just like it was yesterday. I went down to our basement “rec room” to listen to it as soon as I got home with it.

[malos]

My favorite Beatle album.

[Bobkk47]

“IF 28”

[Bobkk47]

Correction: "28IF"

[a fool in paradise]

Wonder where that license plate is today

[snarks_when_bored]

	Why did the Beatles walk across Abbey Road?
	They lost their ticket to ride.

[a fool in paradise]

Why did the chicken cross Abbey Road?

It had to get back.

[Gay State Conservative]

I almost got killed crossing Abbey Rd a few years back.The woman who almost hit me...who,I assume,was a “local”....looked particularly annoyed by my activities.

[a fool in paradise]

Probably a Stones (or Abba) fan.

[the_devils_advocate_666]

[Nea Wood]

I think I can figure out what the “28IF” supposedly meant, (Paul would be 28 IF he hadn’t died?) but did the “LMW” have any meaning?

[windcliff]

Ping

[stylecouncilor]

Watch it for a while and you will see scampering fans snatching at a gap in the traffic to recreate the shoot - much to the annoyance of local drivers...

Guilty!

[a fool in paradise]

Laughing My Willie Off

[Skooz]

BFL

[murron]

Also, Paul was the only one walking barefoot, which was supposed to be some religious sign of death. And actually when the album came out, Paul would have been 27.

[Borges]

ABBA fans love the Beatles!

[mysterio]

Great record.

[dfwgator]

He had shoes on here.

[a fool in paradise]

Yeah, but his mates had run out on him by then. Where were THEIR shoes that time?

[murron]

Never saw this one. Hallelujah! He came back to life!