28 IF

At the Most Famous Crosswalk in the World

I was tired and jet-lagged and more than a little cranky.

But I was wide awake in London, for a while anyway, at 3:30 in the afternoon.

So, I jumped onto the Tube.

I felt silly. This was nerdy and touristy and I’m not usually into such things.

But there I was, getting out at St. John’s Wood and walking a few blocks in the light summer rain.

I thought of myself as a kid. Bulky headphones over my ears. Listening to the Beatles “Red” and “Blue” albums on vinyl on a cheap stereo. The songs were old by then, but many were new to me. They felt revelatory, a way to escape the family that never understood me and a school filled with kids I couldn’t relate to.

Radio and records were my respites from the nonstop alienation I felt as a kid. Decades later, I know I’m no longer that outcast twelve-year-old. But I still often feel that way – more often than I care to admit, especially when I don’t remind myself of how much has changed.

Or maybe I’m just stiff from fourteen hours of travel with eleven hours folded into an airplane seat that’s too small for a grown-ass adult over five feet tall.

In any event, it felt good to walk. So, I walked.

On the street, I passed an overweight, middle-aged guy. He was grumpy and clearly going along with his wife’s wishes even though he’d rather be in the pub. “This better be worth it,” he growled at her as I walked past. The angry, alienated twelve-year-old who lives in a corner of my brain recognized him as a kindred spirit, lashing out at anyone around him.

Then, suddenly, I was there. At the world’s most famous crosswalk on Abbey Road, where the Beatles crossed the street as cops stopped traffic for ten minutes for a hastily-arranged photo after they vetoed flying to Nepal to be photographed at base camp for the cover of a record once called Everest (but named for the cigarettes and not than the world’s tallest mountain peak).

I’d read that the Beatles were walking away from the studio, but I could never understand from photographs exactly where the studio was. The album-cover photo looks straight down the street and the buildings visible on Google Street View on either side of the crosswalk are obviously not the studio.

I’d visualized it a thousand times, but the reality was still overwhelming. There were well over a hundred people around me on a rainy Wednesday afternoon. They delightedly crossed back and forth, filming each other. They were from all over the world. I heard conversations in German, French, Hebrew, and Finnish. I marveled at what seemed to be apartment buildings on either side of the crosswalk and wondered what it would be like to live there, in a place that’s always teeming with tourists and music fans. And finally I realized that the actual studio is 50 yards down the street. It’s hard to see on the record cover because the trees were overgrown.

I crossed and examined the carpark, which has an unlocked gate and a sign warning tourists not to go in to take photos. Dozens of tourists ignored the sign and no one seemed to mind. I stayed behind the gate, but I did wander into the gift shop next store. Because of course there’s now a gift shop next door. But I couldn’t justify paying inflated prices for trinkets when all I needed was the memory of being there, so close to where so much music that I loved was created.

My inner twelve-year-old felt ecstatic to be in a crowd of people who understood what this music meant to him and to see all the worlds that would become visible after hearing that music.

I walked around, talked to a few people, and eventually recognized it was time to go.

I crossed back, away from the studio, like the album-cover photo. Fun fact: the record company worried it would be too confusing not to include the name of the band or the record on the cover. But the Beatles knew the photo would be enough. And they were right.

It was still raining, I was still tired, but I wasn’t grumpy anymore. I was happy just to be there – and clearly everyone else felt the same way. The magic hit me on the crosswalk just like it hit everyone else.

Before I headed back to the Tube, I spotted the overweight, middle-aged guy leaning against a short wall outside the apartment building across from the studio. He was crying. As I passed by, I heard him say “You were right. I’m so glad we came. You were right.” His wife hugged him. He looked up at me and I nodded.

For a second, he started to wipe his eyes, because we’re men and we’re raised to appear tough to strangers. But he dropped that as he watched me wiping away a tear I didn’t even realize had come. He nodded back, recognizing that we were sharing something unexpected and powerful.

No matter how old I get, I’ll always have that alienated kid with the oversized headphones deep inside of me. I wish I could have told him back then that he’d find the escape he needed and build up a sense of community. I wish I could have told myself him he wouldn’t always feel alone.

I don’t know that I’d have believed that message back then, but the adult version of me feels better just sending the message back to myself, attaching it to those songs so it can travel through time to whoever needs it, wherever and whenever they might be.

And, I thought as I looked back at the zebra crossing and the studio, maybe that’s the true power of music, much of it made just 50 yards away and more than 50 years ago.