How many strategic departments does it take to make a Beatles album cover?
Dave Trott argues that the world’s best ideas aren’t data driven or created by strategic departments. Take the ‘real’ meaning behind Paul McCartney’s bare feet on the cover of Abbey Road, for example.
I try to avoid driving home through St John’s Wood.
Traffic always has to wait at the same spot while different groups of people cross the road. They stop in the middle of the road and pose for a photograph.
It goes on seven days a week.
Always enjoy reading Dave Trott’s insights. Well-written and interesting. Just like his copywriting.
Paul barefoot, out of step with the original Beatles, carrying a coffin nail in his wrong hand. *5* Beatles in the shot, the white one has the number plate 28IF, Paul would have been 28 IF he was still alive. If you line up the back wheel of the cars on Paul’s side, the line slices through his head, which was supposedly removed in the car accident that killed him. John is dressed as a holy man, Ringo is the undertaker, George is the grave digger. In the UK in the 60s it was the norm to be buried in an old suit, barefoot. It is a funeral presession outside the Abby, crossing over. It is being observed in the distance by three original Beatles standing in the light clearly seen and one on the other side hiding in the shadows. The police van is a thank you to the police for helping to cover up his death. On the rear cover, instead of the traditional word “The” before “Beatles” we see *5* dots in shape of a 3 and the S has an ominous crack though it. If we tilt the album diagonally we can make out the Grim Reaper and the girl running from the car accident is said to resemble Paul’s ghostly profile. Oh and the record label Apple Corps could be pronounced “A Paul Corpse”. And they were just the clues left on one album cover! Food for thought.
I love this explanation more than the article – whether it’s true or not it’s a great story
In fact, often ideas don’t even happen in our heads.
Often they happen in the audience’s heads.
The studios were still named EMI Recording Studios at that time. The album was named after the road NOT the studio.
the album was supposed to be called Everest, but the Beatles were to lazy to go there and to stupid to use photo magic
Trott, you’re ratchet strapping music history and the “truth” in order to fit an otherwise spot-on thesis. McCartney sketched the shot days before, the final is bang on his original concept minus the title displayed. With 3/4 of the boys kitted in suits from one designer, it’s a bit more than pure happenstance. It was the label (EMI) pushing for an immediate release who scrapped the trip to Nepal because it would take too long (and potentially miss the critical pre-Christmas sales period). Sure there was no strategy or data but you had four of the most creative individuals on the face of the planet occupying the same air, seems just as likely had they left the cover blank it would have been as iconic. Wait a second…
Hmm Very interesting, well thought and Well Said
Cheers ? Colin O’donnell
As a strategist, it pains me to agree with this.. Though as with strategy, often the best ideas are the simplest.
Pedantically, Abbey Rd was not the last album. Let It Be was.
Yet, pedantically, Abbey Road was the last album recorded.
from one pedant to another…………depends on what you call “last”………………”Let it be” was the last album released; Abbey Road was recorded after “Let It Be” and released before it………..but the real message from the Beatles was the last track on Abbey Road “The End”……
As an ex-record company PR man, release dates count for me ….
Is this article meant to be sung?
To the tune of Something.
Why must Mr Trott write as though he is mowing down Richard Attenborough with a german machine gun at the end of the Great Escape?
Its jarring.
And affectatious.
“Good luck”, you say. This is copywriting for the internet, where one must be ever mindful that readers eyes begin to glaze and minds wander off toward distant memes toward the end of a long senten. Eschew commas wherever possible. Be ever vigilant. Your quest: to insert a full stop. Better yet…
A line break!
After all, after two consecutive sentences, or one long one, the poor readers retinas trained on a diet of incessant scrolling, start to launch about apoplectically in a desperate search for the white space that signifies both a temporary respite from a sustained thought and the neural notification that some new shiny thing is on the way.
Break everything into small bite size pieces.
Achtung!
Rat a tat tat tat!!
Here come old flat-top, he come grooving slowly
He got ju-ju eyeballs, he’s one holy roller
He got hair down to his knees
Got to be a joker, he just do what he please
He wear no shoeshine, he’s got toe-jam football
He got monkey finger, he shoot Coca-Cola
He say, “I know you, you know me”
One thing I can tell you is you got to be free
Come together, right now
Over me
Even those lyrics are broken into sensible paragraphs.
Or as they also say, shoot me.
“Often they happen in the audiences head”
Yep. Spot on 10/10 comment. If I was an educator I’d probably call it an “alternative reading”.
It occurs to me when there is an advertising backfire that people don’t consider the possibility that the audience thinks differently to them.
A while back a chess author/coach called Dan Heisman coined the term “hope chess” to describe the way that most players make their moves with a plan for what they want to achieve, but without considering the potential consequences of their opponent making an even better move in response. He advocates playing “real chess” – which considers that your opponent maybe smart – instead.
Advertising gone wrong can often be considered “hope advertising”
Agree re:Hope
we often say to clients “Just because you hope it will happen doesn’t mean it will’.
Too much advertising is based on ‘hoping’ it’ll be believed, hoping the ‘holes’ in the strategy/promise won’t be recognised, hoping it will do for the brand what hard work ‘on’ the brand would better deliver.
Yes, what a band and what and album and what a cover. But I guess the Beatles never got handed a brief from a client requiring they craft creative for a specific audience type; or with the need to demonstrate the brand or product’s unique selling points; or stay true to brand identity; and I don’t suppose they were actually worried about burning through millions of dollars of a client’s money if they got it wrong; and I guess that art for art’s sake isn’t really the same as ‘art’ designed for the express purpose of selling things to people who probably don’t need them. But boy, sure would be nice if it were.