How The Beatles’ Iconic ‘Abbey Road’ Album Cover Came Together in Just 15 Minutes

Abbey Road is considered one of The Beatles’ best albums. However, the image attached to the album might be even more iconic. The Beatles never could’ve imagined how iconic the cover for Abbey Road would become as the cover came together in just 15 minutes. Little did they know they were creating a legendary image. 

Is Abbey Road a real place?

Many wonder whether Abbey Road is a real place. The short answer is yes. The location where the cover was taken is right outside of Abbey Road studios, where The Beatles spent most of their career recording songs. According to Radiox.com, the crossway is located at “the southern-most point of Abbey Road, at the junction with Grove End Road, in the St John’s Wood area of North West London.”

The white building on the left of the image is Abbey Road studios. Many have made the trek to take their own photo of themselves recreating the image. Many other artists and forms of entertainment have recreated this image, from The Simpsons to the Red Hot Chili Peppers. 

The album cover image was finished in just 15 minutes

Abbey Road was the final album recorded by The Beatles. While they took their time to ensure every song was perfect, the iconic album cover was done rather quickly. According to BBC, the group was able to photograph the cover in 15 minutes. 

The band hired the late Iain Macmillan, a close friend of Brian Southall’s, who knew The Beatles through working with Yoko Ono. Southall said McCartney provided an image of “four little stick men” crossing the crosswalk to give an idea of what they wanted. Southall also told BBC about how quickly the cover was photographed. Macmillan was given about 15 minutes and only took about seven or eight photos. 

“He was given about 15 minutes,” Southall said.”He stood up a stepladder while a policeman held up the traffic, the band walked back and forth a few times and that was that.”

‘Abbey Road’ was created through The Beatles rejecting other ideas

Abbey Road wasn’t the first idea The Beatles came up with. At one point, the band almost called the album Everest but turned down the idea after realizing a photo in the Himalayas would be too much work. Drummer Ringo Starr told the Australia Today show that the band had many other complicated ideas but decided to go with the easiest option. 

“This was incredible, the cover, because we’d sit around, not only for the ‘Abbey Road’ cover but for many covers, we’d sit around and say, ‘We’ve got to go up Everest and dive off, and they can shoot us.’ Or, ‘We’ve got to go to a volcano in Hawai’i,’ or, ‘We’ve got to go to the pyramids.’ ‘Oh, let’s walk across the road,’ and that’s what we did. We just got up in the morning, got dressed, and went. That’s how we were dressed.”

Shooting the cover on the Abbey Road crosswalk might have been the easiest choice, but it ended up being the right one as the image is almost as legendary as the band itself.