“A thin grey fog hung over the city, and the streets were very cold; for summer was in England.”
― Rudyard Kipling, The Light That Failed
Sites/Topics covered in this post:
Go-Date: Day 172, Saturday, July 13
Lesson Learned: We met up with old friends, Jerry and Anne Greenfield from Texas. Jerry and I lived next door to each other from about age 4, attended school together until we headed off to different high schools (Tascosa for me, and Amarillo High School for Jerry). Anne and I met at Tascosa, and were friends but never ran together until after she met Jerry at Amarillo Jr. College. Good friends all those years until I left for Lubbock and Texas Tech.
After all those years, we were friends and stayed in contact until after we both married and I moved off to Fort Worth. Its been 26 years since we’d seen each other, though we did keep in contact, and here we are finally getting together in London. Jerry and Anne, on their way to Amsterdam, Ellen and I soon leaving for Ireland. The lesson learned, is friendship prevails, over time and distance. We all had a great lunch together and we’ll meet up again. This time it won’t take a score plus six years to make it happen again.
Maxwell Edison, Majoring in Medicine
Abbey Road is the eleventh studio album by the Beatles, released on 26 September 1969 by Apple Records. I dare say everyone has heard the songs and seen the album cover. The recording sessions for the album were the last in which all four Beatles participated. Although Let It Be was the final album that the Beatles completed before the band’s dissolution in April 1970, most of the album had been recorded before the Abbey Road sessions began. If you are a Baby Boomer, and you recall the music when it was released originally, how can you not visit the historic Abbey Road?
The album’s cover, which features John, Paul, Ringo & George walking across a zebra crossing outside Abbey Road Studios, has become one of the most famous and imitated images in the history of popular music.
Album Cover
The cover was designed by Apple Records creative director John Kosh. It is the only original UK Beatles album sleeve to show neither the artist name nor the album title on its front cover, which was Kosh’s idea, despite EMI claiming the record would not sell without this information (who do you think was right?). He later explained that “we didn’t need to write the band’s name on the cover … They were the most famous band in the world”.
The photo was taken in the street, with EMI Studios in the background, in 1969. The front cover design, a photograph of the group was based on ideas sketched by McCartney and taken on 8 August 1969 outside the Studios on Abbey Road. Rumors that McCartney really wanted to have the photo taken on Main Street at Disney World are totally unfounded.
At 11:35 that morning, photographer Iain Macmillan was given only ten minutes to take the photo whilst he stood on a step-ladder and a policeman held up traffic behind the camera. Unfortunately, there was no bobby about when we made our crossing. Abbey Road is a very busy street. You can’t linger, and those standing in the middle of the road to take pics were dodging cars and lorries the entire time. Macmillan took six photographs, which McCartney later examined with a magnifying glass before deciding which of the shots would be used upon the album sleeve. He never did answer the question as to why he wasn’t wearing any shoes. I have discovered that conspiracy theories about Paul McCartney’s bare feet are still alive and well keeping rumors of his demise alive to this day.
If you don’t remember, in the late 1960s, the rumor started circulating among Beatles fans that Sir Paul had died in a car crash in 1967 or was murdered by Yoko Ono, or by brain eating microbes. Because they didn’t want to impact the popularity of the band, managers and handlers allegedly hired a McCartney look-alike as a replacement. The only reason I find any relevance in this theory is McCartney’s involvement with the band Wings. The remaining members of the Beatles felt bad about lying to loyal fans, however, and began leaving clues in the album artwork to tip them off. Which sounds like a bad plot for a Hercule Poirot murder mystery.
One such “clue” was the entire cover of the Abbey Road album. Fans deduced that a simple picture of the band crossing the road was actually meant to depict a funeral procession. John, in white, was the clergyman. Ringo’s black attire showed that he was the mourner, while George’s casual jeans meant he was the gravedigger. Paul’s bare feet were the kicker: He didn’t need shoes, because he was the dearly departed. McCartney now claims he was wearing sandals and kicked them off because it was a hot day. Me, I think it doesn’t make a damn bit of a difference. Its just a friggin photo.
Apart from Harrison, the group are wearing suits designed by Tommy Nutter. To the left of the picture, parked next to the zebra crossing, is a white Volkswagen Beetle which belonged to one of the people living in the block of flats across from the recording studio. After the album was released, the number plate (LMW 281F) was stolen repeatedly from the car. This sounds a lot like road signs from Luckenbach, Texas being stolen over and over.
Imitating the cover of Abbey Road has become popular with fans. The image of the Beatles on the Abbey Road crossing has become one of the most famous and imitated in recording history. The crossing is a popular destination for Beatles fans and a webcam, provided by EarthCam, has operated there since 2011.
(https://www.earthcam.com/world/england/london/abbeyroad/?cam=abbeyroad_uk)
Well, we made our crossing. Next, we’ll be boating across the Delaware River just like George Washington.