SMASH HITS MAGAZINE

July 3, 1987

“Our Strange Days on Abbey Road”

A "Smash Hits" Exclusive Interview with Paul McCartney

Regarding the "Abbey Road" Cover Shoot in 1969

Excerpt from Page 12:

"... so we're all outside and we’re ready to shoot the cover photo, but then we

notice that Ringo's missing. Which is annoying, because we've no idea where he's run off

to, what he’s doing, and we really just wanted to get the picture over with and get back

inside.

“At that point, this tall, skinny bloke in a long coat with hair sticking up every

which way, he walks up to us, all sympathetic about Ringo being late and all. He smiles,

shoves his hands in his pockets, leans forward and says, “’I'll tell ya what. Why don't I

step in for him? We can do a little rehearsal, as it were. What d'ya say?’

“Well, George and I are fine with it, but John balked a bit. Started asking

questions like, ‘Where'd you come from?’ and ‘What do you want?’ That kind of thing.

Well, this tall bloke’s pretty smart, as it turns out. They go back and forth a bit, and he

starts firing intelligent questions right back at John. After a minute, I could see that the

two of them were starting to get along. Meeting of the minds, as it were. Meanwhile,

George and I are just standing there, waiting, and those two are talking on and on about

this and that and whatnot. Finally, I go, 'Oh, for fu-- For God's sake, let's just do this, eh?'

And so we walk. Go across the road. Iain [McMillan] takes a snap to make sure the

camera's working fine and everything looks good. No big deal, right?

"Well, just as we get to the other side of the street, here comes Ringo running up,

all out of breath, eyes bugging out of his head. He points at the guy in the brown coat

and starts talking--well, shouting, really--about how this man locked him in a police box.

But I can tell that John's already taken a shine to the guy and doesn't want there to be any

trouble, so John turns around and asks Ringo, ‘So if you were in a police box, why didn't

you phone for help?’

“Then Ringo sputtered something about it not being a police box. John gives him

a strange look, as we all did, I’m sure.

“’You just said it was a police box,’” John pointed out. “’If it wasn't a police box,

then where were you?’

“Ringo kind of glared at him and muttered something about it being bigger on the

inside. Or some such nonsense. I don't know. And it’s only then that we look around

and notice that this guy has disappeared. Ringo hurries us around the corner where he

said the police box was, only it’s gone now, too. So the box is gone, the guy is gone… it

made for an odd day, I’ll tell you.

“But you have to remember, it was the Sixties..."