World Beatles Day and Abbey Road's Legacy
Today marks World Beatles Day, celebrating the Liverpool four-piece that released 11 smash hit albums in a frenzied six-year career. Abbey Road, recorded in the summer of 1969, was the final set of recordings by the band, capping their career with the appropriately titled 'The End.' It also pointed to a post-Beatles future, containing George Harrison's masterpiece 'Something,' the first Beatles No. 1 not credited to the Lennon-McCartney partnership.
The Iconic Cover's Secret
Abbey Road's cover, which has found its way into some 30 million homes worldwide, contains a secret. As well as John, Paul, George, and Ringo, there is one more person in the famous photo. For many years, the identity of that 'fifth Beatle' remained a mystery. On the day the photo was taken, August 8, 1969, an American tourist named Paul Cole was on holiday with his wife in London. He had paused on Abbey Road to ask a police officer for directions when he spotted four 'kooks' on a zebra crossing a few yards away.
Paul Cole's Recollection
'They went across like a row of ducks,' Mr. Cole recalled. 'They were not dressed like you’d expect in London at the time.' Ringo was quite formally dressed in a dark suit and white shirt, while John had opted for an all-white ensemble. George had turned up in double-denim, while Paul, like Ringo, dressed relatively conservatively but chose not to wear shoes or socks. 'A bunch of kooks, I called them,' Mr. Cole said, 'because they were rather radical-looking at that time. You didn’t walk around in London barefoot.'
Conspiracy Theories and Paul McCartney
Paul's barefoot stance sparked a long-running conspiracy theory. In some cultures, the dead are buried without shoes, and some fans became convinced the image evoked a funeral. Ringo’s black suit was seen as Western mourning attire, John’s white as Eastern mourning, and George’s casual outfit as symbolising a gravedigger. The theory stems from a bizarre claim that Paul died in a car crash in November 1966 and was replaced by a lookalike named Billy Shears. Fans claim to hear phrases like 'I buried Paul' and 'Turn me on, dead man' played backwards in late-period Beatles recordings.
Paul Cole's Accidental Fame
Mr. Cole had no interest in the Beatles. 'If they were on television, I’d flip to something else,' he told the Palm Beach Post. He only discovered his unlikely claim to fame years later when his wife bought a copy of Abbey Road to learn 'Something' for a wedding ceremony. Glancing at the cover, he noticed the new sports jacket he bought before their London trip. 'I did a double-take and said, “Hey, that’s me!”' he said. He later autographed the Abbey Road cover many times but never listened to the record, preferring classical music.
