Barefoot on Abbey Road

On August 8, 1969, photographer Iain Macmillan stood on a stepladder in the middle of Abbey Road in London. In about ten minutes, he took six photos of the Beatles walking across the zebra crossing outside their studio. In the one chosen for the album cover, Paul McCartney is barefoot. Within weeks, some fans were treating it as proof that he was dead.

A Rumor Already Going Around

The rumor started before Abbey Road came out on September 26, 1969. The first known reference in print was an article by Tim Harper in the September 17 issue of the Times-Delphic, the student paper at Drake University in Iowa.

It took off on October 12. A caller, identified only as “Tom,” phoned Russ Gibb's show on WKNR-FM in Detroit and said McCartney was dead. Gibb played “Revolution 9” backwards on air and said he could hear the words “turn me on, dead man.”

The story went like this. Early on November 9, 1966, McCartney stormed out of a recording session, drove off in his car and crashed and died. To keep the band going, the other Beatles secretly replaced him with a lookalike.

The Clues Someone Made Up

On October 14, the University of Michigan's student paper, the Michigan Daily, ran a piece headlined “McCartney Dead; New Evidence Brought To Light.” It listed clues hidden in the Beatles' records and album covers. Its author, a student named Fred LaBour, later admitted he had invented some of them, including the name of the lookalike, William Campbell. “I made the guy up,” he said.

The Abbey Road cover became the most famous clue. Believers read it as a funeral procession: John in white as the preacher, Ringo in black as the undertaker, George in denim as the gravedigger, and Paul barefoot, like a body ready for burial. A Volkswagen Beetle parked on the street had a number plate ending in “28IF.” Believers said that was Paul's age if he had lived. He was actually 27.

“Paul Is Still With Us”

On October 22, McCartney borrowed a line from Mark Twain: “Rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” It didn't stop the story.

So Life magazine sent reporter Dorothy Bacon and photographer Terrence Spencer to find him. McCartney was at his remote farm near Campbeltown, in Scotland. They walked over the hills and waded through streams to reach the farmhouse. Their story ran in the issue of November 7, 1969, under the cover line “Paul is still with us.”

McCartney answered the Abbey Road clues one by one. “On Abbey Road we were wearing our ordinary clothes,” he said. “I was walking barefoot because it was a hot day. The Volkswagen just happened to be parked there.”

"It is all bloody stupid."

John Lennon was just as dismissive. Asked about it by Rolling Stone in 1970, he said the whole thing was made up.

Ten Minutes on a Zebra Crossing

The real photo session was simple. McCartney had sketched the idea for the cover a few days earlier. Macmillan hired a policeman to hold up the traffic while he was on the ladder. The frame chosen was the fifth of six, the only one with all four men's legs in a neat V.

In December 2010, the crossing was given Grade II listed status, making it the first zebra crossing ever to be listed in Britain. Fans still come to walk across it.