THE ABBEY ROAD ZEBRA CROSSING
Today (August 8) marks the anniversary of the day the four Beatles walked across the road at an Abbey Road zebra crossing–and into history.
“Are you KIDDING?” I said, incensed. “I was there when that rumor started. I helped SPREAD that rumor!”
Or rather, rumors. There were dozens. If you played “A Day in the Life” backwards, it said, “Paul is dead, miss him, miss him;” if you held the Sergeant Pepper album up to a mirror, the words “Lonely Hearts” were transformed into “1 ONE HE DIED ONE 1;” and John Lennon mumbled, “I buried Paul,” at the end of “Strawberry Fields Forever.”
That’s because Paul had been killed in a car accident in January of 1967. He’d had a fight with the other band members during a recording session, driven off in a huff, and crashed. He’d been decapitated, and the remaining Beatles had replaced him with a guy who looked and sounded (and could write songs) exactly like him. (Which, like all conspiracy theories, makes no sense. The chance of finding someone like that is only slightly less likely than that of keeping the substitution secret.)
So how did the whole thing get started? Because on the cover of the Beatles album ABBEY ROAD, Paul was barefoot.
The album cover showed the four Beatles crossing the street at a pedestrian crossing (called a zebra [short e] crossing in England) on a tree-lined street. The four of them were walking one after the other. John Lennon’s in front, dressed all in white, Ringo Starr’s next, wearing a long black coat, then Paul McCartney in a gray suit and white shirt and no shoes, and finally George Harrison in jeans and a blue denim shirt.
“See?” fans said. “Paul’s lack of shoes means he’s dead. In certain cultures the dead are buried without shoes.” (Not in England’s, but, oh, well…) “And Ringo’s obviously dressed as an undertaker and John is Jesus or an angel or something, and George is the gravedigger.”
OR that was just what they happened to be wearing during the recording session at EMI Studios when the photographer had them go outside to shoot the cover for their new album. That’s the story the photographer–and the Beatles–tell. “We were wearing ordinary clothes,” Paul explained. “I was barefoot because it happened to be a hot day.” And the candid snapshots Paul’s wife, Linda, took as they lined up and waited to cross are far too relaxed and jokey for guilty conspirators trying to send a coded message. (In one of them Paul and Ringo are taking a grinning, stagey bow, and in another Paul’s wearing huaraches.)
It doesn’t matter. No amount of proof or rational explanation can stop a conspiracy theory once it gets going, and this one’s still going strong fifty years after ABBEY ROAD came out, even though Paul (or is double) has gone on to write hundreds of hit songs, write ballets and oratorios, and be knighted. (If you don’t believe me, google “Paul is dead.”)
The album cover has become the most recognizable in the world Even though the record label originally hated it because it didn’t say “Abbey Road” or “The Beatles” anywhere on it, and they said it would never sell because “no one will know who they are,” it was a huge success and has become the most famous album cover in the world.
It’s been recreated by everyone from Kiss to Dr. Who and the Daleks. The Sesame Street characters reenacted it (with Oscar the Grouch as Paul), and so did Dave McLean and Montana Country and a quartet of Franciscan Brothers. The Peanuts characters recreated it with Snoopy as Paul, of course–he’s always barefoot–and so did the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Simpsons, and the scene has appeared in movies from TRAINSPOTTING to THE PARENT TRAP. Even Paul (or his double) got into the act, doing an album cover featuring him being dragged across the street by his sheepdog.
And the zebra crossing in St. John’s Wood where it all started has become a major tourist attraction. It’s been listed as a Grade II Listed structure by the British government for its “cultural and historical importance.”
Scores of tourists visit every day, there’s a live webcam that records everyone who crosses (including music-lovers, wedding couples, and my daughter, who visited twice, once with a band of carolers and a second time when she had to scramble out of the way of a taxi who didn’t care that she was trying to take a photo of her friends reenacting the cover) and on the fiftieth anniversary of the album, thousands of fans gathered at the zebra crossing to celebrate (and cross the road), and on August eighth, 2019, hundreds of people gathered to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the album’s release and take turns walking in single file across the road.
And sometimes Paul McCartney shows up. He lives nearby, and every once in awhile he walks over, takes off his shoes, and walks across the road, starting the rumor all over again.
