It was 50 years ago today
mainOn the morning of Friday 8 August 1969, the four Beatles lined up on the Abbey Road crossing outsde the EMI studios for the most controversial and iconic snapshot in the whole of rock history.
Today, the site is thronged by tourists, all trying to replicate the original shot (to the frustration of those of us who chose to live in the neighbourhood).
since 2002 the 8th of August is also International Cat Day 😉
Not a lot of people know that
Around here, it’s understood that every day is International Cat Day.
likewise here 😉
You mean, that’s some kind of cat walk?
Every day is cat day at my house.
I suppose they have become classics of popular culture, because enough people still care for them, often for nostalgic reasons. For me the best popular music was in the 1920s & 30s (not so much in 1910s). The rot started in 1940s. By 1950s popular music was a lost cause. Today it is utter barbarism. This is coming from someone who is open to European avant-garde of 20th century, including serialism.
By “the rot” I assume you mean Swing and Big Band? You need to listen to more Benny Goodman and Harry James.
And Artie Shaw.
Oh dear, you poor thing. You need to at least listen to Miles Davis…
I worked at Abbey Road for four years editing EMI’s classical output in the 1980s and it was a fairly frequent experience to be asked by tourists to take a photo of four friends crossing the famous crossing! The traffic was always very patient, such as it was…
“Controversial” photo?
I was wondering that myself…
Maxim Vengerov posed for a picture in the crosswalk, for his Prokofiev album with Rostropovich back in the 90s.
“Iconic” I understand (though I frankly detest The Beatles), but what was “controversial” about what is, in the end, just a simple photo of four blokes in suits crossing a street?
N.B. August 8 is also the birthday of the great Roger Federer!
Isn’t this the photo that started the ridiculous “Paul McCartney is dead” rumours? That would make it somewhat controversial.
How can anyone ‘detest’ the Beatles? Isn’t that just a bit harsh?
August 8, 1969 is also the day Sharon Tate, her unborn child and others were killed by Charles Manson. “Helter Skelter” was scribbled at one of the crime scenes.
And, ironically, Roman Polanski was Sharon’s husband. He filmed “Rosemary’s Baby” at the Dakota, in NYC, where John Lennon was later killed…
No, not too harsh at all. Their influence – musically, culturally, socially, politically – was a blight on humanity.
Wrong on all counts. Which does not make them perfect, but it sounds as if you are a tone-deaf, philistine, misogynistic Trumpian.
What an asinine statement you’ve just made Dennis.
Why was Paul walking barefoot?
Because he was dead! Duh!
That was a secret message to other members of an underground sect, or the barefoot walk was some kind of sacrifice in a magical ritual, or by some reason he did not note that he had no shoes, or his agent told him to do so to create attention (in this case successfully, since we are still commenting on his barefoot walk after 50 years) , or maybe he just suffered from ingrown toenails.
Who are these guys? Never heard of them.
I seems that they were fans of Stockhausen.
In the same way that 99.99% of the worlds population have never heard of you Mr Borstlap, but I will guarantee that in another 100 years time they will still be playing the music of these “unknowns”………..how about your music?
Are you sure you are on the right website? For cumulative populist quantities, there are much more entertaining little corners on the internet.
(About listeners to my music, I have no reason to complain, by the way. And in another 100 years there won’t be any populists, irritated by elitist remarks, left: they will have become extinct through natural selection and government prohibition on procreation.)
As you are a self proclaimed intellectual and dismissive of any other music outside the classical genre, I thought I should take heed of the compositional genius that lurks within you. So I gave your composition “Fantasia” an outing on Youtube and I think the following comment left by a listener sums it up best, “unfettered by the slavery of talent”. I think I will stick with the peasants who can appreciate everything from. Bruckner and Mahler through to the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Miles Davis and the greatest musician of the 20th century, Edward Kennedy Ellington……..you have much to discover and appreciate.
From Believe-It-Or-Not files:
On several occasions within the last four decades, I personally heard some of the most prominent and world-renowned classical musicians declaring that they consider John&Paul to be the greatest creators of good tunes (taking into account both quality and quantity) since either Schubert or Tchaikovsky and possibly Gershwin.
NL writes: “most controversial and iconic snapshot”
The most iconic must surely be Sgt Pepper. This would have to come second.
That one was definitely not a snapshot.