Across Abbey Road · Scene 16 of 21 · Album 10 of 13

16 2:20–2:30 Era 10The White Album 1968

“It doesn’t matter how young or old, it doesn’t matter where or when”

The same words as before, three years on, in the last gold light of the afternoon.

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The Scene

Scene 16 · The White Album · 11 seconds · three shotsThe line comes round again, and the day has moved on to golden hour. Mike walks past a fruit barrow in a cobbled market, playing the Les Paul. Then he stands by the crossing with the sun going down behind him and sings the words straight. And he steps onto the stripes one more time in his denim shirt, until the trunk of a plane tree crosses the lens.

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The Story

This is the song’s middle verse returning, so the film returns too: the same thought as the bright street of 1965, said more quietly. He is in his own clothes now, a denim shirt over a black T-shirt. In this scene, for the first time, his singing is matched to the real vocal on the record.

Shot by Shot

  1. 1 · The barrow in the market place · 2:20–2:23He walks past a costermonger’s barrow piled with fruit, playing as he goes.
  2. 2 · He sings at golden hour · 2:23–2:27Close, the low sun in his hair, eyes lowered, singing “it doesn’t matter how young or old”.
  3. 3 · The crossing at golden hour · 2:27–2:30Out on the stripes with the sun setting through the trees, until a tree trunk fills the frame.

What to Look For

You can’t miss itThe barrow in the market place. If you are humming a White Album song about a man with a barrow, that is the one.

Look closerHis mouth on the words. From here to the end of the film the close-ups sing the actual recording. And the tree that wipes the scene away is about to turn into something else entirely.

All 21 scenes