Four blokes and a zebra crossing: the banality and beauty of the Beatles’ Abbey Road cover
Much-copied and parodied picture captures dynamic between the individuals and the band with eerie perfection It’s not really the four blokes on the zebra crossing who make the cover of the Beatles’ Abbey Road memorable, but the street behind them.
Vanishing towards a perfect blue sky, with summer trees veiling in bright green what might otherwise be dour brick houses, it could be a hyperreal vista painted by David Hockney.
The black and white stripes of the crossing and the white line down the middle of the receding north London road are fresh and crisp, enhancing the clarity of this psychedelic daydream.
Of course the four blokes do play a part.
The Beatles were so transcendently famous by the time Iain Macmillan took this picture on 8 August 1969 that seeing them do something as ordinary as cross the road becomes a magical mystery.
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5News aggregated this summary from the outlet’s public feed. The full article, with all the context, is on www.theguardian.com — the content belongs to The Guardian UK.
