#AlbumCovers: The making of the Beatles’ Abbey Road cover

#AlbumCovers: The making of the Beatles’ Abbey Road cover

Giovanni Blandino Published on 8/22/2025

#AlbumCovers: The making of the Beatles’ Abbey Road cover

It’s August 1969. Four young men stride across a zebra crossing on an anonymous British street. It should be an unremarkable scene. Yet it’s set to become one of the most famous images in pop music history.

Because these four aren’t any old blokes – they are the biggest band in the world: the Beatles. And this isn’t any old road: it’s Abbey Road, home to EMI Studios, where the fab four are recording their penultimate album. And this photograph will grace its cover.

But whose idea was it? Who took it? How did they shoot it? Today, we answer these questions more and with the story behind the Beatles’ Abbey Road album cover.

An iconic photo for a legendary album

The Abbey Road cover photo is perfect in its simplicity. The band cross the road from left to right, John Lennon leading, followed by Ringo Starr, then Paul McCartney and George Harrison. Apart from Harrison, all are wearing suits. And apart from a barefoot McCartney, all are wearing shoes. Their legs form four symmetrical V-shapes, but if you look closely, McCartney is slightly out of sync: he has his right foot forward (the others lead with their left) and holds a cigarette in his right hand.

The cover for Abbey Road, the Beatles’ 11th album. Image: deezer.com

These little discrepancies are what make it such a powerful image. An accidental image that seems to be saying so much. In fact, these small details have even fuelled conspiracy theories: some claim that the Abbey Road photo actually depicts a funeral – for Paul McCartney! Supposedly, John Lennon, who leads the procession dressed in white, is an angel, while Ringo Starr – dressed in black – is an undertaker. The barefoot McCartney, out of synch with the others, is the deceased.

Cock and bull stories aside, the Abbey Road cover did in fact mark an ending: just seven months after the record’s release, the Beatles split up on 10 April 1970. Abbey Road was the last album the band recorded together, and the penultimate they released (the last, Let It Be, was actually in the can before Abbey Road was made, but wasn’t released until 1970).

Abbey Road is a legendary album, not just for its cover, but for its songs and the fraught circumstances of its recording. It opens with the smouldering blues of ‘Come Together’ and features two of the best songs written by the shyest Beatle, George Harrison: ‘Something’ and ‘Here Comes the Sun’. Fittingly, the latter – an ode to optimism – was written by Harrison alone, presumably while the rest of the band were busy arguing at one of the many meetings where they tried in vain to settle their differences.

And so for many, Abbey Road is the swansong of the most famous band in the world.

The story behind the Beatles’ Abbey Road cover

The concept for the cover came from John Kosh, the art director at Apple Records – the label founded by the Beatles. But before settling on his zebra crossing scene, the band toyed with more eccentric ideas. One was to name the album Everest, after the brand of cigarettes smoked by sound engineer Geoff Emerick. Fortunately, instead of scaling the world’s highest peak for a photo shoot, in the end the Beatles chose to stay much closer to home on Abbey Road.

The zebra crossing on Abbey Road in 2007. Image: wikipedia.org

So, with recording of the album almost complete, one hot summer’s morning – 8 August 1969 to be precise – the Beatles stepped out onto Abbey Road to shoot the cover photo. While a policeman stopped traffic, photographer Iain Macmillan plonked a stepladder in the middle of the street, clambered up it and fired off seven or eight shots. The whole shoot was done in 15 minutes.

It was Paul McCartney who looked over the pictures from the shoot and picked out the one that was finally used. Happily, all the alternative shots were preserved in the Apple Records archive. They make for curious viewing: there’s one in which McCartney is wearing sandals (which he clearly took off at some point), and another with the Beatles crossing the road from right to left.

One of the alternative photos shot for the Abbey Road cover. In this image, we see the Beatles crossing the street from right to left, the opposite direction to what we see on the iconic album sleeve. Image: reddit.com

There’s something else unique about Abbey Road. It’s the only Beatles album cover not to feature either the band’s name or the album’s title. At first, the top brass at the record label weren’t at all happy. But John Kosh stood firm against objections and offered a pretty persuasive rebuttal: the Beatles were the most famous band on Earth – they didn’t need to put their name on the cover!

Homages and spoofs

The Abbey Road cover is today one of the most iconic Beatles images. And ever since its release in September 1969, countless musicians and artists have paid tribute to – or parodied – its emblematic image.

There’s the infamous cover for the Red Hot Chili Peppers’s The Abbey Road E.P., which shows the four Americans strutting across the same zebra crossing as the Beatles, the only not-so-subtle difference being that the Chili Peppers are stark naked save for bright white socks covering their manhoods!

The cover for Paul McCartney’s solo album Paul Is Live. Image: amazon.it

The Abbey Road photo has even been spoofed by a Beatle. For the cover to his 1993 live solo album, Paul McCartney poked fun at the conspiracy theories. He called the record Paul Is Live and put the famous zebra crossing on the cover, but this time featuring just the one Beatle, himself, being dragged across it by his dog, which looks like it escaped from a Deluxe advert.

Dozens more artists have paid homage to Abbey Road, from Kanye West to Jerusalem’s Franciscan friars, from prog rockers Percewood’s Onagram to Argentine ska band Kapanga, from the Peanuts Gang to classical quartets.

Some of the many Abbey Road homages and spoofs. Image: blog.travelmarx.com

London’s Abbey Road remains a mecca for Beatles fans, and every day hundreds make the pilgrimage to the immortal zebra crossing. Those who can’t make the trip in person can even view the site from the comfort of their own home to thanks to a livestream from a webcam.

Do you love the Beatles’ Abbey Road cover, too? Have you ever sent it up or used it for inspiration in your work?