(London, England, U.K.)
After the overwhelming Saturday night concert at the Royal Albert Hall, there was only one day left on my musical tour. I wanted to take advantage of every moment but I had no further concert tickets and no strong desire to see a musical matinee. I also had to get up at 4:45 a.m. the following morning to catch my flight back to Canada.
I decided to go on a special guided tour. Not just any tour, mind you, but a tour that would finally introduce me to the London of my first musical heroes: The Beatles.
Millions of words have been written about the Beatles and I don’t think I need to convince anyone that their songs will one day be considered the “classical music” of the 20th century. No matter how much they have been deified, the fact remains that they created all of that music in this very real city and lived a very real life here. It was time to finally see it for myself.
After walking past Paul McCartney’s offices, we saw Trident Studios in a narrow laneway. The Beatles rarely recorded here, but they did happen to record “Hey Jude” here…and that’s what they were doing on the day I was born. These particular studios were beyond nondescript and yet this was where one of the most popular songs ever was recorded.
Nearby was the former site of the Indica Gallery – famous for being the place where John Lennon first met Yoko Ono. Our guide was careful to point out that Ono didn’t break up the Beatles; rather than the “cause”, he thought she was a “symptom” and the breakup would have happened eventually anyway.
The second most important site for me on this tour was 3 Savile Row – the former headquarters of Apple Records and the site of their last ever public performance. This is the building you see throughout the movie “Let It Be”; the famous rooftop concert took place right here! There was also a recording studio in the basement. Looking at the neighbourhood today, it still is very “proper and dignified”…it’s no wonder the Beatles were not welcomed with open arms by the other businesses on the street. Today, 3 Savile Row is the location of an “Abercrombie Kids” store.
We saw some other minor sites but the best was saved for last. We had to take the Tube to St. John’s Wood and walk for about 10 minutes. Even though it was a typical semi-suburban environment, there were tourists everywhere…many of them endangering life and limb on the busy street. This was Abbey Road.
Abbey Road is the location of EMI Studios (as it was then called), where the Beatles recorded almost all of their music. The site is now called Abbey Road Studios and is still used as a commercial studio, so it is not open to the general public. That doesn’t stop hundreds (thousands?) of people visiting it every day to pay their respects. It does feel kind of magical here.
Perhaps even more alluring is the fact that this is also the very place where the iconic Abbey Road album cover photograph was taken. Back in 1969, the street was briefly closed and the photo of the Beatles was taken from a stepladder in the middle of the road. That’s why fans continue to endanger their lives by trying to recreate the exact photo. It’s also one of the few “real” places portrayed on a Beatles album cover.
I didn’t try to take a picture from the very same spot. But I took some photos of the pedestrian crossing (it’s still there) and even had another person take a photo of me walking across just like the Beatles did all those years ago. That’s the photo you see at the top of this post, with Abbey Road Studios in the background.
Along with “Revolver” and “With The Beatles“, “Abbey Road” is one of my three favourite Beatles albums. It certainly has the best production and was the last original album they recorded together (although the very uneven “Let It Be” album was released later). It was a fitting finale to an astonishing career.
For me, going to Abbey Road also represented a kind of closure for my year of travel. I had come to the end of the long and winding road and there was nowhere else I needed to go. It was time to go home.